Thoughts From Our First Pilgrim Firs Symposium
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- Created: Monday, 18 September 2017 19:12
This year marked the 30th Anniversary of our Washington symposium, our first at the Pilgrim Firs venue and a hallmark event for everyone participating. We had nearly 100 carvers here throughout the week communing and learning and inspiring each other. I asked for everyone to write down their experiences, impressions, and thoughts on the symposium, then spliced them together (Ending each person’s thought with a bullet point) for this expression of our shared community experience. Thank you, contributors: Bill Weissinger, Carole Duree, Vic Picou, Cyra Jane, Deborah Wilson, Julianne Kohn, Barbara Davidson, Kirk McLean, Ed Salerno, Maya Kilmer, Tamara Buchanan, Leon White, Michael Timmons, Beth Krehbiel, Daniel Colvin, Sandra Stowell, Cherie Perry and Grant Bowman.
-Cyra Jane, symposium director.
Thirty years ago a handful of stone sculptors from Washington State and British Columbia gathered for the first NWSSA symposium on a llama ranch in Pateros, WA. They carved, they moved boulders, they (you!) climbed a mountain at midnight for the Harmonic Convergence, and they, you, began a tradition that has enlivened a community that is today thriving. That first gathering was such a good idea, that you kept gathering, and the symposium quickly moved to and became known as Camp Brotherhood, officially as the International Stone Sculptors Symposium. Carvers came, and carvers kept returning year after year to this event and while I wasn’t around then (like many in the current work study generation, I was just starting my first rock collections and messing around in my grandfather’s shop during those early years,) from what I understand it’s because that, when all together, you, we, create a creatively stimulating and high-pitched energy through some awesome synergistic alchemy. Or because rocks are cool, or something like that. 
James Horan, flying over from Ireland, is another guest artist for 2017. This will be his first time with this group and in the Pacific Northwest. (If you google “James Horan Sculpture” you can find his website to check out his work.) James’ work is primarily figurative in marble, and his unique style and sense of humor is immediately recognizable. Go look at his “
