Smith Center for Healing and the Arts - community. creativity. support

This program has been cancelled. It will be rescheduled for a later date. 

with Liz Carren

This workshop will help you understand that by using your inner strength – your instincts – your courage – your “Dragons!” – and your imagination – you can find your inner strength to help you heal from the stresses that illness has created for all that are surrounded by it.

We will use quick timeouts of meditation(s) quietness for our minds and then use the ART you create as your muse, outlet, and expression. Fast projects will help to learn and experience how to “let it out” and let it go…. Ultimately, each participant will have a paper representation of the experience.

It’s fun, and no art background is needed. No need to be “an artist” -it’s free form, and no experience in art, painting or drawing is required or needed. All you need is yourself and an open mind.

The purpose of this workshop is to get used to thinking about what you feel in visual ways. Metaphors of colors, shapes, things, words, whatever! Having an outlet is essential –Dance, Music, Writing, “art,” whatever you choose is fine– I select drawing! In this workshop, we do two art projects/activities. The first uses watercolor for its freeing – and no one has to feel like they need to be a painter for our activity. Watercolor can go on the paper and do its own thing – with you as its guide. The second art project is using a continuous line at first, then addinI more lines, and maybe even color -scribbling to see what comes up and out.

We will look at our art pieces and discuss/chat/talk about feelings and fears that the drawings express and what we see in our art, but also, importantly- what others may see we may be missing. We will touch on fears, and the language we use to talk to ourselves and others, and how it can affect us.

Depending on how many participants want to share –  how many of us there are, and how much people want to share,  this workshop will be about 2 hours.

Suggested Materials:

• Watercolor paper (6-8 sheets – of any size size)
• Watercolor set … below are from https://www.michaels.com/search?q=watercolor
• Sharpie-like-pen (preferably NOT Ultra fine point- a “regular” one would be easier to use/see )
• Plain white paper

Suggested Donation: $10

About Liz Carren

I am a regular woman, artist, and a cancer patient/warrior survivor/thriver. Images and imagination got me to where I am today. During treatments, I started using visualizations to create my art. I began digging into the connection between creativity and healing. Art helped me sort out and understand what was happening in my body and life. I still use art for that purpose. I continue to create and run a small business called Caring Arts: The Intersection of Art, Medicine, and Healing. I create drawings as my journal and a “sorting” of my present life. I teach workshops on using creativity for stress release and to help overcome the fears of the unknown, Cancer -and otherwise. I give seminars on how art helped heal me. I also sell The Cancer Courage Card deck – 48 cards of positive life-affirming thoughts and prompts for discussion and journaling. I know that art is a powerful and courageous tool. I am lucky and living proof that art can help heal.

Social media: https://www.instagram.com/caring_artist/