At a sleep-over camp, you live and work in a community of people who love the same things you do. You get to immerse yourself in the activity you love for up to four hours each day. That’s totally different from an hour or two a week! You get to know your instructors as real people. You get to know other participants as close friends you may stay in touch with for your entire life. And when everyone lives at camp, there’s no chance rehearsals or a film shoot – or whatever – will be spoiled because someone doesn’t show up. Everyone is there together – sharing an experience, constantly re-energised by each other’s enthusiasm, becoming deeply involved with a project in a way that you really can’t, if you do it for a short time each week. Building so many new skills in such a short time.

Of course, the other major difference between arts courses at home and a sleep-over (overnight) arts camp is that away at camp, you mixed with people from far and wide. The other teen writers in your town you otherwise might never have met – but also the writer from Texas, the poets from Shanghai, the girl who goes to an Embassy school in Uganda, the boy writing a novel who lives a flight North of Iqaluit. Really interesting people, who make you feel how small the world is, and how much a part of it you really are. Oh – and one last thing! At camp, you discover things you may never have thought you would like… 　in an atmosphere where others are inspiring you all the time, and where it’s totally cool to take artistic risks – there’s no limit to what you can discover about yourself. I can think of a camper years ago who joined us wanting to be an actor, discovered a love of film, took our film programs for years and is now well on his way to a career as a film director. A girl who began with us as a dancer, joined friends one day in the art room and now takes Fine Art as her college major. Furthermore, many kids who love the arts don’t enjoy sports – they think they are no good at them. But at an arts camp, you discover it’s okay to play basketball, volleyball or soccer. You don’t have to be good – you play together, if you want to, just for fun.

If you are an artist or a writer, it’s probably the case that you struggle to find classes in your home community, wherever you live. And even if you do, yours is a solitary art form. You likely fill a lot of pages in your bedroom at home. Camp gives you the seemingly-impossible: a chance to be in a community all the time, with others who like what you do. To paint or write, but not alone. And you don’t have to worry camp won’t fit your personality. With dozens of writers and artists at our camp every session, there will be lots of others who think the way you do.

Julie