This week was a breath of fresh air! The 14 Principia Upper School students and two supervisors arrived at the Teton Science School on the 25th of January. I woke up at 6:00am most mornings and enjoyed the solitary blue light that comes before dawn. I like to sit in the dining lodge before the students arrive for breakfast and watch the sun come up to light the mountains.

Next, Margaret Holt (the art instructor) and I (the writing instructor) would hold a two-hour nature journaling workshop. We helped the students with their drawing and creative writing skills. The students spent every afternoon out in the field with Robin and Elise, the TSS ski instructors, where they learned about local species and habitats. Evening programs included snow science, a talk about the lives of Mardy and Olaus Murie - a famous naturalist couple, and a folk guitar concert by Beth McIntosh. The students learned to work together as a group, to be more observant of their surroundings, and to be confident in their work. For some of them, drawing and writing in a nature journal was a new thing. For some, it was the physical activity of snowshoeing and crosscountry skiing that was new. Every student learned something outside his or her comfort zone.

The other delightful thing about this group is that the seniors that came on this trip are the same kids for whom I wrote A Walk in the Rainforest in 1992. Only now they’re a lot taller. And some of them are becoming writers and artists themselves.

Check out the Principia Upper School Teton Trip website!

This page is from my senior year in high school. I got to go on thePrincipia Upper School Teton Trip for the second time. It was a week out of school at the end of January to spend at the Teton Science School on the edge of the Grand Teton National Park. We stayed in cabins, far out of town in a vast white wildness. We spent the mornings studying creative writing and drawing. Afternoons found us out in the field. We cross-country skied and snowshoed for 3-4 hours every day, studying the mountain habitats. This trip was about making connections between art, science, and writing. It was also about seeing oneself as something more than a high school student with a certain amount of friends, a certain GPA, a certain sports ability…

It’s about taking responsibility for your own creativity and your own education.

Media:
Writing with watercolors and black ink pen.

Principia Upper School Teton Trip 1994
colored pencil/black ink pen writing

I was looking through some old journals and found some examples of my early work. (I wish I had a blog this cool in the early 90’s…) During my senior year in high school, I was accepted to go on a weeklong art/nature retreat at the Teton Science School in Jackson Hole, WY. Before this trip, I generally thought of sketchbooks and diaries as separate things. Not anymore.

Colored pencil with writing.