I’ve just returned from the Asylum Arts’ Bay Area Jewish Artist Retreat. The mission of Brooklyn-based Asylum Arts is to support “contemporary Jewish culture on an international scale, bringing greater exposure to artists and cultural initiatives and providing opportunities for new projects and collaborations.”
I was delighted to decamp to the Mill Valley woods for a long weekend. As part of the retreat, I co-led a “sense of place” walk just upslope from one of only two streams in the Bay Area identified as essential to the recovery of coho salmon in California.
The time outdoors was a treat, but the most vital and exciting part of the retreat was the assembled cohort, 27 other artists – poets, filmmakers, playwrights, social practice peeps, musicians, choreographers, visual artists, and more – that I got to know over the course of four intense days. Surely, we only scratched the surface, but it often felt intimate; I cried (more than once). On the retreat’s last night, dirty blonde wig donned, I shook my ass on the dance floor. Throwing my head side to side while singing along with Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own,” I realized I was partying with people I trust and respect – people who were total strangers just days before.
I’m incredibly impressed with the vision and execution of the Asylum team. I went in with an open mind, but quite skeptical; now I feel only gratitude. What a remarkable and remarkably unexpected experience. I need time to process it, but I look forward to seeing what exciting collaborations and conversations come out of what we started under the redwoods.