After long weeks in the city, a week in the country was just what I needed. We got to Narrowsburg just ahead of the snow and, after loading the Jeep with provisions from Peck’s, hunkered down for our mid-winter break. The anxiety of world affairs melted to tolerability, as if a hundred miles was all the distance we needed to feel safe again. Here, in the bosom of friends and family, is where I feel most at ease.

A string of unstructured days, spent in simple pursuits like reading and watching snow fall was punctuated, on the last day, by an inspiring communal gathering. Barbara Braathen’s River Gallery in Narrowsburg was host to a kind of salon last Sunday, where area artists showed examples of their work and talked about the creative process with their peers.

This was the second in what one hopes will be a continuing series of workshops. Creative spirit filled the spacious gallery as musicians, writers and visual artists sat in a circle and plumbed the mystery of creativity together. Some brought work to share; others came to share fraternity. Margo Spoerri, the local artist who seems to know everyone by name and medium of choice, introduced people as the evening progressed. 

Early on, some local painters showed recent and older work and talked about everything from Jungian psychoanalysis (“It cured me!”) to the technique of printing from collage. A short but heated discussion ensued about creativity and madness. (The consensus was that the two are not inextricably linked.)

Youth was well represented by a 13 year-old musician who played two of his own compositions on acoustic guitar. They were startlingly clear and subtle renditions in a classical style. 

I brought up the dilemma of raising a highly creative child who doesn’t always hew to the proscribed educational path, as I try to balance my impulse to nurture creativity with my duty as a parent. The strong message from this group was that it is my responsibility to the world to nurture the creative spirit. The young musician’s mother offered the information that her son, who has been composing and playing various forms of music since he was four years old, recently got a “D” in music.

Margo invited the long-haired man sitting next to me to show his woven art. The first piece was woven in stripes of blue and purple wool. It drew appreciative sighs from the audience of fellow artists. The second piece was woven in sections of black and white and red so that there were solid bands of color followed by interwoven sections of black and white, white and red, red and black. The perfection of its geometry appeared organic and led the eye and mind in a kind of dance of pleasure. Fortunate enough to be near, I reached down to touch the piece. Its yin/yang of soft roughness was a double pleasure.

As snow began to sweep across Main Street again, I excused myself mid-evening. I still had 100 miles to go before sleep, and a precious cargo of family to carry back to the city.

Walking back through the river flats from town, I thought how lucky I am to have found this place that satisfies so many of my deepest desires. A comfortable home on the river, with its endlessly changing face; friends with deep hearts and fertile minds; and a community of fellow artists who seek each others’ company. All of us have found a home in the river valley on our voyage through the creative process.