Fall Sound Garden Workshops

Free Community Art + Nature Workshops at Caponi
September 7 & 8, 2024

Saturday, September 7

Poetry and Creative Writing in Nature Workshop | 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Free | Ages 12 & Up. All experience levels welcome!

The week before the Fall Sound Garden event, on Saturday Sept 7, acclaimed poets and Teaching Artists Chavonn Shen, Teresa Ortiz, and Louise Waakaa’igan will lead a site-specific writing workshop onsite at Caponi Art Park, including a guided nature walk and creative time to write in nature. Poems and Written pieces created in the workshop will then be installed as part of the Fall Sound Garden event the following week, on Saturday Sept 14.

Please plan to bring sturdy walking / hiking shoes, your favorite writing utensils, (pen or pencil and paper, phone, etc), a water bottle, and snack. Workshop is Rain or Shine. In case of rain, please bring an umbrella and appropriate clothes and footwear.

Music & Sound in Nature Workshop w/ Composer JG Everest | 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Co-led by Free Range Orchestra Members Carlene “Ms GuGu” Williams and Matty Harris
Free | Open to Ages 8 and up. Kids under 14 should be accompanied by an adult.

Sunday, September 8

Natural Sculptures w/ Sculptor Jim Proctor | 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Free | Appropriate for All Ages. Youth ages 12 and under should be accompanied by an adult.

Join us for an outdoor, site-specific SCULPTURE WORKSHOP with sculptor Jim Proctor onsite at Caponi Art Park! The workshop includes a guided nature walk and natural sculpture creation in the park, using natural materials such as pinecones, needles, leaves, flowers, acorns and much more. Art Supplies provided.

FALL SOUND GARDEN at Caponi Art Park
September 14 & 15, 2024
12:00 – 4:00 p.m.

This immersive, multidisciplinary arts-in-nature experience is a celebration of community. Creating art together highlights our shared experiences and deepens our connections with one another and the natural world.

The Sound Garden event will feature a multi-channel sound installation of 70 speakers, each playing a different part of the whole piece of music, spread out over 3 acres of the park’s wooded paths and open clearings. In addition, there will be live roving musicians, dancers, and spoken word artists, and displays of photography, sculpture, and visual art.

The Fall Sound Garden: When the Natural World Plays Its Own Concert
Interview with composer & director JG Everest

Fall is quickly approaching at Caponi Art Park and we’re thrilled to host composer and director JG Everest’s Fall Sound Garden. The Fall Sound Garden is a temporary installation at Caponi Art Park that builds on the existing natural soundscape throughout the park and immerses its audience using carefully designed music, dance, poetry, and visual art. This unique experience is unlike anything you might find at an art museum, sculpture garden or concert hall. JG Everest tells Caponi Art Park that the Sound Garden is “an interesting intersection of the latest technology, nature, and recognizing how therapeutic it is to listen and feel how the natural world plays its own concert.”

At the Sound Garden, visitors will have the opportunity to walk through the installation while engaging their senses in unique ways prompted by music, poetry, performance, and sculpture art. Visitors will be encouraged to separate from pre-existing groups and take an opportunity to experience the sound garden, not alone, but in solitude alongside many others. “Individuals have moments of discovery,” Everest says. “It’s exciting to be in a space filled with different people from different backgrounds and ages having discovery moments of their own, having that energy of curiosity, discovery, wonderment and magic.”

JG Everest got his start working with music as a young child, finding inspiration in thunderstorms that he would reinterpret on his parents’ upright piano, before taking any formal lessons. Now, working at a unique intersection of art and nature, he tells Caponi Art Park that it’s exciting “experiencing and making art while seeing all the ways we interact with it and it interacts with us.” Additionally, finding spaces to create art in nature is never an easy feat, but Everest says that he is grateful for Caponi Art Park “being all about nature and connecting, but also supporting artists. For some audience members, there can be some apprehension and doubt, especially if an artist is doing something no one has ever heard of. Caponi Art Park has the capacity to work closely with me and the other artists to support our visions.”

We are thrilled to host JG Everest’s Fall Sound Garden at the park September 14th-15th, with free outdoor community Art + Nature workshops on the 7th and 8th. Everest says the artist-led workshops are an opportunity for “Everyone to nurture their inner artist and get in touch with their creative selves.” He explains that in the same way we take gifts from nature through the Sound Garden, creating art in and for the space allows us to give back to it.

Sign up for a free workshop and give yourself the opportunity to write something new, work with your hands or create music in nature. The workshops are open to all and free with registration in advance. We look forward to ushering in autumn and reconnecting with nature this September and we hope you will join us for this can’t-miss art experience.

This Activity is Made Possible By:

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.