In Chapter Three of their book, Kat describes that she and her father often worked in many, many journals back and forth with one another from 2002-2005. The intention of this shared experience was to help strengthen their connection, as well as manage and try to make sense of difficult events happening in their lives during that time.
The journal pages sent to readers is an opportunity for these expressions to be shared and have others in the community also become part of their process through the invitation to add to them. To hold some of Kat and Roar’s pages in one hand and their touching story in the other, I felt such gratitude and privilege to be included in their art-making connection.
[Added to detail] Another December 2002 Journal Page
Pages that have been added to and returned back to Kat for the Community Journal Project will then be exhibited at a Drawn Together event! What a great idea to celebrate the power of art, community, and connection!
The Paper Stash Swap for my e-workshop Creative Goodness with Gluebooks as part of 6 Degrees of Creativity 2 just officially started. Let the paper swapping fun begin across the US, to Canada, Australia, Brazil, England, and Italy!
This paper stash swap will give each of the individuals who signed up a quart/liter sized Ziploc bag full of creative goodness to use in their gluebooking throughout the rest of the workshop or for other creative means. I can’t wait to hear and see more about what people swap, send, and receive!
In preparation for this exchange, I’ve started on a scavenger hunt in my art-making space to put together lots of creative goodness for Bailey Earith, of Bailey Fiber Arts Studio, who I will be mailing a paper stash to soon. I have lots of different types of textured and colored paper, as well as lots of magazine photo collage images, postcards, and other ephemera that I need to sort through for this swap!
A great resource I’ve been recommending to participants in this workshop is Cindy Shepard’s book Stash and Smash to help inspire and cultivate stuff for our gluebooking that comes from our everyday surroundings, daily activities, and current happenings to visually document our day, week, month, occasion or to explore a special theme. I think it’s a great book with lots and lots of paper stash ideas!
My intention with the stash I receive from this swap is to incorporate this fresh new creative goodness into a gluebook I am going to make about 6 Degrees of Creativity 2. I can’t wait to get started!
Spaces and Places: Where We Create is now accepting submissions from art therapists, art therapy students, expressive art therapists, and art organizations for this photo documentary project that aims to provide education, awareness, inspiration, and understanding about the spaces & places, settings, populations, and materials that the art therapy community works in and uses within their practice.
This collaborative event using social media and digital photo sharing via Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram invites participants to submit a photo or photos of their creative work space and favorite tools of the trade. The project will be accepting submissions until May 31, 2012.
This week-end I exchanged all the artist trading cards (ATCs) I received throughout the last few months for the 6 Degrees of Creativity swap and mailed them all to their new homes in different parts of the globe. Since the moment my ATC workshop started in October for 6 Degrees I have been patiently waiting for this creative moment! It is such a joy to see all the ATCs that have been sent and then to further connect participants through exchanging and mailing them all back. We are now truly connected with the mini artworks we will receive ( x 6 ), along with the messages, creativity, and good intentions sent with each of them. So wonderful and so much fun!
Lots of thanks and appreciation to everyone who was able to contribute and participate in this ATC exchange. It was an honor to host this swap for the 6 Degrees of Creativity community and connect to participants through this experience.
Here are some photos I took before, during, and after the exchanging:
Pre-Exchange ATCs that have been coming in since October 2011:
A sea of creative goodness is ready to be exchanged!
On the way to the post office! It took 45 minutes for the postal clerk to make sure all the postage and delivery methods (first class vs. parcel, international vs. domestic, etc.) were all good…ATCs were mailed out to the US, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Canada. Many custom forms were filled out!
In celebration of this exchange and everyone who contributed I put together a short video featuring one ATC received from each participant:
I also created a collective image of one ATC from each batch:
Over at 6 Degrees of Creativity, my Artist Trading Card (ATC) workshop is getting busy with community members working on their mini artworks for the workshop’s Creative Goodness ATC exchange next month. Members are encouraged to create a series of 6 ATCs reflecting their interpretation of what creative goodness means to them and select five cards to mail to me and then be exchanged with other 6-degreers in mid February. Some of the early ATC arrivals are below: coming from Texas, New Jersey, New York, Wyoming, and Michigan. The most traveled ATC so far is all the way from Australia!
Art Can't Hurt You
Margaret, Texas
Resilience
Rebecca, Michigan
Equanimity
Brenda, Wyoming
Do it!
Kathy, New York
Freedom
Eleni, New Jersey
Create & Connect Without Harm
Gayle, Brisbane
Beautiful! And word is more ATCs are on their way! Look for another update about the exchange in February when it is swap time!
Since August, my ATR supervision group and I have been working on a prayer flag project and during our most recent group it was time to exchange our flags with one another! I was excited to finally bring together our wishes and hopes into a collective string of intentions inspired by members of this group.
Each of us (6) created at least 6 flags: made with an intention and image that we wanted to focus on. Simple cotton fabric squares about 6 x 6 inches were used with acrylic paint, paint markers, Sharpie markers, and ink stamping to embellish the print we made (read this post for info on this). A couple of inches were left at the top of each flag where the fabric could be folded back and glued/hot glued for yarn to be easily threaded through each flag for stringing.
For our exchange, each person went one at a time to display their flags among the group and had an opportunity to speak about their intention, its meaning, the image they created, and reflections about participating in this process before group members chose which flag they wanted to include in their collection. The exchanging of flags created an opportunity to also offer our intention outside of ourselves to others. Intentions that were featured within this project included: Balance, Wonder, Imagine, Clarity, Awareness, and Vision.
Imagine
The intention I chose to focus on for this project included the concept of “Imagine” and a quote from one of my favorite books The Alchemist. I attached this quote on each flag as a reminder stay to true to yourself and to always have heart in the dreams you imagine: ”Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You’ve got to find the treasure so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense“.
Below is an image of each prayer flag (larger images of each flag can be seen by clicking on the picture) contributed by members of the group: Margaret, Mary, Kristie, Frances, and Laura (thank you!).
Group Prayer Flags Together!
It is great to have them all together! I’m still thinking about a special place to hang my string of these wonderful intentions…
The presentation includes the project, its impact, and the role of art and social networking to connect the art therapy community worldwide:
It was a pleasure to explore attendees’ interest in using the combination of social media, art-making, and online connecting to create outreach and community.
I am excited to announce that The Art Therapy Alliance’s 6 Degrees of Creativitygoes on sale today! Woo hoo!
As first introduced in July, 6 Degrees of Creativity is inspired by the “Six Degrees of Separation” concept that each of us, no matter where we live in the world are only about six relationships away from one another, as well as embraces the power of social networking, the arts, and interactive creativity to making a difference through art-making, creative goodness, and community.
6 Degrees of Creativity is a 6 month on-line workshop opening October 10, 2011 and running until March 1, 2012 with 6 different workshops, offered by a group of 6 inspiring instructors from the art therapy community to explore hands-on concepts, art-making, and ideas related to themes about transformation, social change, collaboration, and using art for good.
You can now register anytime between today and December 1, 2011 & participate from anywhere in the world, anytime, and on your schedule, whether it is on your laptop, tablet, desktop, or even on the go via your mobile device! This workshop is open to art therapists, artists, creatives, students, and those interested in art-making connected to the workshop’s theme. Workshop content will include PDFs, video tutorials, written instruction, photos, art sharing, and on-line chats that will be available within the 6 Degrees of Creativity community. The community’s social networking component will further enhance the sharing of creative goodness among participants, offer opportunities for discussion & idea exchanging, as well as deepen connection through art-making.
6 Degrees of Creativity features a fabulous line up of instructors: Kristina Bell DiTullo, Lani Gerity, Cathy Malchiodi, Jenny Navarro, Katarina Thorsen and yours truly. Only $49 for all 6 workshops!
In my Saturday morning supervision group which currently includes five art therapists working towards obtaining their Art Therapist Registration (ATR), we started working on a group Prayer Flag Project, as a means to engage in more art making and explore implementing this idea and intervention with various populations and settings.
Something about prayer flags have always fascinated me– perhaps because it is intention based, perhaps because the intention/mantra of the flag created is also connected to mutual sharing with others, or perhaps because it is an extension and symbol of hope. Perhaps all three and then some.
Several years ago, I did an art therapy workshop for The Center for Therapy through Art (now The Art Therapy Studio) about The Art of Prayer Flags. As a quick introduction to the purpose and some of the symbols behind prayer flag making I thought sharing this presentation from the workshop would be helpful:
The prayer flag format for our group’s project was inspired by a workshop I attended last year at the Buckeye Art Therapy Association’s Annual Symposium facilitated by Emily Johnson and Cathy Malchiodi about creating intention based mini-message flags for exchanging. As presented in this particular workshop, the art technique included using a square styrofoam plate to create a design connected to a wish or intention, followed by printing a series of fabric squares with ink.
In today’s group, we used the styrofoam carving/printing concept with acrylic paint on roughly 6 x 6 inch cotton fabric squares. Instead of attempting to design words backwards on the styrofoam, rubber stamping letters and ink were available to use for highlighting the intention of the flag. Throughout this project we will each create six flags, then exchange our flags with one another to create a string of intentions, wishes, and hopes inspired by members of the group.
My prayer flag making: Beginnings
I also recently discovered The Prayer Flag Project, a collective project started in June 2011 to spread peace, good will and kindness, one flag at a time through contributing artists and the project’s blog. The project had some good tips listed under their tutorial section, including dating your flag, adding bits of printed text from books related to your intention, and to make journaling/writing about your flag part of the process.
It will be fun to see this project and process develop over the next few weeks and I hope to share the final results when we are all done!
