Writing the Language of Color in the Home of Sam Francis

Thank you for your interest in this event. We are currently at capacity. Please email [email protected] if you would like to be added to the waitlist.

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Former Mesa Refuge Executive Director and teacher Susan Page Tillett and author Elizabeth Fishel will lead this half-day workshop for writers of all experience levels, at the Mesa Refuge, which was originally the home of well-known California Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis.  Sam’s strong palette of primary colors and his wife Margaret’s design of the gardens will provide opportunities for exploration and inspiration.

The symbolism of color and a sense of place will be our twin themes, introduced through a series of writing prompts, shared in small groups and mined for our best phrases, yielding  short, dazzling pieces of prose by the end of the session.

Susan and Elizabeth have co-taught popular writing workshops at the Mesa Refuge, Ghost Ranch and online at the 92nd Street Y in New York for the past 10 years.  This will be their first in-person workshop since 2020.

Cost: $25, some scholarships available (email [email protected]). Thanks to the generous support of the Sam Francis Foundation, we are able to offer this workshop at a reduced fee.

Since retiring as Executive Director of the Mesa Refuge, Susan Page Tillett has focused her energies on teaching workshops on creative writing, art history and the language of color. Susan has decades of museum experience at the National Portrait Gallery, the Corcoran Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others, specializing in American art. She is the author of The Ragdale House Speaks and What’s To Wear, Beatrice Bird? She has her B.A. from Hamilton College in American Literature and her M.A. in American Studies from George Washington University.

Elizabeth Fishel is a widely published journalist and author of five nonfiction books including Sisters; Reunion; and Getting To 30: A Parent’s Guide to the 20-Something Years (coauthored with Jeffrey Arnett), as well as a contributor to publications including Vogue, Oprah’s O, Ms., New York and The Writer. She has taught writing at the University of California/ Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and in their Extension program.

Building on Sam Francis’s creative legacy, the Sam Francis Foundation is dedicated to the transformative power of art as a force for change. Their mission is to further a greater understanding of Sam Francis’s art and ideas through a broad array of programs and activities designed to educate, inform, and catalyze new thinking about the importance of creativity in society.