Join us to explore creativity and flow through drawing, movement and conversation. Using movement we will engage our body’s kinaesthetic and intuitive wisdom and through art we will make our mark literally and metaphorically in two days of creative exploration and practice.What supports our flow – and what hinders it? What can our images and movement tell us about our approach and response to life?
In this workshop we will combine inspiration from Eastern approaches to art-making with tai chi inspired movement and somatic awareness. Is it possible to re-imagine the shaping of ourselves – where we become a source of creativity and edge? Can we stimulate a flowing connectivity, finding relationship and meaning?
No previous experience of art, tai chi, or anything is necessary.
There are many similarities between body movement and mark making. Organising the body to work from a place of centre before action can apply to art and movement. Raising the Chinese brush and lower it onto the white page, how will this be done – with a busy mind or with a quiet mind? Where will your attention be? What may hinder or allow flow and importantly how do our beliefs, attitudes and even posture affect how we move forward with something?
“The body has inherent wisdom that could be described as a deep knowing in the system of what is balanced, what feels good or right. One could say that our body innately wants to heal there is a remembered truth deep inside of us that can be contacted. Our somatic awareness consists of sensing how we move and shape ourselves spatially and secondly it includes our capacities to sense into our internal feelings and sensations – to know what is going on inside, to pick up signals and tap into our instinctual and intuitive responses and knowing. This intelligence works much more quickly than our cognitive mind but often gets ignored, dismissed, muted or covered over by the activities of our cognitive mind.”
Paul King
“Creativity has enriched my understanding of the connection between our inner and outer worlds of experience. The creative process has enabled me to observe my journey as it deepens and develops. With painting I am free to enter a world without boundaries – a world of possibilities’
There is something special about a visual mark that can describe an inner response to an outer experience. We see it clearly on the paper for a moment. Observing the nature of a mark can bring our attention to certain patterns we may have or ways of approaching life. Do we start our drawing with a gentle line – or with a confident or harsh line? How do we feel in our body as we begin the exercise? Where on the page do we begin our drawing?”
Helen Garrett
If we can link our drawing to our body so that it flows in an unconscious way, we find that we may have access to information that can show us something new about ourselves. Just like the body making a somatic response to a trigger, we can look and say. “I didn’t realise but now I can see that…” The art making in this workshop is valuable in this way. We will work with the drawing tool as an extension of our body so line becomes natural and unhindered. We will all begin at the same place and there is no need for previous artistic or tai chi experience.
We aim to create a space where participants are held and encouraged to notice how their bodies reveal patterns and can create new possibilities for them. The body is our silent witness to our whole life. It holds our life’s narrative, our identity.
The workshop will offer an opportunity to explore:
A dynamic experience of fragmentation and wholeness
Ways to acknowledge and articulate inner experience
A creative sense of spaciousness and flow
Nurturing a calm and balanced centre
Practices to support a sense of cohesion and meaning in daily living
Helen Garrett is an exhibiting artist and has been working as a professional artist for many years, selling her paintings privately and through her representing gallery. She is also a workshop facilitator experienced in using art as a medium in which to explore transformation on all its levels. Within her teaching is an invitation to look again at the unique essence of the individual and the relational possibilities within each human life.
Paul King is an experienced coach, consultant and trainer and co-founder of The Beyond Partnership Ltd. He has a particular passion for, and expertise in, integral and somatic approaches to facilitate individual and social transformation. Paul is a teacher of tai chi, somatic intelligence, and conscious and leadership embodiment. He is also qualified in the Feldenkrais Method® (movement re-education) and is a certified NLP Trainer.
Click Creativity Flow 1 for a one page A4 summary leaflet.
Dates: tba
Fees: tba
Lunch and refreshments will be provided, there are a small number of bedrooms available at the venue.
Limited Places: The are 8 places available on this workshop
Venue: Cleeve House, Seend, Wiltshire, SN12 6PG
Cleeve House has a history connected with Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.
Booking: Please email info@thebeyondpartnership.co.uk with your name and invoicing address.
