Mindful Making
Mindful Making is Creative Fitness. It is taking care and attention with the health, growth and well-being of the creative spirit we all share. We can do it alone, but in groups there is an extra energy.
I've worked out workshops focussed on a different "portals" into the areas of ordinary creativity, personal creativity--- that middle world between the conscious work of daily living and the self-conscious work of making art.
Ordinary Creativity is something we all already practice to some degree. We have to. We were born "makers" We make a life for ourselves, we make families, friends; we make deals, dinner, mistakes and trouble. Humans Make... and in the tradition of Animism: Things get made through humans. Everything Matters. Again, Mattering is what humans help the rest of reality do. There is a language of Mattering. Things can speak for us. you can learn to listen betterand be a better Maker. Blah, blah, blah.
If this twisted form of Jungian Archetypal Psychology and Practical Animism is really true, then I should not need words, words and more words to make it so. This is why I am doing a series of short, 2-hr, introductory workshops... I find that 2 hours is just enough time to start people off on this crooked path.
Courses, Workshops and Seminars
- Imaginal Trading Cards: a form of a growing popular art form called Artist's Trading Cards. It's small --- 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" cards, often old playing cards. I use the word "imaginal" to help keep it aimed at certain themes I have found more powerful than others.--usually at the shadow side of living, the unspoken, the whispered. We try to catch that spark into these little cards. But on a simple level, you make ---and trade--- just small collages.
- Tool Making: practical and hyperpractical. Here we explore the making process of spoons, forks, knives and well as other tools for collecting and directing energy, often called "wands". In Tool Making, we repair old hand tools and make new ones.