We will be exploring repetitive mark-making as a creative care practice. We’ll chat about understanding and approaching art-making as a creative care practice …something that we repeat, something that we reach for and bring into our lives as wee bits of soothing balm. Some reprieve from the ALL-ness of it all. Some space to gather and ground ourselves, so that we don’t get stuck in the overwhelm. Space and practices to nourish, strengthen, and empower ourselves.

We’ll explore art-making as a sensory experience …how does it FEEL to be in a body that’s making art …making marks. Our focus will be on simple processes, that we repeat.

In this workshop, we’re going to talk about and explore ways to SHOW UP for (and in) our anger …with our art. Giving it some space, expression, and containment. Not trying to “fix” it, tamp it down, or send it away. But honouring it – with creative expression, release, grounding, transformation. Anger is not a problem …we have a LOT of things to be legitimately angry about. Clenching it in, ignoring it, or shaming ourselves for it …are what we want to move away from. And moving towards giving ourselves pockets of creative release, so it’s not bubbling up and and causing harm to ourselves or others (imploding or exploding).

We’ll get curious about ways that we can use art, and creative process to work with (and through) our anger. Practice and process as resources that we can reach for when anger rises up, as it reasonably will.

In this workshop, we’ll talk about ways to TEND to our overwhelm with our art. Specifically bilateral drawing & mark making. Giving ourselves some space to express (and release), and ground in (to a sensory rooted conversation with our materials). We’ll make some space for our overwhelm to transform into something different… a different shape, form, feel.

We’ll get curious about ways that we can use art & creative process to work with (and support) overwhelm. Practices & processes as resources that we can reach for (and repeat) when the all-ness of it all weighs us down.

Overwhelm is a very reasonable and legitimate response to a world on fire. AND, we want to build practices that support us in not collapsing into it. Creative care practices.

Maybe you’d like to join us …to do this in community. Building collective creative curiosity …a curiosity that we can carry around in our bodies, into everything that we do.

In this last month(ish) of the year of the wood snake …let’s gather, name, express, and release some lingering bits. Things that we want to put down, stop carrying …stories and narratives that we maybe want to reimagine, rewrite.

Let’s take some time to reflect on what we’ve already let go of – what we’ve already shed – over the last year. And notice if there are maybe some bits that we thought we’d left behind, but are being sticky …and not quite SHED.

Let’s ready ourselves to move into the next year of the lunar (and Chinese) calendar – a little lighter, a little more aligned, and more grounded into what matters for each of us.

We’ll be exploring slow-stitch with (dried) leaves …playing with thread more as a mark-making tool than as an embroidery technique. Think meandering, intuitive embroidery.

We’ll practice noticing …sound, texture, and how we FEEL while we’re engaging with these bits of nature. We’ll practice understanding SLOW as a space that we can give ourselves to pause, express, process, integrate, regenerate.

I will have LOTS of leaves for us to work with in the studio, but you can also bring your own that you’ve gathered before our session together if you have some that you’d like to work with. 

 

2-hr workshop (online)

This workshop is NOT about drawing, painting (or otherwise creating) a picture of what your body looks like, or how it’s shaped. What you will make isn’t going to look like you.

This workshop IS about pausing & giving some thought to our bodies as experiential. Being curious about the ways we can translate and express the sensory experience of being in our bodies onto paper. Into the ways that we make marks, and engage with shapes …with layering, and connecting. Being curious about the different ways we can use our art materials… whatever we have… to explore sensation, colour, tension, movement, discomfort, stillness, breath, shifting, emotion… anything, big or small, that we FEEL.

We spend so much time thinking about how we SHOULD feel… and comparatively little on how we actually DO feel. So that’s what this will be. A conversation with your body.

 

9-wk series (online)
This is a support group for folks (adults) who identify as Neurodivergent (with or without a formal diagnosis). We will be sharing stories, experiences, time, space, resources, strategies …and taking some practical steps towards building CREATIVE CARE PRACTICES to support ourselves and each other.

It is a space to allow yourself to be vulnerable, supported, seen & heard. A space where we can be our gloriously divergent selves. IN community.

2-part series

Part 1:
We’ll start with exploring mark-making with a light touch, SLOW, less controlled… making marks across multiple sheets of paper, holding our materials differently, travelling across the page differently. Slow as a space that we can give ourselves to pause, express, process, integrate, regenerate. Slow as a space to be curious about.

Part 2:
Working with the piece(s) from the first week, we’ll walk through a couple of chapbook (mini book) folding/cutting processes, and then continue our mark-making on/with our transformed objects …having a meander in and around the different pages, and reframed terrain.

In this workshop, we’ll be crushing …smashing, smudging, mucking with …our leftover (or intentionally created) nubs of pastels, crayons, dried paint chunks. With a rock.

We’ll also be reframing some of the stuff that comes up around this sort of process …perfectionism, preciousness of art materials, productivity, what it means to CRUSH something …how it FEELS to crush something.

 

This workshop will incorporate slow-stitching as a mindful & meditative creative practice …with a conversation about water, how we locate ourselves in, on, and near water… physically & emotionally.

I’ll walk you through some slow-stitch basics, and a few water-inspired prompts …we’ll have time for a check-in, some music accompanied making/stitching, and a check-out.

We’ll be exploring different art materials and processes each week, chatting and working with the theme of CREATIVE INTEGRATION. Making space, and building creative practices to support us in and through ALL that’s going on …in the world, our lives, our relationships, our bodies. So that we can keep showing up for all of the things we care about, with creativity and curiosity.

We’ll be exploring slow-stitch (intuitive embroidery) with leaves that you’ve gathered outside before our session together. We’ll practice noticing sound, texture, and how we FEEL. We’ll practice understanding SLOW as a space that we can give ourselves to pause, express, process, integrate, regenerate.