What do art journaling and golf have in common? Not much really. But both are stress relievers and I had the pleasure of indulging in both over the past few weeks.

Sedona Arts Center held a three-day workshop in art journaling recently. Seventeen art journalers from across the country descended upon Sedona to escape their everyday lives and make art. Not a single person in the room was a full-time artist and many had adopted art journaling as a practice during the pandemic as a stress reliever. Almost everyone came to art journaling through a company called “Let’s Make Art” an organization that provides subscription boxes, learning videos and products for watercolor, art journaling, hand lettering and more. I found out about them through a Facebook ad when I was still in Maine. I became a subscriber and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the videos and conquering each monthly box as I explored my “inner artist.”

When I took this job and we moved to Sedona, arranging workshops and hiring artists to run them became part of my job. I wanted to add more workshops that would appeal to the average person and provide an entry in to the world of visual art making and more. It occurred to me that the artist featured in the art journaling videos might be a great fit for our Center. So I contacted her and she was thrilled to be asked.

This three-day workshop attracted the largest number of participants of any since COVID – and, as I said before, many of them were familiar with the instructor – Jesse Petersen – because of Let’s Make Art. The class had an instant camaraderie because of that familiarity and spent much time outside of the class dining together, hiking and enjoying Sedona. Comments ranged from “amazing,” “once in a lifetime memory,” and “fun and healing.” For me, it was a rare and wonderful opportunity to experience one of our workshops first hand. It was also the first time in my life I’d spent three full days making art. And while I was exhausted following the workshop, I also cherished every minute.

The theme of the workshop was “Creating Calm” and I have to say that for a nanosecond, it worked.

Close on the heels of my workshop, I was invited to play golf with one of my board members. I hadn’t played golf in probably eight years. I dug my clubs out of the garage and made sure they were still whole the day before our golf date. On the morning of, I headed in to the office early to deal with a few fires that occurred over the weekend and were stressing me out. When I headed out to Seven Canyons around 10AM, I was wound pretty tight. By the time we hit the course, I was a little nervous but excited. After hitting that ball a few times, I literally felt the stress leave my body.

So the moral of this story is, if you are stressed look in to art journaling and/or golf. You won’t regret it.

Coming up in the Sedona Arts Center calendar are two great events.

• On Wednesday, June 1, Celebrate Sedona 4 to 6 p.m. will feature the Mother Road Trio out of Flagstaff. They are terrific. We also have the Old Crow BBQ food truck, plus beer and wine for sale.

• Friday to Sunday, June 3 to 5, brings our first Tailgate Paint Out event. Twenty-five Plein Air artists from near and far will descend on the Arts Center for three fun-filled public events. June 3 is the Artist Meet & Greet Reception from 4 to 6 p.m.

Best of all, all of these events are free. So come celebrate the beginning of summer in Sedona.

And don’t stress about it.

Julie Richard,

CEO, Sedona Arts Center