Persistent Bloom:
Emergent Retreat Center
On a hike in 2021, I came upon this amphitheater in the Ozark forests of Arkansas and I instantly imagined teaching creativity outdoors in nature.
Big Tech pushes us into scrolling instead of creating. This work’s intention is to reverse that by getting you in touch with your hands and human craft once again.
The retreat center is emerging online through building community, trust, and being open to what emerges.
We host free monthly Creativity Clubs on Discord, skill-focused workshops on your creative craft, self-led pod-classes to connect you to nature and craft tutoring calls.
“Working with Mel was a great experience! They asked super thoughtful questions to prepare for my retreat, provided useful activities relevant to the challenges I'm facing, and offered excellent advice & reference materials. Highly recommend, especially if you need some extra structure to jump start your practice and get you un-stuck!”
Courtney F. (she/they)
Self-Guided
Retreat Experiences
I took everything I learned from my decade plus of teaching and facilitating several individualized retreats to create these self-guided creative retreat experiences.
The goal was to bring people back to their creative center, focusing on affordability, and a quality experience at your own pace.
The Hikers Way pod-class is the project I am most proud of in this category, as it is based on my own personal transformative experiences in nature and how that was the guide back to art. A podcast format also just felt like the right move for access on the go.
Persistent Bloom
Retreat experiences
custom built
creative
retreats
This is my favorite work. Supporting the individual needs of retreat participants is incredibly rewarding. Through live calls we work together to uncover your artistic aspirations, unique learning style, and supportive environments that help you tap into your intuition and creative rhythms.
Then I help participants plan an experience at home or away in a way that will support their work and then create a custom retreat plan of assignments, day trips, mini adventures, journaling prompts all designed to hone craft and enhance their creativity.
My work with participants has looked like:
Building a routine for a weekend at home without parental obligations
Scouting stays and campsites, including nearby trailheads
Auditing outdoor gear and mobile creative setups
& planning nourishing meals for supporting your mind while focusing on your creative adventure.
group
retreat
experiences
The first ever in-person group retreat is in planning phases currently for late 2026 or early 2027. Want to be the first to know and go? Join the waitlist.
curious to know more
behind-the-scenes
of these retreats
you should read about it!
The following posts really narrow in my thoughts on retreats and the seeds of what we’re building
How I went from the dream of academia to retreats
This writing explores why retreats were calling to my teaching practice over the traditional academic classroom. After abandoning the ambition of being a professor and getting an MFA, I discuss the huge financial and social barriers that make academia unsustainable while also discussing my bigger intentions for this new work.
how I healed my art after art school
Bad experiences in our creative upbringing are incredibly common. The way we are told to make or build our lives as artists is often in conflict with the realities we face. This is a gentle guide on how I came back home to making that I hope can inspire you. Plus, the creative prompts at the end will help you journal about your own limitations.
ritualizing creative practices free from monetization
Here I document my experience going through The Hikers Way and many of the internal struggles I had to work through rebuilding neurodivergent-friendly routines and hope-centered relationships to my creative practices that don’t “pay the bills.” If common habit-building advice hasn’t worked for you, you’ll like this one.
how I bricked my phone to put creativity before doomscrolling
Tech tools are one of the most common things I see getting in the way of art, especially in my own practice. In this I talk about using an accessibility setting to make my smartphone into a simple phone. I also walk you through the lesson plan I made for my own creative retreat so you can get to know what to expect with the individualized experiences I talk about below.
