Grandmother, mother, daughter.

I am invited to run a creative playshop with three generations of women. My heart warms and swells with delight.

Grandmother, mother, daughter.

Not only that, but I’ve met the grandmother and mother before.

Not only that, but the grandmother, Bridget, was in my VERY FIRST EVER ART WORKSHOP in 1993 at the Women’s Academy. There’s a blast from the past.

 

Ohhh the threads run deep and golden.

Weaving Women’s Creativity
Intergenerational art-making

I will take this opportunity to say

that the three women give me full permission to use their names and to share photos of them and their artwork.

It is highly unusual for me to identify a playshop participant. Please let me assure and reassure you, if you are a past, present or future Art and Soulie, that the work is confidential. Normally I am hesitant to show images of even the hands that make the art. However, these three wonderful women wish to share the joy.

Weaving Women’s Creativity
Intergenerational art-making

Back in 1993, Bridget witnessed my tentative beginnings as a creativity midwife. The course was called ‘Art for Heart’s Sake’. Several years later I dreamed up the name Art and Soul.

Dear Bridget then encouraged her daughter to attend a playshop. And lo. Her daughter, Sally M, roundly pregnant with her own first child, turned up in 1994.

Weaving Women’s Creativity
Intergenerational art-making

Fast (and Not-So-Fast) Forward to 2018. There have been a lot of years when I wasn’t in contact with either Bridget or Sally M.

Now, I get to meet Leni – Bridget’s granddaughter, Sally M’s daughter – the one who participated in a playshop from within the womb. We all come together.

 

Full circle.

Full Circle.
Hmmm interesting…It’s CALLED Full Circle, but the circle looks empty to me. Colourful, yet empty. I shared this image in a recent post about Playback Theatre. The circle is now being filled with colour. 

I have now been running Art and Soul for 25 years.

{Also, I am about to turn 60.} Gulp. I am ultra-aware of the age factoid and the passing of time. I happen to be attuned at the moment to reflection, review, resurgence, reconciliation and renewal. Plenty of the Re-stuff. There are also Re-grets thrown into the mix, but that’s another story.

Weaving Women’s Creativity
Intergenerational art-making

The Playshop.

I meet Leni for the first time. I don’t think I am the only one who sheds tears at the Full Circle-ness of the whole thing, the ReUnion, the Golden Thread weaving and wending its way through our overlapping stories and synchronicities. I am moved, honoured and grateful.

Yes. Definitely grateful.

Thank you, Bridget, Sally and Leni.

Thank you to the forces and opportunities that allowed me to support

the flourishment of three fine women in the Creative Love Exchange.

Weaving Women’s Creativity
Intergenerational art-making

May the circular, spirally lineage of women continue to create with care and confidence.

Weaving Women’s Creativity
Intergenerational art-making

with love, art and soul from Sally S