Tamarack Lodge

The Tamarack Lodge has grown to be a nurturing place for gatherings of many varrying groups though it was founded as a center for artists based on the work of Loyd Williamson. The Lodge is a carefully crafted world: every detail of the place: the inside of the Lodge, the great room, the open fires, the bedrooms, and outside on the land, even every moment of time---especially the nonscheduled time---even the meals,  poetry readings, content of classes, yes, the fruit at the end of the first class of the day, the classes regardless of who is teaching them, all these are crafted as the worlds are crafted in the rest of the Williamson Technique (the projects in period style called the Salon, the 10 minutes in which to do nothing, and such exercises as “Creating Drunk” at the law firm). The unique nature of his work is that every excersise grows out of the reality of a specific place and time in which a person's experience comes from the world in which the work takes place. That is the reason for this entire Utopia.

   Living in a place and a time such as this winter here, and to be able to share it with other people and then in sharing their response is---in my experience---very rare. In the class or rehearsal, this beauty has to be created in the imagination of each of us, our students, or our colleagues (friends). The motion of every class, every sound, every exercise, even every coaching or acting class environment and the behavior that flows from them has been anchored in an aesthetic, an environment, as rich as a specific winter in this specific place. Experiences such as those here are core to any artists' creative life; gratefully, the people who come here agree. When someone goes back the everyday life concerns in which every artist must live, a retreat should have been, hopefully, a breeding ground for an enriched imagination.

History of the Lodge