What Belongs on a Wild Page?
Hello, friends! Today we have a personal invitation from Smiley retreat leader Sue Schlabach to join her this September 13-16 for a 4-day immersive art retreat: Wild Pages. From Sue:
I’ve been making something new, and I’m happily steeped in the process.
It’s an art retreat I call Wild Pages—a four-day invitation to loosen up, look closer, and make something honest. Creating it has sent me deep into my own past while also asking me to pay closer attention to what’s right in front of me now: the light through the kitchen window, old family stories, scraps of memory, the shape of a certain road home.
It has me thinking about the future, too.
The art I’m making for Wild Pages lives in all of these places at once—memory, observation, imagination, and possibility. It feels exciting, a little scary, and exactly like the kind of work I want to be doing. I can’t wait to share this deconstructed sketchbook process with you this September at the Smiley Manse in Springfield, Vermont. For four days you’ll sketch, paint, muse and write, and on the final day you’ll bind your pages into a one-of-a-kind handmade book.
What belongs on a Wild Page?
Strokes of color.
Words of hope or intention.
Maps of special rooms or beloved places.
Layered stories you want someone special to know.
Experiments in new techniques.
Interactive pages with overlays and hidden surprises.
Observations of this exact moment.
Personal history.
Patterns and marks.
Lines and shapes.
And something else—something only you can reveal…
the wildness you carry within you.
Okay, yes—that’s a lot to expect from four days of art-making.
But my word of intention for 2026 is bold.
We are living through an extraordinarily difficult chapter, and making art is helping me process, respond, and stay rooted. It is part of my personal resilience. Getting wild on the page feels like a powerful place to set hope, joy, intention, and action in motion.
This retreat is not about perfection.
It’s about attention.
It’s about permission.
It’s about making space for what matters to you.
I hope you’ll join me in Springfield. It’s a beautiful, soul-nourishing place, and I would love to make art there with you.
WILD PAGES | September 13-16
We have so much gratitude for Sue and her willingness to share such a thoughtful and meaningful process with all of us. We absolutely cannot wait for this unique retreat. Thank you, Sue!