The Artist's Way - Week Twelve: Recovering a Sense of Faith . . . . . OUR FINAL GATHERING!

Last Tuesday night was the final session of my winter Creative Cluster. Six women have met weekly over the past twelve weeks to discuss The Artist's Way, talk about Morning Pages, Artist's Dates, and life in general. Every week I had a special art or creative project for them to do in the spirit of play and experimentation. Two of the six women were unable to attend Tuesday night, so they said their good-byes last week and presented their Omega Projects (a final project done outside of class, which could be something inspired by one of our projects, or just something for fun).

On Tuesday, we did our usual check-in and discussion, but before the ladies presented their Omega Projects, we made Stone Soup.

First to present was Victoria. She made a beautiful doll with lights under her skirt, illuminating her form.

Joanna made a wonderful fabric quilt that she plans to make into a light; it looked so good both ways, she couldn't decide which direction it will go.

Francie presented a traveling altar. She had bought the wooden house with hinged doors at a garage sale and using techniques she has picked up in various classes, she made this assemblage piece.

And finally, Joanne tickled our funny bones. She had us move some furniture and sit on the floor while she climbed onto the couch with just her feet showing. She had painted her feet as people and did a mini performance for our pleasure!

Our final act was to take one of the little lingams from the simple centerpiece. Each week the women took an item from my more elaborate centerpieces so they could build a simple art altar at home; tonight the centerpiece was a single candle nestled in my dwindling supply of lingams.

The Artist's Way - Week Eleven: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy

Week Eleven. One more week before our Creative Cluster comes to an end. For our creative project on Tuesday night the ladies created personalized art dolls. We went to the basement where I had put out glitter, yarn, ribbons, paint, jewels, feathers, and wings. The ladies set to work and created five beautiful, individual dolls.

Tuesday night was the last night for two of our six so they presented their Omega Projects (a final project of their choosing). One of the ladies zentangled rocks and brought them as our centerpiece, and invited everyone to take a rock home (see the first photo above). The other woman did two projects: one was a mini altar using all of the items taken from the centerpiece over the past eleven weeks and the other was an assemblage honoring books (and has been submitted to a book arts show for consideration).

The Artist's Way - Week Ten: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection

We mixed things up a bit this week. One of the ladies in my group wanted to share the project she has been working on so she invited us to take our group on the road and meet at her house. We all agreed and it was well worth the change in location. Not only was the project fascinating, she lives in the country with a fabulous view of the region.

I brought a portable creative project for us to do since we weren't meeting at our regular location. We made some simple collages on small cards and then did some storytelling using the cards. The stories were pretty fantastical and we did a lot of laughing, but I don't think I'll share the stories . . . .

The Artist's Way - Week Nine: Recovering a Sense of Compassion

What can I say about our session last night? We painted mandalas. Paint+stencils+old record albums = bliss.

The Artist's Way - Week Eight: Recovering a Sense of Strength

Tonight's creative project was to make a spirit stick, sometimes called a dream stick. A couple of ladies brought a nice bunch of branches to use as our base, and then the fun began. I brought out beads, bells, fibers, feathers, ribbons, wire, and charms. Their beautiful embellished walking sticks were stunning.

The Artist's Way - Week Seven: Recovering a Sense of Connection

After warm-up stretches, sharing about our week, and then discussing the chapter on strength, I handed out Paperclay and set out a variety of mark and texture-making tools and guided the women through an exercise on creating a personal plaque. It was a pleasure to watch their hands in motion (and Frida even stopped by for a table visit).

The next morning, I set their drying plaques in front of the window for a better view. Aren't they beautiful?

The Artist's Way - Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance

 

Week six was about abundance, so after fueling up, we headed to the basement for an hour of digging through my bins of goodies. One woman, upon entering the basement and seeing all of the supplies, summed it up: Holy shit. Yes. I do believe it is.



 

 

 

Disclaimer: The formatting on this blog post is a bit wonky. Blogspot has made some kind of internal changes and I'm unable to figure it out at this time. I'll keep playing around with it, but for now, this is what I've got!