Virginia Key: Grassroots Festival Culture Camp

What fun, we learned the real method of pizza making.  Actually learning to cook was part of Culture Camp which comprised the first four days of pre-fest.  And Alexa and I had front row seats for this adventure.  There were also workshops on dance, movement, yoga, fiddle, banjo, guitar, and more.

The antique train that carried folks
around the island when it was
Virginia Key Negro Beach

Now, the kick-off for culture camp was a presentation by Ben Cohen, Founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.  Ben spoke of his involvement in Stamp Stampede, the origins and his vision for the movement.  Including our participation in demonstrating Pete Seeger’s “Giant Seesaw Parable” .

Yes, we did purchase a stamp
Bill stamped our money!

Summarizing the movement which is in response to the Citizens United vs FEC Supreme Court decision which allows unfettered cash legally flowing into the election system and pushing the ordinary citizen out. "The Stampede is tens of thousands of Americans legally stamping messages on our Nation’s currency to #GetMoneyOut of Politics. As more and more stamped money spreads, so will the movement to amend the Constitution."

OK, back to the workshops...
Culture Camp was not well advertised and the schedule was not available until a few days before the camp.  This all worked to my benefit as there were few students and I obtained several hours of one-on-one instruction.  

Cormorant and gulls on the beach
at Virginia Key

My first workshop was with Claire Byrne, a dynamic musician who plays in several bands most notably Driftwood.  At 10 AM we sat down to discuss my budding fiddle skills... well it seems you can teach an old gal new tricks.  She had several suggestions actually after three days she left me with a long list of items that will take several months to master.  In the end I had over 4 hours of individual instruction time with Claire.

Marg with fiddle teacher
Claire Byrne of Driftwood

The next hour was more fiddle, this time with Jeb Puryear of Donna and the Buffalo.  After 1.5 hours of intense study with Claire my mind and body were reeling so I asked Jeb to discuss technique.  Of course he had opinions and left me to consider bow holds and pressure on the strings.  

After lunch I could not handle another fiddle lesson and sat in on a guitar workshop with Bobbie Hennie.  His plan was old-time backup, luckily the other student and I were at the same level so we rocked.   Bobbie is an amazing flat-picker which made the class great!  To end the day I spent some time discussing banjo styles and technique with Joe Kollar of Driftwood who has an interesting perspective on the banjo.  When you consider he performs on a 10 year old Deering Goodtime, Deering's entry level banjo, you know he has an interesting perspective.

The following day after another session with Claire and some free time I finally managed to wrap my head around a lesson with Tara Nevins of  Donna and the Buffalo.  Tara is an amazing old-time fiddler even though her stage performances no longer reflect this style.  She left me with solid suggestions and a few exercises to improve my style and fiddling.

Not all my time was spent learning music... there were dance workshops where I learned Salsa.  And as mentioned earlier, in the cooking workshop I learned the correct method for pizza.  

The setting for Culture Camp

So glad I could attend the Culture Camp