We just finished our first ever Slow Art Day team retreat with founder Phyl Terry (U.S.) and global team members Ashley Moran (U.S.), Jessica Jane Nocella (Italy), and Johanna Bokedal (Norway). We came together in New York and Philadelphia for nine days of slow art, friendship, and fun.

We will be posting several reports highlighting our time together at:

• MoMA (New York)
• The Met (New York)
• The Whitney (New York)
• The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia)
• The Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens

Like happens all over the world with Slow Art Day, looking slowly deepened our ability to see from multiple perspectives, to love art even more, and to create closer bonds of friendship and community with each other.

In the reports that follow, we’ll share what we saw, what we learned, and the simple slow looking algorithm we used at each venue. 

Highlights include our coordinated dresses at MoMA, our long conversation and slow looking with the Director of Education at the Barnes Foundation (and a very interesting idea he floated), and our time with the team at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

We are sad to end our retreat.

The good news, though, is we are looking forward to visiting other participating Slow Art Day institutions in future years around the world. 

And, we are even beginning to put together a global Slow Art conference in 2025 in partnership with a great art museum (more on that in the next several months).

With much love,

Phyl, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Johanna

P.S. Our longtime global coordinator Maggie Freeman, who is studying for a PhD in Islamic Art & Architecture at MIT, could not join us for this one, but we look forward to future summer retreats with her.