What’s the recipe for inspiring a creative life?
Guatemala: A Land of Inspiration!
Natural dyes. Horse-drawn carriages. Organic coffee. Smooth jade. Women’s cooperatives. Backstrap weavings. Colorful textiles. Local wine and cheese.
Without a moment’s hesitation, we say that Guatemala is a natural, cultural and artistic wonderland. And we love to explore it.
We’ve created a journey that takes a meandering tour through Colonial Antigua, rural Guatemala and Mayan culture. There are many special moments and cultural riches in store, but here are a few of our favorite highlights, guaranteed to engage your senses:
The Ultimate Girls’ Getaways & Mother-Daughter Trips (And How You Can Take One, Free!)
You know the typical annual vacation, where you’re herding the kids, or compromising with your husband, or planning a so-called balanced itinerary that touches on everyone’s interests but doesn’t dig into any?
Yeah, let’s skip that this year.
A growing trend in the travel industry, girls’ getaways – and their brainchild, mother-daughter getaways – invite women to relax, rejuvenate and revitalize with their besties. Add in serious bonding over themed travel – spa getaways, culinary extravaganzas, and yoga retreats, for example – and you have a real recipe for a vacation that you’ll love, no compromise required.
After interviewing Catherine Cross Tsintzos, it is difficult to not be blown away by the many facets that her lifetime of art and exploration has resulted in. From crayons to collage, fine art to fine craft, farming indigo to making it into dye; no one can put this woman in a box!
Her passion shines through in all that she does, and we are looking forward to hosting her in Cuba for our upcoming travel journaling workshop. With many ways to experience this fascinating city on the verge of historical change, Catherine will be guiding you through a series of techniques to capture the essence of Cuba and it’s people in a unique format…the travel journal. What can you create when you allow art into your life? Just ask Catherine…
Talk to me about your evolution as an artist… How did it begin, how was it nurtured, and how has your art changed over the years?
Creativity and has always been in my makeup. I was allowed to be myself and had many opportunities to become confident with my art and self expression growing up. A family who supported the arts made it easy for me to transition into keeping art in my life as an adult. Mother always nurtured the art as I was growing up by providing plenty of Crayolas, paints, coloring books, blank paper and art lessons. As a child, I spent time with my grandmother who would hand color tint black and white photographs with oil paints and created exotic and fun decorations during holidays. She was a wonderful storyteller. I was given freedom as a teenager to paint murals on the walls of my bedroom and large chip boards for painting on in our basement.
I recognized in my late 20’s that keeping art in my life was critical to my well being and shared with my family that my life from that day forward would never involve work that was not connected to art and creativity. During my thirties and forties, I created much more art to sale and exhibit. When I reached 50, educating others to keep the arts alive seemed to shift as a big focus and selling my art became less important. With a supportive family, strong faith and wonderful friends, my life has been an arts mission.
With just a few weeks of summer left here in the Northeast, the summer heat may still have you craving cool, icy refreshment.
And while we can’t bring back the summer, we can sure celebrate to keep the memories alive. That’s right, it’s time to go international – with some of the world’s best warm-weather drinks (both non-alcoholic and with a bit of a twist!).
Here at Arts & Cultural Travel, we’re happy to take to our kitchens to whip up some of our remembered favorites from far-flung destinations. We’re happy to take one for the team, sampling, sipping (and sometimes chugging) our way to celebrate the end-of-summer.
And to make it simple, we’ve chosen beverages with easy-to-find ingredients. So stay cool and savor those memories!
Let’s start with non-alcoholic:
Just looking at photos of Elizabeth St. Hilaire, it’s hard to not be inspired by her. With her vibrant hair, bohemian chic clothing, and high cheekbones she looks like the muse we all wish had been our eccentric high school art teacher. Dig a bit more into photos of her multi-media collages, her “Paper Paintings” and you fall deeper in love with her. Her work contains multitudes of levels, both literally and figuratively, of story, sensory experience, and emotion.
We consider ourselves extremely lucky to be offering an exclusive chance to spend eight long art-filled days with her on the private island South Water Caye in Belize. With the glimmering turquoise Caribbean ocean, white sand beaches, vibrant fish and birds in every color of the rainbow… We think she’ll blend right in! Take some time to delve a little deeper into the artistic inspiration of this amazing woman and artist.
Tell us a bit about your process and what environment you like to work in. Do you thrive in chaos or order?
I create art in all kinds of different environments. I have a wonderful studio space near my home in Longwood, FL that I can get to by driving less than five minutes, or even on foot. It’s in a retail space, which makes it nice for visitors to stop by and for walk-in traffic. I enjoy having people visit my studio. In that space I try to keep things orderly and clean, however when I am in the midst of a big project, things can get messy and out of hand. typically I do not clean up until I am finished with what I am working on, between projects. When I am in the throws of creativity, I don’t worry about cleaning up.
I also work in small spaces, such as airline seats (on my seat-back tray table) hotel room desks, and sometimes in public spaces like cafes or Starbucks. Since I travel a lot to teach, I have to always be working on something portable and small that I can take with me. I save the big stuff for the studio.
Do you use a sketchbook or a journal?
Lately I have been experimenting with watercolors. I bought a Sakura Koi field watercolor box and a small pad of watercolor paper, some micron pens, a pencil and found an old kneaded rubber eraser from college (really old). I love the immediacy of this medium, I am able to do small watercolor sketches and studies rather quickly. I’ve been sending these sketches as postcards to loved ones when I travel.
I also do have a journal. When I am home, I love to attend a journalling class at my local Craft Shack. Believe it or not, I do enjoy being a student and not always the teacher.
Artist… Author… Coach… Muse… Teacher… Explorer…. Meet Brecia Kralovic-Logan, part of our community of artists.
At Arts and Cultural Travel we seek out the most innovative and passionate leaders in the art world to lead our retreats. We fell in love not only with Brecia’s breathtaking and intricate art, but also with her ideals and dedication to sharing her craft with others. Her multi-sensory art begs for discovery across the elements and the senses. It seems fitting that her upcoming Guatemala retreat is named “Creative Spirit Journey.”
We were lucky enough to get Brecia to answer some questions for us about our favorite things… Art, culture, and travel! Enjoy and be inspired…
You’ve seen the classic imagery: devil on one shoulder, angel on the other. The angel is dressed in white, wrapped in a glowing halo of tranquility; the devil is red, sometimes angry and always talkative, encouraging the listener to do bad, bad things.
In the arts world, we call the angel a muse. And oh, how we love the idea of a muse. But the devil? He doesn’t get much play in creative circles, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. The devil is creative block – an artistic deadlock that drags us down, robs us of our creativity, and then makes us think we don’t care. That devil dude is dangerous, and he plagues all artists at one time or another.
There are lots of ways to knock the anti-creativity devil off your shoulder, but one of our favorites is good, old-fashioned artistic inspiration. The following five films are striking, visual journeys – and they’re all about art, about creation, about the things we love. And they’ll invite your muse back, guaranteed.
There are lots of ways to knock the anti-creativity devil off your shoulder, but one of our favorites is good, old-fashioned artistic inspiration. The following five films are striking, visual journeys – and they’re all about art, about creation, about the things we love. And they’ll invite your muse back, guaranteed.
If your yoga practice has been feeling a little flat lately – a repetitive following of the motions – you could probably do with a bit of inspiration. And we’re not talking the kind of inspiration that involves new yoga gear or a different instructor; we’re talking inspiration that bubbles up from within, fueling your inner harmony and reinvigorating your yoga practice.
The following movies are five of our favorites, taking you on a journey full of laughter, self-exploration, spiritual awakening, and even recognition of the skepticism in all of us. See your practice – and yourself – from a different perspective, and come out feeling thoroughly enthused and ready to take your yoga to new heights.
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