5-week, in-person creative workshop series
Every Wednesday in May; 7PM - 8:30 PM
located at ClearStory Arts in Chattanooga, TN
No previous art experience required (Come As You Are Art Therapy strives to create a safe, inclusive, and playful environment)
This 5-week art therapy workshop series is dedicated to helping you get clarity surrounding what is that you would like to sow, nurture, and ultimately manifest in the coming seasons. Spring has sprung! The bees are buzzing, chickens are a cluckin’, and it’s our opportunity to get our hands dirty after a long Winter’s rest.
It’s simply not enough to think positive thoughts if we want to manifest someone/ something into our lives. Living in such a way that resonates with our authentic nature, moving through life with a sense of worth and deservingness does. It involves making conscious decisions about what aligns with our truest selves, our values, as well as trusting in our ability to create the life we desire.
It’s my hope to share the accelerated power of our manifestations when we include a visual and therapeutic tool like art-making and creative expression. Here, the art serves as a means of connecting the heart, housing our soul’s desires, with the inherent strength of the mind.
This curriculum is designed for participants to attend any number of weekly group sessions that they wish. Those interested have the opportunity to purchase workshops a la carte or all 5 groups at once, for a discounted price.
Cost:
$35 per week
a la carte registration below
or
$140 5 week bundle (4 weeks plus 1 week free)
Week 1: Building our Beds
Week 1 will focus on participants creating an intentional space to call in more abundance in their lives. By means of working with 3D, sculptural materials, group members will be given a chance to create their own personal altars— a sacred space to hold only that which is aligned with them. Of course, while also honoring what is already present within them.
Week 2: Sowing our Seeds
Week 2 will focus on participants getting clarity around what it is that they would like to call in and grow as well as what they would like to leave behind. At times, for us to determine what it is that we do what for ourselves, in various avenues of our lives, we are met with contrasting experiences of what it is that we don’t want. As frustrating as this realization of figuring out what we don’t want can be, it is extremely valuable in helping us to pivot towards that which we do want. Individuals in this group will utilize collage to foster a conversation with their creativity and intuition, using it as a tool to guide them in the direction of their choosing.
Week 3: Observations, Objectives, & Obstacles
Manifesting and co-creating with the Universe each are a twofold process: acknowledging and practicing gratitude for that which you’re currently experiencing and leaning into the unknown— tapping into your desire to create and experience more of whatever it is that you’d like to create or experience. This group will be dedicated to exercising the capacity to do both via 2D artistic materials while concentrating on when, where, or even why elements of fear or lack are present.
Week 4: Tuning to Ease & Flow
This group will focus largely on somatic experiencing, meaning that participants will be asked to engage with their bodies, utilizing posture and movement, to explore any emotions, thoughts, or physical sensations experienced. Group members will be given an opportunity to explore what it feels like to be seen via their artwork (and take up space) by being encouraged to work on a large scale with 2D materials. (Note: While working on a large scale can feel liberating for some, for others it may feel debilitating or overwhelming. Please trust that you are not alone. It is my hope to provide an empowering, safe space, so there is never any pressure to follow suit. However, I do suggest that you consider it as an opportunity to find where your boundaries are and where your “window of optimal potential” may be. Hint: This is usually just slightly outside of what you would call your “comfort zone” yet not so far removed that it invokes a severe survival response. It’s essentially where all of our growth happens.)
Week 5: Letting Go to Let it Grow
While the mind is extremely influential, it’s important to track the nature of our thoughts. Are our thoughts largely self-critical, judgmental, or fear-based? Where do you find you focus most— on what isn’t working or what is? This workshop is designed to help us consider how various aspects of our lives, our past experiences and what we make of them, have the power to transform not only how we move through the world, but our relationships— both to ourselves as well as others.
There’s belief and then comes faith… whether that be in yourself, your abilities, or something ethereal. Or even, that the necessary resources and cooperative components will be there when you need them.
Inspired by the Japanese artform, Kintsugi, individuals will have a chance to decorate & restore their very own ceramic pot. Historically, Kintsugi is the process of adhering broken pieces of pottery back together with gold leaf or silver. Essentially, this process utilizes the metaphor of creating something more uniquely valuable and beautiful than it was originally, after it’s “lived a little”. Participants will also be given an opportunity to (quite literally) plant their intentions for the coming year!