stairway to play, creativity, sharing, community
This year has been a fast and furious one, with no time to do my usual workshops in “The Playpen”, the name I call our workplace where I live. Many years ago, when our fourth child was born, we created an area that we called The Playpen, where children could play and not be threatened by the wildlife here. Back then it was also used as a tennis court. Over the years we have let it go and now there is an uneven surface, turf torn, net gone, but it is perfect for playful creative practice. We erected a small stage, from the set of the play Eve, the first of my Trilogy and threw in Eve’s bathtub where she would “write the lines of shape and shadow”. We have tables and umbrellas and a fireplace for the cold evenings.
Outside PlayPen
So, because I have not had my usual three day workshop this year, I decided to invite colleagues out to play. Over the years I have formed groups of women and men to engage in creative practice. One of these groups from two years ago was called “Writing My Way Forward”. We have a Facebook page and keep in touch sporadically. I contacted the writers, along with our “Women in Theatre Bridge Club”, a political group of women endeavouring to work towards gender parity in our theatre industry–you will hear more of this group in the new year–and we decided to meet at The Playpen and hold a salon, a place of sharing stories. I set up inside the house this time: the sky was threatening rain. Our living room studio is perfect for creative work, full of hundreds of books and paintings of all calibre. I set up for collage: piles of magazines, pastels, pencils, glue sticks and cartridge paper. I made brownies, cheese plate, lemon water and three different teas. People began to arrive with plates of delicious food to share, we poured our tea and began.
Far less formal than a workshop, the salon provided opportunities for the group to inform each other. We began with a sort of informal check in sharing where we were at. I love checking in, be it over a coffee with a friend or a workshop with three hundred people. It is a chance to hear where people are physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We heard about some of the changes that have happened for people, some of the dreams that still have to awaken, some of the achievements this year had allowed. All of the themes were relevant for everyone: we were all artists, most of us were mothers of varying aged children, and we all dealt with the issue of wedding our artistic life with our domestic living and at the same time earn a living. The importance of self care for the artist was emphasised, it always is when artists get together at The Playpen: we try to do too much for too many and then wonder why we feel burned out.
After about the fourth person’s check in, one of the guests opened a large box of pencils. That was interpreted by the group as permission to begin and so while we were chatting, the creative work began: drawing, doodling, tearing out words and images from tens of magazines. We continued this way for the next few hours, only stopping to refill our teacups and indulge in the treats on the table next to us.
On completion of our collages, we talked about what we could see: what images sat next to other images, shapes, size, colour, intensity, that sort of thing. Normally, if this was a workshop, I would help guide the unpacking of the collage, pointing out different things that I saw. This would then be opened up to the group, who, with careful use of language (no assumptions or interpretations are needed) tell their own story in relation to the person’s collage. Eg. “When I see that I think of…” All of these stories add data to our own understanding of what “we don’t know we know”. This way of working has been highly influenced by several approaches to understanding: MIECAT, a creative arts institution based in Melbourne, which focuses on finding meaning through art making; and COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE (Taos Institute), a postmodern way of being in the world that embraces multiplicity of self and other, multiplicity of stories and an awareness of the environment that contributes to the situation at hand. In our salon, the unfolding of meaning happened collaboratively. We all responded in our own time to what was happening in front of us: what we saw, what we felt, what we heard and what we imagined.
What emerged last evening interested me enormously and took me back to Greece last month, where I co-facilitated with Dr. Jean Houston and Jennifer Evanko. We experienced an “Aesclepion Group Dream”, where parts of one person’s dream were relevant to all. This is what happened with our collaging: we could take parts of our fellow traveller’s collage and apply it to our own lives. This expanded and enriched our own meaning.
What I love about collage is that everyone can do it. People rarely feel confronted with the task. I issued no instructions this time (usually I do) and people approached it all differently. Some started with doodling, some doodling turned into symbols. Some began drawing and then built on the drawing with images from magazines. I like to have a wide variety of magazines available and one of my favourite are the old National Geographic. But you can just as easily do it with contents from your handbag or brief case. Or your top drawer.
As I look at my collage this morning I can see it has two distinct sides to it, divided by a beautiful image of an actor standing in the centre of a floor filled with faces. The room has an ancient feel to it: a great hallway in the true tradition of the hallway, where everything happened, not so much a hallway today, a passage to somewhere else. Though as I look at this image I see that it is a passage to the imagination. This central image is the one I am ‘indwelling’, applying it to constructs inside my head, experiencing it, dreaming it. Images have power in them and if we allow time to absorb that force it can give gifts of transformation. I notice in the lower right hand corner an orange chair, a chair for storytelling, for dreaming. It is empty.
As I write this post, my friend calls from USA. And I immediately think: no, the chair was waiting. I place myself in the chair and hold my telephone (in fact it is a computer) and we begin to talk. We are creating new stories together, trips to ancient lands to rediscover the potential and possibilities of our future selves. A time to reflect and grow new ways of being in the world. We chat for a long time about different things, including what Jean Houston calls Terma: here is a link that will give you an idea of what a Terma is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terma_(religion),
An idea, a symbol that we can plant in our past and in our future so that we can to move towards a purity of action. What can I do in this world to make it a place of nurture, of wonderment for the community at large?
Everything we do can contribute to enlarging the joy and aliveness of each day. Our salon of yesterday has enriched all of us. As I move through today I have firmly inside the images that I arranged (subconsciously) onto some cartridge paper. I have images that my colleagues chose. All swimming around inside my head. And I have a phone call positioned in my orange chair in the lower right quadrant, reminding me of the dreams for 2016. Soon we will be inviting you all to be part of that dreaming.
My intention today:
May today be a day of richness. May every image that enters our consciousness enrich us in some capacity and move us forward towards an authenticity of awareness, deep attentiveness and joy: the secrets of character.
I love finding old journals. There is always a little magic between the pages...
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.Here you will find some more information about this project:
NAME: "My Re-Enchantment Project"
This is a 5 month indwelling of creative practice.
You will create your own project in community with like-minded artists, and at the same time, expose your practice to new ways of seeing.
You will participate in a range of different workshops by leading arts practitioners.
You will engage in Bootcamp writing sessions as well as one-on-one coaching sessions with Dr. Margi Brown Ash.
MY RE-ENCHANTMENT PROJECT IS ABOUT TO BE BEGIN
An image from my play EVE 4change coaching has been operating firstly out of Metro Arts for nearly 2 decades, and now out of Pullenvale, in the leafy western suIt has been very exciting to hear from you all in response to this soon-to-be-realized-project. Just like me (every time I have a major deadline), there are artists out there who seek out consistent support in order to get their work done, and this support goes beyond their director or dramaturg or editor or best friend or supervisor. Someone who is committed to you turning up as your best self and at the same time turning in your best work.
As research, I have been enrolled in four online courses in the last year to suss out what works for me and what doesn't.
I have decided that it is the facilitator's personal interest in the artist and their work that is the magic, not 'one size fits all'. So I think, for this to work, and for it to work impeccably, we need to get to know each other, work together and then have online options when we can't work face to face. This is my preferred way and I hope it sounds good to you.
Our next step, is an email from you to me, expressing why you want to be part of this cohort. I am wanting this project to be accessible, nurturing, exciting, expanding, innovative, crazy-fun and life-changing. I am wanting to dedicate July to December 2020 to this way of being.
Thank you! I so love my community, and at a time when sector support is quite thin on the ground, the work still has to be done, and I am committed to help you do it.
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.What if there was a group of artists working at getting a project up and needed some mentoring/coaching support to move towards completion?
This idea has emerged over several years: I have had some big deadlines in the last few years, and so many times I wished-like-crazy that I had a tribe of collaborators who were there, writing alongside me (on different projects usually) on a regular basis. My dream is to set this up for artists: your writing sessions each week would consist of gathering, drinking tea and then settling down to some serious 25-minute stints of writing-5 minute break-25 minutes again and so on. A four hour writing session where I encourage you, and you encourage each other to write, or you may be painting, or choreographing, or researching...the only criteria is that it is creative and that you are keen to finish your project.
Have a read below and if it is of interest, then contact me: send a text or email 4change@iinet.net.au or a PM. Thank you!
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.simple instructions for profound change.
The A-Z of Poses: Asana Guide to Ardha Chandrasana - The BioMedical Institute of Yoga & Meditation
Find out the benefits, Contradictions & Cautions, Preparatory & Counter poses, Variations, Modifications, and tips of the asana pose Ardha Chandrasana.