Come join Margaret Mahan and Drew Matott of Peace Paper for a day of personal expression and papermaking.  Explore the rich history and technique of traditional hand papermaking while sharing your own story by incorporating memorable bits from the past and present.  Any soft objects, such as letters, photographs (reproductions welcome!), plants, cloth, etc…. will be added to pulp as inclusions in the paper you create.  Everyone will go home with a Japanese Stab Bound Journal that Margaret and Drew will make before hand.

A Day of Personal Expression and Papermaking
Saturday December 10
10am – 4pm

Cost: $30 per person.
Payable on Paypal (Rensing),
or bring a check to the workshop.

Rensing Center Studio
1165 Mile Creek Road
Pickens, SC 29671

Saturday December 3
10am-4pm
Reserve your spot by November 26
Rensing Center Studio
1165 Mile Creek Road
Pickens, SC 29671
Cost: $35 per person.
Payable on Paypal (Rensing),
or bring a check to the workshop.

Do you dream of having your own greenhouse but think you can’t afford
one? Do you want to build your own but don’t know where to begin? If
so, this “hands on” workshop is for you. The timing is perfect to create
your own greenhouse for the fall, winter and spring seasons. We will
finish the project during this 6 hour workday. It includes lunch, so bring
a small pot-luck contribution.

* Participate, step by step, in the construction of a low cost, high
quality greenhouse from beginning to completion.
* Learn creative ways to use your greenhouse, such as hydroponics.
* Extend your garden’s growing season, using the greenhouse for
winter greens, and start seeds for next spring this winter.
* Go home with a complete materials list and greenhouse design
layout. Some of the materials will be available for purchase,
to jump-start your own project.
* Enjoy a day of active learning in the company of like minds, in this
beautiful garden.

This greenhouse will support the Rensing Center’s organic garden, which
serves as a demonstration site and a source of dinner for all our residents
and guests.

Joe Townsend, our instructor, is owner of Widside Gardens, a native plant nursery located in Six Mile area of Pickens County. He is a horticulturist, Master Gardener and charter member of the SC Native Plant Society, where he is active as Education and Outreach chair person. Currently he is the Naturalist at Hagood Mill Folk Life Center in Pickens County. He has 20 years experience with designing and building small backyard hobby greenhouses as well as larger greenhouses used commercially. He resides in the Six Mile area on a 24 acre farm where he lives off-grid with solar power.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Free and open to the public. Bring something to eat or drink!
This session will be held at The Rensing Center Studio
1165 Mile Creek Rd.  Pickens, SC
Tel: 864-380-1267 (Ellen Kochansky cell)

Friend and author Bill Bruehl will lead this session, and introduce his book “A Pilgrimage Like No Other”

Bill writes: “Profound changes have been taking place in Christianity.  People have been walking away from churches en masse. Recent polling data reveals that between 15 and 25 percent of Americans do not go to church and  that 37%  with a high school education or less stay away from churches.  I recently read a claim that 55% of the population of Oconee County does not belong to any religious organization. Historically these changes are unprecedented. Why is this happening? What are the immediate consequences, and what might happen in the future? Could science be a gift to religion? Or is belief in the supernatural indispensable?”

Live Deliberately is a monthly series of programs hosted by the Rensing Center in partnership with the Treehouse Project. Inspired by Nicole Troyer’s Backyard Revolution.

Session two
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 7 pm
The Rensing Center Studio
1165 Mile Creek Road, Pickens, SC
Free and open to the public

Our lives are more whirlwind than ever, but less secure, less healthy, and less meaningful in many ways. How can we realign our choices to create a deeper level of satisfaction with a smaller carbon footprint? In what ways are our cultural, economic and spiritual habits and assumptions dragging us down instead of lifting us up?

Over the course of a year we will gather on the fourth Tuesday of each month, to listen, learn, ponder a theme, and share ideas and supper. Readings will be encouraged through the Rensing Center’s library, and we’ll explore our various patterns as we know them and as we could transform them, in the context of a joyful and restored balance.

Rensing Center Executive Director Ellen Kochansky will give two visiting artist lectures at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville about her personal creative process and method!

5:30pm-8pm
White Whale Studios
401 Smythe Street
Greenville, SC

Former Rensing Center Resident Elizabeth Stehling (Summer 2010) is opening her art studio in Greenville’s West End. Free and Open to the Public!

www.elizabethstehling.com

Session one: Think!
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 7 pm
The Rensing Center Studio
1165 Mile Creek Road, Pickens, SC
Free and open to the public

Our lives are more whirlwind than ever, but less secure, less healthy, and less meaningful in many ways. How can we realign our choices to create a deeper level of satisfaction with a smaller carbon footprint? In what ways are our cultural, economic and spiritual habits and assumptions dragging us down instead of lifting us up?

Over the course of a year we will gather on the fourth Tuesday of each month, to listen, learn, ponder a theme, and share ideas and supper. Readings will be encouraged through the Rensing Center’s library, and we’ll explore our various patterns as we know them and as we could transform them, in the context of a joyful and restored balance.

Starting at 7PM on January 25, in the Main Hall of the Rensing Center’s studio building, we’ll launch the program, which will begin with:

THINK – How does what we choose impact our community and our environment? How can we re-frame our perspective? This will be the first program, and we’ll use it to outline and project the later ones, which will include such topics as the following:
WORK – How do we make a living at things that are consistent with our beliefs?
GROW – How does farming impact our health and our planet? How can we make better sense of agriculture, at a price we can afford (personally and on a bigger scale)?
EAT – How do we grow our own food? How do we cook with a conscience?
BUILD – How do we provide for architecture and community planning that honors the materials and the context? How do we conserve and respect the resources we have? How do we design better communities, and waste less heat, lumber, and commuting time?
PRAY – How do bring spiritual awareness and respectful approach to religious thought?
Other topics: CREATE, HEAL, MOVE, WRITE, COOK, REST, TRAVEL
What other subjects can you imagine??

Join us for this inspiring series of meetings, to open our conversation and thoughts to new ways of looking at our lives and our options. You will come away transformed.

On Saturday, January 22nd Ellen Kochansky will gather a “Sewing Circle,” a community project for Episcopal Church of the Ascension, which will gather the congregation’s fabrics and create vestments for the new minister. She will demonstrate some interesting techniques, and there will be a pot-luck lunch afterward.  No sewing skills needed…there will be work for any skill level!  Bring something to share for lunch (nothing fancy!) and your enthusiasm.  All supplies and equipment will be provided.