At RCWMS, we love providing time and space for women to be creative together. One of the ways we’ve done this is by sponsoring weeklong writing retreats at Pelican House at Trinity Center, Emerald Isle, NC. For over a decade, women have been nourished by quiet days of writing and evenings of community sharing. While we are always happy welcoming new writers, some participants return year after year.
We also love new projects that are inspired and cross-fertilized by our time together. An example of this is the recently completed quilt that Marcia Rego got the idea to create after several visits to Pelican House. A woman of many talents, Marcia is originally from Brazil, has a PhD in anthropology, and teaches in the Thompson writing program at Duke. In her spare time, Marcia creates beautiful and meaningful quilts. This is what she wrote about the project before heading to the beach again at the beginning of May:
“I’ve been to the Pelican House retreat four times (and going to my fifth one), and every time I go, I bring a quilt project to work on in the evenings, during “share” time. Last time I was there, it occurred to me that it might be a cool idea to gather pieces of clothing from all the women writers who go to the retreat. I got lots of fabric in the mail, from people I haven’t even met – so that was really cool. It took me a while to get started because I had a busy semester, but I had fun trying to figure out what to do with such different (and often clashing) colors and patterns.”
Well, she certainly figured it out! Despite the wide range of fabrics provided by previous Pelican House writers, Marcia was able to piece them together into a beautiful design. You can observe her process in a delightful time-lapse video that Marcia’s husband, Hermes, created. And consider joining us on a future week of quiet and writing at the beach. You never know what might come of it!
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