The Art of Grieving Retreat
Christine Gautreaux, MSW and
Sheila K Collins,PhD
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Mt Pleasant, PA
May 28th - 31st
So much has happened in our individual and collective lives since I first began writing about grief and the ways that the arts can help us process and transform ourselves and our lives through them. I'd love for you to have the opportunity to step away for a few days into a beautiful setting and community of like minded folks, to playfully focus on your own creativity and what can come from all that has happened. Perhaps there is someone you would like to bring with you, in person, or in keepsakes and photos that bring them to mind.
WHAT THIS RETREAT IS ABOUT?
The Art of Grieving InterPlay Expressive Arts and Art-Making Retreat is a unique gathering designed to help you explore creativity as a path through grief and life transitions.
Together, we’ll create a supportive circle where we can honor our heartbreaks, our joys, and all that life has handed us. Using InterPlay, an improvisational approach to storytelling, movement, and voice, alongside hands-on art-making, we will discover the spiral path of growth and insight that a transformed grief bestows.
WHAT WE’LL DO
Over four days in this nurturing mountain setting, we will:
Engage in InterPlay practices, gentle, playful movement, storytelling, and voice that help us access the wisdom of our own bodies and a supportive group body.
Visiting the campuses of Touchstone Center for Crafts and the globally recognized mosaic Ruins Project, we will create with our own hands, through mosaic art, watercolor, and blacksmithing, giving form, color and substance to what lives in our hearts.
Hold rituals of remembrance, offering creative ways to honor loved ones who have died, and exploring new ways to stay connected to them.
Enjoy spacious time in nature, walking among trees and streams that help us remember that we, too, are part of natures’ cycles of loss and renewal.
Build a compassionate community, so we do not carry our stories alone.
By weekend’s end, you’ll carry home new art pieces, deeper insights, and connections with a circle of kindred spirits.
WHO THIS RETREAT IS FOR
People who:
Are grieving someone they love, or a life chapter that has ended, or want to honor any loss through creative expression.
Feel called to explore their creativity, whether they’re seasoned artists or complete beginners.
Are looking for new ways to process the complex emotions of living in these times, grief, beauty, uncertainty, hope.
Long to be with others who understand that grief is not something to be “gotten over,” but to be companioned, witnessed, and transformed.
As Francis Weller writes:
“Soul activism is what we are called to in this extreme time.”
Through the expressive arts of InterPlay and art-making, we engage in that very activism, tending to what is most tender, personal, and profound.
WHERE & WITH WHOM
The retreat takes place at the Laurelville Retreat Center in southwestern Pennsylvania, easily reached by car from Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
It will be facilitated by Dr. Sheila K. Collins, Author of The Art of Grieving: How the Arts and Art-Making Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives & Christine Gautreaux, MSW, Co-author of Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, Time to Breathe & Reclaim Joy.
Art Making in Collaboration with:
Touchstone Center for Craft — 150 wooded acres with fully equipped art studios and trails to wander.
The Ruins Project — a stunning outdoor mosaic installation on the Great Allegheny Passage, where art emerges from the bones of a coal mining past. Honoring the power of place and art as memorial.
PRACTICALS
When: Thursday evening, May 28th through midday Sunday, May 31st, 2026
Where: Laurelville Retreat Center + 2 field trips with activities included
Nearest airport: Pittsburgh International
Registration: Opens 1/19/2026 space is limited to 15 people -
$300 holds your space - Deadline May 1st for all monies due.
$955 total for lodging, meals & programming- for a double room
$1095 total for lodging, meals & programming- for single room
Sheila's PayPal
If you are wondering whether this experience is right for you, or if it fits where you are in your own life, feel free to reach out. You can text me at (817)706-4967 or email me directly at sheilakcollins@gmail.com and we can set up a time to talk. If someone comes to mind who might appreciate a few days of creativity, reflection, and community, especially someone moving through loss or life trans
To Hold Your Spot. Fill Out This FormCost: $300 holds your space - Deadline May 1st for all monies due. $955 total for lodging, meals & programming- for a double room $1095 total Single Room
Registration/Information: sheilakcollins@gmail.com
Venue
Laurelville Retreat Center
941 Laurelville Ln, Mt Pleasant, PA 15666
Mt Pleasant, PA 15666
Leaders
Christine Gautreaux, MSW
Christine (she/her) is dedicated to the pursuit of play, joy, art & social justice. Christine’s superpowers include connecting people, helping folks manifest their dreams, standing up against injustice and using art to make a difference in the world.
She currently uses performance art, movement, poetry, storytelling and InterPlay to address issues of oppression with women who are incarcerated, people living with severe and persistent mental illness and homelessness. She also works with activists and artists to maintain balance and self-care during these intense times we find ourselves living.
Pivoting with the times Christine has been called an expert on Zoom and utilizes this online platform to facilitate connection and ease in an online, interactive learning environment.
Christine Gautreaux holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Social Work. She has professional experience with successful grant writing, community organizing and social media marketing. Christine is a life coach for caregivers who are burnt out and ready to take back their own life and make it delightful again. She is the co-author of Stillpoint: A Caregivers Playbook to find ease and to take a deep breath and reclaim joy and Women Connected in Wisdom: Stories and Resources Rooted in the 8 Dimensions of Wellnes V. I and V. II
She currently uses performance art, movement, poetry, storytelling and InterPlay to address issues of oppression with women who are incarcerated, people living with severe and persistent mental illness and homelessness. She also works with activists and artists to maintain balance and self-care during these intense times we find ourselves living.
Pivoting with the times Christine has been called an expert on Zoom and utilizes this online platform to facilitate connection and ease in an online, interactive learning environment.
Christine Gautreaux holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Social Work. She has professional experience with successful grant writing, community organizing and social media marketing. Christine is a life coach for caregivers who are burnt out and ready to take back their own life and make it delightful again. She is the co-author of Stillpoint: A Caregivers Playbook to find ease and to take a deep breath and reclaim joy and Women Connected in Wisdom: Stories and Resources Rooted in the 8 Dimensions of Wellnes V. I and V. II
Sheila K Collins,PhD
Sheila K. Collins is the director of InterPlay Pittsburgh and the Wing & A Prayer Pittsburgh Players, an InterPlay-based performance troupe she founded in 2006 to assist human service agencies and art organizations in accomplishing their noble purposes. A former professional dancer, Sheila has described herself as a “dancing social worker” for over 40 years, throughout her careers as a therapist, social work professor, and writer.
She is the author of Stillpoint: A Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, Time to Breathe, and Reclaim Joy, which since its second edition, co-authored by Christine Gautreaux, has become a popular weekly online class, and Warrior Mother: Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss and the Rituals That Heal.
She’s been known to travel the country enlisting InterPlayers to help her Perform her Books, demonstrating how InterPlay tools help us get through life’s ordinary and extraordinary, “tough challenges”
Her latest book, The Art of Grieving: How Art and Artmaking Help Us Grieve, and Live Our Best Lives explores how the arts of storytelling, dance, music, and visual arts help mourners navigate episodes of grief, process loss, and extract meaning and wisdom for their future lives.
sheilakcollins@gmail.com 817 706-4967 120 Chapel Harbor Dr Pittsburgh Pa 15238