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About Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Artist, author, arts therapist, creative purpose coach, creative arts therapist mentor and supervisor based in Sydney, Australia

Flying by the Light of the Moon

Art Therapy and Attunement

The phrase ‘Fly by Night Work’ appeared to me in a dream.

It spoke of intuitive aspects of the art therapist’s journey with clients, in particular, clients living with deep dementia.

bird moon art Sally Swain

Night Flying Work
Sally Swain © original art
excerpt

The client might no longer be

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Have you had your Beauty Fix today?

I was tired. I yearned to be in a quiet, dark place, but had to go into the city, to the dentist. Ergh. Trudge trudge drudge. I yearned and yawned. I dragged my feet along the pavement. Pound pound sludge.

window flower display art

Chrysalis
Sally Swain © original art

Then I saw it.

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How to Grow a

Delicatree.

tree art painting Sally Swain

Delicatree
Sally Swain © original art

A PAINTAGE RECIPE

Ingredients:

  • a palette of squodgy leftover paint from your residential aged care art therapy clients
  • patterns, textures and colours from magazines of any era
  • a cup of expressive slapdashery
  • a cup of order-making quietitude
  • a black felt pen
  • a goodly dose of tenderness
  • a slug of love
  • immeasurable commitment to creative process

Method:

 

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Lateral Grieving for

the Queen of Blobbage (pronounced in the French way).

Lateral Grieving.

lateral grieving watercolour art

Lateral Grieving
for the Queen of Blobbage
Sally Swain © original art

Who’s heard of it?

Not you. Not me before now, because

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Bricolage. A fancy name for

making do.

With bricolage, you play with the materials at hand, even if they are old soggy paint-logged facial tissues.

‘These magical acts of creation are analogous to pulling a large amount of rabbit from a small amount of hat.’ 

says Stephen Nachmanovitch in ‘Free Play – the Power of Improvisation in  Life and the Arts’. *

bricolage tissue watercolour painting

Dabflowers
Sally Swain © original art
picture made from other people’s leftover paint tissues, plus glue, watercolour, pen.
Quite 3 dimensional. Coiled tissue pirals in the centre.

Remember a couple of

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