SpiritWorks Early Spring Schedule (2010)

Journaling with Collage (series)

4 Thursdays, 2:00 – 5:00, March 4, 11, 25, and April 1

$120/person

These classes offer an opportunity for developing a visual communication with your intuition, as well as the witnessing of your process within a small, supportive group setting. We’ll explore a variety of approaches, all meant to trick your left brain into sleeping so your whimsy can come out to play!  We’ll create poetry using cut-out words, form collages out of a limited number of ripped images, and use negative space to find what comes to fill it, as well as experimenting with weaving images together and creating mosaics. 

Be ready to connect with all the small voices that have been whispering inside you.  By integrating all the pieces, you can discern the direction that’s calling.

                                         Touch Drawing

                                          Saturday, February 27, 10:00 – 1:00

                                          $35/person

This method of blind finger-painting developed by Deborah Koff-Chapin (touchdrawing.com) mixes the beauty of oil paints with the energy of your life experiences, so that you can behold the mystery on paper.  Starting by rolling out a thin film of paint onto a board, you place a blank sheet of paper on top, before moving your hands, fists, fingernails and palms across the surface.  Each movement creates an imprint on the bottom side of the paper, discovered only when the sheet is removed and turned over. 

Whether you want to release pain or simply uncover the patterns of your knowing, this process provides a magical means to healing and awareness.

                                                

                                                 Prayer Sticks

                                                               Saturday, March 27, 10:00 – 1:00

                                                               $35/person

Based on a Native American practice, we will create prayer sticks by wrapping yarns, ribbons, and fabric around branches that we each bring to class.  You may have a favorite tree you pass by on your walks.  Ask its permission to take a small branch (tradition suggests that it be equal in length from your elbow to your fingertips) that becomes a symbol of the essence you invite to hold the blessings in your life.  You may choose to add feathers that carry your prayers to the wind, like Tibetan prayer flags caught in the breeze. 

We’ll begin with a setting of intention before wrapping our sticks during silent prayer.  If you have a Native American flute, drum, rattle or other instrument, please bring them for a ritual we will create together, using our sticks to “plant” our prayers as we conclude our morning together.

Mask Making with Plaster Strips

Saturdays, April 17 and 24th, 10:00 – 1:00

$70/two classes

What mask did you don early in childhood, designed to keep you safe and to win approval?  It’s time to claim your natural exuberance and unique gifts through creating a mask that reflects your present awareness.  Perhaps you are able to see a power in your mask that you have yet to discover.  Perhaps your inspiration comes simply in discerning the face you have forgotten.

Working in pairs, we will mold wet plaster strips to our faces in the first class to create our masks.  (This is wet and messy, so wear old clothes and bring a hair band to hold back your hair.)  The second week, we will paint and decorate our masks, witnessing what has evolved for each participant. 

                                                  

                                        Three Self-Portraits

                                          Saturday, May 8, 10:00 – 1:00

                                          $35/person

This process creates an awesome illustration of how our brains work!  We’ll begin by looking in our mirrors, and drawing what we see.  This taps into the symbolic knowing that typifies our left brains, often reflecting what we think we see more than what is actually in front of us. Next, we’ll repeat this exercise, using only a few lines, and not looking at the paper at all.  This allows our right brains to speak, often in surprising ways.  Finally, we’ll create a self-portrait with modified blind contour – drawing looking only occasionally at our paper.  This allows both sides of our brains to cooperate, creating portraits that are sure to be “better” than you imagine you’re capable of drawing.