SEARSPORT — The focus for week July 27 – Aug 2 at Searsport Shores Ocean Campground Camp and Create will be creating Colorful Memories with Artist in Residence is Maryly Matthewman.

Maryly will be working on art quilts daily but campers can plan on doing their own Wish Flag to be part of the Prayer Flag Project, plus an outside ongoing art sculpture. There will be some bedtime stories at the campfire along with props and dolls that Maryly will make during the day to use that night.

Maryly lives on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and since she retired from her “day job” she’s devoted her talents to making colorful stitches, exploring her Latvian heritage through wool and teaching prison inmates (and others) how to knit, sew and listen.

“You get more than you give,” says Maryly. In 2011, Vivika De Negre started The Prayer Flag Project. Maryly started a small branch of this in Gilford, NH in July 2013 for a six-year-old boy with an inoperable brain tumor. John Bradley Thompson would sit in his hospital bed with a fish net collecting wishes while his friends in Gilford, NH made flags of wishes, prayers, hope, strength, courage, and health. Maryly also made a cozy quilt of some of these flags. The creative process of making these flags helped a community express feelings, a creative outlet. Maryly hopes to continue offering little “workshops” on Wish/Prayer Flags at the Boys and Girls Club, hospitals, and at Fiber College this year.

There is more info at http://theprayerflagproject.blogspot.com.

Just as her fiber workshops “change lives”, Maryly likes her work to have a “life of change”. Each piece should have movement, bring a smile, create a memory, be colorful.  Threads moving, buttons falling off, raw edges fraying more in time.  Full of color at the start but fading over time.  With so many loved ones and friends in a state of change, it helps to remember nothing stays the same.

For more information about camping or participating in Camp and Create at Searsport Shores, visit http://searsportshores.com/artists/ or call 207-548-6059.