WORKSHOPS & CLASSES

Creativity exists in the space between what we experience and how we respond to what we experience. The more vast that internal space becomes, the more capacity we have to choose our response. Creativity lives in this choice.

Life is full of large and small ruptures and traumas that make it feel nearly impossible to be present for each moment of experience. When we cannot be present, we lose the space to make choices. In effect, we lose access to our creativity. These ruptures and traumas create our inner critics, our creative blocks, and our deeply rooted shame and doubt that sabotage our innate creativity.

Each Meditate & Create workshop is designed as a relaxing, safe, and creative space for participants to land in the present moment safely and pleasantly and reinvigorate our creativity from there. Every workshop is grounded in a theme related to creativity and introspection and guides the nuances within guided meditations, art projects, writing, and discussion. Longer workshops also include yoga for every body.

All materials are provided. Each workshop benefits new and experienced artists and meditators.

See below for a full list of my offerings.

For the most up-to-date information please join my mailing list and follow me on social media. Contact me directly to book a workshop or retreat in your space.

Workshop

Types

Drop-in Workshops (2.5 hours)

Drop-in workshops combine meditation, expressive arts, writing, poetry, and discussion to explore a specific theme. The art process is intuitive and expressive. These classes are much like yoga classes for your creativity in that you can show up with any level of experience and expect a guided experience from beginning to end that is geared toward relaxation, introspection, and creativity. Show up, drink tea, relax, explore, and play.

Weekend Workshops (or 3-session series):

Weekend workshops are expansions of evening workshops that also include gentle yoga for every body and more developed art projects. Each session builds on the one before, deepening the process and serving to expand the creative and introspective themes out into one's life as well as further develop specific artistic techniques.

Psycreativity Retreats (or 6-session series)

Psycreativity refers to the overlap between creativity and psychology. These retreats invite a deepening of weekend and evening workshops toward more focused introspection. Depending on the theme, these retreats explore inner and outer journeys, spirituality of creativity, the art of self-knowing, and themes from depth psychology such as dreamwork, archetypes, and individuation. These retreats are specifically for people who are seeking deeper self-knowing.

Weekend Workshops

(or 3-session series)

Meditate & Create your own Symbol
Through meditation, writing, movement, and research, participants will come up with their own personal symbol. They will explore what it means to them and create a piece of art out of clay that exhibits the multifaceted personal and meaningful image.

Meditate & Create your own mixed-media Butterfly Painting
Butterflies have been considered symbols of transformation throughout history and many cultures. They summon self-renewal after trauma, soul rebirth, and longing. Through this workshop, participants will be guided through meditation, writing and art techniques that allow them to discover their own connection to the ancient and living symbol of the butterfly and explore mixed media painting, drawing and collage techniques to create their own large-scale butterfly image.

Meditate & Create your own Mandala
The ancient image of the mandala symbolizes many aspects of human consciousness and meaning. Mandalas serve as tools for contemplation in Buddhist traditions, symbols of the Self or of wholeness in contemporary analytic psychology, mirrors for the true self, representations of inner and outer sacred space, devices for focusing attention and reducing anxiety, and beautiful and intricate works of art. Through this workshop, participants will be guided through meditation, writing and art techniques that allow them to discover their own symbols. They will use these symbols and a combination of drawing and painting to create beautiful and meaningful mandalas imbued with intentions, mindfulness, and meaning.

Meditate & Create your own mixed-media Animal Spirit Painting
Symbolic of our instinctual natures, animals have long been revered as totems and messengers of our deeper, energetic, and embodied selves. Through this workshop, participants will be guided through meditation, writing and art techniques that allow them to connect to instinctual energies and animal- related symbolism. Through mixed-media collage, participants will create their own beautiful and meaningful animal spirit painting representing the instinctual energies needed for the participant’s creativity and inner knowing.

Meditate & Create your own mixed-media Vision Board

Workshop participants will be guided through meditation, writing and collage techniques that allow them to build their own symbolic and working vision boards and practices. Participants will learn a variety of mixed media techniques, meditation practices, mindful movement (yoga for all bodies), and self- reflection through writing and discussion. Participants will leave with their own vision board, new insights and tools to attend to blocks of our life visions, and a deeper sense of connection to our creative centers.

Meditate & Create your own Painted Garden

This workshop is for those of us who love plants of all kinds, even imaginary. Inspired by traditional botanical drawing along with painters such as Henri Rousseau, and Georgia O’Keefe, Vincent vanGogh, Lucila Dominguez, and Claude Monet, we will create our own visual garden with graphite, ink, and watercolor. We will explore the symbolism of plants, our own symbols, and the metaphors of planting seeds, watering, and tending in our creative lives. participants will be guided through meditation, writing and art techniques that allow them to create their own botanical artwork. We will explore literal and metaphorical plants—edible, decorative, medicinal, and rejected (ie. Weeds)—and learn to plant and tend our inner gardens.

Meditate & Create your own Creative Spirit Decorative Mask
Masks have been used throughout human time to connect with creative and transcendent spirits and energies. Healers have worn masks to connect to archetypal healing energy, actors wear masks to channel the spirit of their characters, and some cultures hang masks in places to invite spirits to the space or protect it from unwanted energies. Beyond the function, masks offer beautiful mirrors for human experience, emotion, energy, and design. Through this three-part workshop, participants will use found and recycled materials along with paint, collage and assemblage techniques to create their own mask. The meaning of this mask will be discovered through guided meditation, journaling, and expressive arts activities. Whether your mask is for summoning your creative spirit, for engaging with your inner critic, or for representing your truest self, you will leave with a beautiful mask to hang on your wall, deeper meaning about creative energies in your life, and plenty of relaxation.

Meditate & Create your own Inner Archetypal Artist Portrait

This is inspired by Frida Kahlo’s art of self-knowing. Kahlo was a quintessential example of someone who lived deeply in and through her symbolic and creative life. She painted her longing, her direct embodied experiences, and truest self. She painted her reality thereby transforming her suffering. In this workshop, participants will be guided through meditation, writing and art techniques that allow them to create their own Frida Kahlo-esque portrait with acrylic painting and transfer techniques. Participants will learn how to explore their internal experiences, discover their own symbols, and transform themselves and their suffering through painting and contemplation.

Meditate & Create your own Creativity Talisman with fiber arts
A talisman is any object imbued with spiritual or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom these objects are made. Talismans have been used in many cultures and civilizations throughout history for a wide variety of intentions including personal healing, aiding in creative goals, cultivating love, helping plants grow, and protection in battle. In a way, a talisman in the physical embodiment of an important intention.

In this workshop, participants will discover and explore important intentions and symbols through meditation, journaling, and expressive arts activities. They will then take those intentions and symbols and create their own unique talisman using mixed-media assemblage and fiber arts techniques.

Meditate & Create your own Miniature House

Workshop participants will be guided through meditation, writing and art techniques that allow them to build their own symbolic and miniature house. Each house will have a specific meaning to the participants. Whether one builds a house of creativity, a soul house, a house for your inner child, a miniature art studio, or a dream house, we will explore facets of the symbolism of houses as they relate to our creativity, imagination, minds, bodies and dreams. Participants will learn a variety of techniques for building and decorating miniature buildings, meditation, mindful movement (yoga for all bodies), and self-reflection through writing and discussion. Participants will leave with their own miniature house and a rich exploration of what it means to them.

Psycreative Workshop/Retreat Themes
6-class series or week-long retreat

Prerequisite: previous attendance at a drop-in or weekend/series workshop

Create your life, Create yourself
We are constantly creating ourselves and our lives. Whether or not we identify as an “artist”, we each engage with creativity on a daily basis. The more we learn about this, the more creative agency we have in creating the life we want to live, becoming who were born to be, and answering the deepest callings of our souls.

Through this week-long retreat or 6-session workshop series, you will learn how to connect to your own personal symbols and how to find deeper meaning and purpose in your life. This workshop is a Meditate & Create expansion series, deepening the usual processes into well-developed art pieces, deeper practices of self- knowing, and more development of a group community process. We will utilize art, meditation, journaling, and movement, as well as reflect on short reading assignments. This workshop is based on [my own/Megan’s] development of understanding creativity as a psychological and archetypal process explored in the psycreative cycle. By tracking our own process and progress on this cyclical map, we unlock our creative blocks, find lost and valuable pieces of ourselves, and move deeper into who we were born to be.

This series will culminate in the creation of your own vision-board and practice (for Inspiration- collage), the discovery and creation of your own personal symbols to be used as guidance in your creative life (Integration-3D), and the creation of a one-of-a kind mixed-media collage painting (Inquiry). You will leave with resources and practices to continue this inner process at home and enjoy a deepening group process.

Co-creating with your Dreams
This workshop series is built around the creative practice of paying attention to our night dreams as messages from the unconscious. By doing this, we gather information about our deeper callings, true purpose, and fullest expression of ourselves. We move away from who others tell us we are supposed to be, and more toward who we really are. We find guidance, meaning, and connection with ourselves.

During this workshop series/retreat, we will explore our dreams through painting, drawing, collage, and clay as well as through meditation, journaling, active imagination, movement, and dream-tending practices to build a relationship to our deepest archetypal Self. You will walk away with an active dream-journal practice, a dream-based sculpture, painting, and drawing, and a connection to yourself and a community of introspective and creative humans.