Wild Pages with Sue Schlabach
DATES: September 13-16, 2026
FEE: $1,300
SIGNUP DEADLINE: July 13
The signup deadline is to ensure the retreat moves forward. Also, if you're in need of financial assistance, please contact us.
Wild Pages is a four-day immersive art retreat where painting, memory, and handmade books come together. Through layered work in watercolor, gouache, ink, and simple printmaking, you’ll create a series of expressive pages inspired by place, home, and your own visual storytelling.
Guided prompts, demonstrations, and open studio time help you build depth and rhythm in your work before you bind your painted pages into a one-of-a-kind book with handmade flax covers. Come gather images, experiment boldly, and leave with a finished Wild Pages book that holds your marks, your stories, and your sense of place.
Wild Pages Retreat Schedule
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9:30 am | Light in-studio breakfast
10:00 am | Morning art session (3 hrs)
Your Wild Pages are inside you, around you, and are ready to be brought to life. Sue introduces her methods of making art in this format, shares examples of various papers you can use, and shows her own handmade books.
Sue shares her own Wild Pages process, describing techniques and materials she uses, and how she approaches her art making and book-making. She familiarizes you with many paints, tools and methods you can use in your Wild Pages. Sue also shows the book binding you will learn and talks about the various parts of your book (handmade flax covers will be provided to each student in which to bind their final Wild Pages).
She guides you to start an idea cloud of things you’d like to include in your Wild Pages.
Sue provides several prompts and art demonstrations to get you started on your first paintings.
– Break for lunch –
2:00 pm | Afternoon art session (2 hrs)
Sue demonstrates several painting approaches with watercolor, gouache, and other media, and shows how to begin page backgrounds that you will layer over in coming days.
4:00-7:00 pm | Free time and dinner on your own
– studio time is available throughout free time and in the evening –
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8:30 am | Early studio access
9:30 am | Light in-studio breakfast
10:00 am | Morning art session (3 hrs)
Sue leads you in prompts to awaken memory and ideas for visual storytelling. You’ll refer to your idea cloud and keep adding to it daily.
She leads you to think about the concept of home—whether your childhood home or the one of your adult making. You will think of symbols, vistas, furnishings, patterns that kindle memories, or current visual aspects of home. She shows a variety of ink methods for adding maps, sketches or words onto overlays, or right on the Wild Pages you make.
– Break for lunch –
2:00 pm | Afternoon art session (2 hrs)
Sue demonstrates several printmaking techniques and ways to use prints in your Wild Pages book.
An art prompt engages you in your surroundings and invites you to be present as you make art about this moment and what you are observing and feeling.
4:00-7:00 pm | Free time and dinner on your own
– Studio time is available throughout free time and in the evening –
-
8:30 am | Early studio access
9:30 am | Light in-studio breakfast
10:00 am | Morning art session (3 hrs)
Now you’ll take your paintings from day 1 and 2 to the next level. Adding more color, pops of white, words, or overlay designs. You’ll have fresh prompts to start another group of Wild Pages paintings.
– Break for lunch –
2:00 pm | Afternoon art session (2 hrs)
Intro to the binding method. Sorting your painted pages and thinking about how you will organize your book. What is missing that you still want to paint? How many blank signatures will you want to add before you bind your book?
4:00-6:00 pm | Free time
6:00 pm | Celebratory farewell on-site dinner
– post-dinner studio time is available –
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9:30 am | Light in-studio breakfast
10:00 am | Morning art session (3 hrs)
Today, you’ll finish painting or drawing and prepare the order of your signatures for binding. There will be new page prompts to pull together themes in your book.
– break for lunch –
2:00 pm | Afternoon art session (2 hrs)
You’ll add any blank signatures and overlay pages or envelopes.
Sue shows how to start your coptic stitch binding from cover through each signature to the last cover.
You thread needle and start putting it all together!
Bind your pages and prepare to show your work to each other.
5:00 pm | Mini exhibition and aperitivo
6:00 pm | Optional dinner out at local restaurant*
*Not included in retreat fee. Date of dinner out also subject to restaurant availability.
About Sue Schlabach
Sue is a Vermont-based plein air painter, photographer, and fiber artist living and working in the tiny village of East Barnard. Her studio—housed in the former taproom of an 1830s brick home—informs her connection to place and history.
Inspired by the landscape just beyond her front door, her work explores shifting light, expansive skies, and the rhythms of the natural world, with birds frequently appearing as quiet markers of movement and season. She begins many paintings outdoors and completes them in the studio, working quickly with wide, flat brushes to capture atmosphere and energy.
Her work has taken her to Europe, India, Mexico, and across the U.S.—experiences that subtly appear in her approaches to color, pattern, and perspective.
A lifelong artist who enjoys artful collaboration, Sue has spent recent years growing her creative business—making art, teaching, designing, and building community. With more than 25 years of experience as a designer, art director, and creative director in art publishing, she brings both technical depth and warmth to her teaching. Her current practice includes plant-to-linen flax work and fiber exploration. She leads workshops in acrylic and watercolor painting, sketchbooking, flax sculpting, and visible mending.
Last summer Sue photographed a day in the life at The Smiley Manse for a feature article in Where Women Create magazine that was published in December, 2025.
“From the moment I arrived, the Smiley’s welcoming atmosphere made me totally at ease. Seeing the unique struggles and triumphs of each artist, regardless of their level, inspired me to embrace my own creative journey.”
— Bhagyashree
2025 Smiley retreat participant
Where You’ll Be Creating
Springfield, Vermont
The Smiley Manse Barn
Nestled up behind the main property is the barn. This turn of the last century post-and-beam construction with a slate roof that rises to a massive walled cupola, the barn is noted as one of the finest carriage barns in the region. Learn more about the history of The Smiley here.
Inside, you’ll find large flat work tables, each a place to explore and express your individual creativity, yet the atmosphere encourages connection and dialogue. Whether it’s the sound of a paintbrush sweeping across the page or folks discussing technique over coffee, the barn serves as a meeting ground for artists of all levels to create and build lasting relationships, exchange ideas, and learn from one another.
We strive to create a space where the act of making art is as much about building community as it is about self-expression.
Join us for a chance to unwind and create in an idyllic setting.
Your Retreat Includes:
Custom designed art curriculum by Sue
4 days of creative instruction
Extra studio access before/after each full day
Meals: 4 breakfasts, 4 lunches, 1 dinner
Tea, coffee, and snacks always available in the barn
Usage of our art supply stash during the retreat
Private FB group before/after the retreat
What’s Not Included:
Accommodations – there are several great options nearby!
Transportation to/from The Smiley
1 dinner out at a local restaurant