News, updates, & visual ephemera from around the studio & beyond.
My “research assistant from the dissertation study joined us.
Image shows several pieces of watercolor paper, painted using salt technique and wet on dry. The red and pink paper has been woven into a piece with rich browns and blues.
Today, I had the opportunity to join Brian Leonard (the filmmaker who created “I See You” a film about the art therapy work I do with older adults) in a guest-lecture session in Sky Bergman’s class in the Art & Design department at Cal Poly, SLO.
As we were answering student questions, and talking about our work, I was thinking about how much I love the interwoven nature of our lives.
I deeply resonated with Sabrina Ward Harrison’s book Spilling Open when I was in High School. And my prized book to this day is about Candy Jernigan’s work: Evidence.
I graduated from Cal Poly.
Sky and I reconnected when I started working with older adults and she was working on her film. Later, I’d get to see her at a screening of the film in SF.
Brian and I met through a volunteer project his daughter was part of. They continued to volunteer, and the family spent most Saturdays with me, doing art therapy with older adults at Mercy.
Brian proposed, filmed, and created I See You.
Sky encountered the description of the film and realized it included me, her former student.
We all spoke together today with her students, answering questions that overlapped, interplayed and inspired. As I shared, I recommended the two books above.
I clicked out of Zoom, so inspired.
And then I remembered, that just the day before, I had been guiding a live session about weaving with watercolor for ArtSnacks.
What is woven in your life?
Photograph shows a white woman’s hand holding a small, roughly cut heart made of watercolor paper with a salt treatment. The woman has several rings on her third and fourth fingers. The background shows several strips of woven watercolor paper in blue, green, and red. The watercolors were created using salt and plastic wrap.
I’m excited to be getting back to a thread of research I started quite a while ago looking at how we define and describe purpose.
Opening the file again gave me renewed excitement about better understanding what that word means. I am also thinking about the ways my own understanding has evolved over the past year.
Mixed-media art journal page with collaged, found text, polaroid photo of fern, fiber, ink, and acrylic paint. Text reads: “Writes about purpose” and “It is convenient and might approach it”
“So what does purpose mean to you? How do you cultivate it for yourself, your coworkers, your clients & communities?”
Today, someone called me a “fellow guardian of open inquiry and conceptual collaboration.” While experimenting with natural pigments on an altered book page I came across some words I had coated several days before with a clear acrylic medium:
Thus, in their own terms
stand like guardians
certainly one of the major achievements
As I washed pigment over the top of the paper today, and saw those words pop out I felt them more deeply. Sometimes, our next role or sense of identity or mission comes from an unexpected place. Creative practices make room for that possibility. I am curious to see how this page evolves and to play more with these new paints from www.fortheloveofsoil.org
I wonder what words inspire a great day? I do have a professional name plate my great uncle had made when I completed my Ph.D., but this is the one that I keep directly under my computer monitor. It is a good reminder. Today will be awesome!
Our titles and roles shift across our lifespan. My new book includes creative practices to explore your transitions:
Getting On in the Creative Arts Therapies: A Hands-On Guide to Personal and Professional Development
So many things have changed since my last update… Experienced a pretty serious health crisis over the winter months… I’m emerging into the oncoming spring with an even deeper appreciation for the role that art plays in restoring us and helping us understand lived experience. Each breath we take is no small thing. And each paint stroke on canvas or photograph taken or note played or step danced matters.
I am so grateful to have emerged from this winter into deeper opportunities to engage in creative exploration. I will be sharing ideas and prompts based on the ideas of the book, both here and on social media.
Words Matter.
& Words can inspire.
What words have deeper meaning for you?
It is a balancing act to:
Make time for art.
Make time for yourself.
Not make “making time” one more to-do item!
Here is an article about zoom fatigue, over-scheduling, and participating in some of the really fabulous offerings for creative practice out in the world.
Photograph of an art journal page created during an online comics workshop. Depicts several human figures on a blue ink background with written and painted text on the right-hand side and large letters spelling out the word “express” in pink paint.
I have been thinking a lot about what we can and cannot expect of ourselves at this time… So many changes, so many losses, and so many opportunities to rethink the status quo. Art can be part of this evolution we are involved in. The most important part is to be in the process
A page from my art journal created with materials from the ArtSnacks box. Text reads: “if your heart feels broken by this world please know that you are not alone we can heal.”
How are you coping? Taking some time to make art can help you cope with everything going on in the world right now.
Colored pencil over alcohol ink on translucent paper.
Here’s a video tour of an altered book art journal. Most of it was completed during the stay-at-home orders in Northern California, though if you look closely, you’ll see some ephemera from before from an airplane flight.
What creative endeavors have been helping you during the stay-at-home orders? If you haven’t found any time for it, consider setting out some paper by your work from home area to doodle on or joining with your children in creating images to share in your windows, or making a temporary sculpture out of objects from around your house.
