While it remains our desire to gather in community and create art this summer, we have come to the decision that the way we practice this will need to be different in light of Covid-19.
Please consider this: Our classes are based on small groups of people coming together and working in close proximity. We work with our hands, we pass things around so everyone can see them, we use common tools, materials, and work spaces. We attend matins and vespers side by side in basically a big living room. We eat together in a common dining room. We even share bathrooms. Community is at the heart of the Grunewald Guild’s summer program. That’s the way we like it and that’s the way we want it to be again someday.
For some, this news will make sense; for others, it will be difficult to receive, and we understand that. We’ve been grieving, too. It’s not the summer we planned for. What we’ve come to realize, though, is just as our campus has been a spacious and healing host, we now bear the responsibility to honor another kind of sacred space, one that comes in the form of safe, physical distancing.
How are we going to be about this mission of art, faith and community if we’re not together at the Guild? Here comes the incredible news: Many of your favorite faculty (and perhaps some soon-to-be favorites!) have been about the thoughtful, creative work of adapting their classes to online offerings. Take a look at what you can experience from home this summer.
What will we still be able to experience together?
- Sunday Evening Welcome Gathering
- Matins and an Artist Talk, Monday through Friday
- Classes that inspire our creativity
- Holy Happy Hour talks
- A Thursday Evening 40th Birthday Party for the Guild
- A Saturday Sending Celebration
- Plus, some new things: Daily e-devotions, a private Facebook group for each week’s community where art can be shared and you can interact with students in other classes
Meanwhile, there are four of us currently living on campus, preparing and soon executing this new online summer program. We are also working in the garden, cleaning the two lots purchased last fall, designing new trails down to the river, clearing the deadwood from the seven acres on the west side of River Road, and soon working on our new River Cabin. (If you haven’t received that incredible news yet, please watch this.) We are definitely about the work of preparing the campus for your return!
If you have questions about this summer’s online programming, how your summer deposit may be used toward that programming, how you might actually come to be on a private retreat at the Guild this summer, please visit the links below or contact the office at [email protected]
We do hope to see you online! We’re giving it all we’ve got to live our mission safely and courageously, to be true to who we are and to usher the Guild into the next 40 years!
Learn more about the Online Summer Program.
Learn more about staying on campus for a Private Retreat with Physical Distancing.
