What got you through?

Posted on January 3, 2020 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

FoRest

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

What helped you rest and recharge in 2019?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

What sustained you, even through difficult times?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

What elements of sustenance would you like to carry with you into 2020?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest

I created a participatory community installation.

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

Here’s the blurb that went on the wall next to the artwork.

FoRest

was conceived, created and coordinated by Sally Swain

with the Older Women’s Network and

Newtown Wellness Centre community.

Fallen branches were gradually gathered from Kangaroo Valley, Nielsen Park, Annandale and Forest Lodge.

They were assembled into the FoRest sculpture during the 2019 bushfire emergency, when swathes of forest – plants and animals –

were lost around Australia.

Participants were invited to consider what helps bring them rest or sustenance, then to express this on leaf shapes

to attach to the branches.

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

Let’s together

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

build

creative community

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

to sustain ourselves,

each other and the earth.

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

FoRest participatory community artwork
Sally Swain
with Older Women’s Network/ Newtown Wellness Centre
What got you through the year?

So….what got YOU through?

What might continue to sustain you?

with love, art and soul

from Sally

PS In the vein

of sustain

of Sally Swain
Art and Soul Space

will not race

to post

the most.
At least until June, I intend to shift posting from fortnightly to the first Friday of each month. Reluctantly, I say au revoir until Friday 7th February. I look forward to hanging out with you again then.
If you wish to stay in the Arty Soulful loop, there’s always

the Art and Soul e-newsletter (just contact me to subscribe) or

Sally Swain Art on Facebook.

Creativity at your fingertips

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

I love working with carers. And carers of carers.

I love working with creativity, self-care, nourishment and sustenance.

Breathing light
and space
and air
into places
where
we care

So I sprang into the opportunity to offer an arty self-care presentation

to Sydney Local Health District carers

as part of their ‘Revitalising the Carer Conversation’ forum.

Carers. I empathise. I am one.

There are a gazillion of us, quietly (or noisily) behind the scenes, holding it all together, not necessarily identifying ourselves as carers. We provide the stitching you don’t see. Many of us barely keep ourselves stitched together.

Some carers don’t let themselves remove focus from their caree for even a day. Or a few minutes.

Caring can be Wearing. The popular representation goes like this: ‘Caring is rewarding and can sometimes be challenging’. Shhh. Between you, me and the crumbly gatepost, try this: ‘Caring is challenging and can sometimes be rewarding’.

Breathing light
and space
and air
into places
where
we care

Here are some almost-stats. I know. Unusual for me to offer something numeric.

Carers provide many billions of dollars worth of unpaid labour in Australia.

Carers are the single most unhealthy segment of the population. I find this extraordinary. Really? Apparently so.

If I wore a hat, I’d take it off to those full-time live-in carers of a disabled son or daughter or a dementing spouse or an adult child living with psychosis. These folk live round the clock with their whole entire world revolving around the cared-for person.

I could go on.

Creativity at Your Fingertips

Creativity at your fingertips
10 easy access points to visual expressive creativity for well-being

I facilitated the carers and carers-of-carers to engage in Sacred Scribble, play with colour and

Continue reading →

Celebrating Women Artists

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

and

Saint Greta of Earth Action
Penny Ryan
from Still/Rage exhibition

our

Two stories did collide; oyster beds
Dr Sarah-Jane Moore
from exhibition
I Know Where Oysters Lie

creative

Art and Soul
a woman creates
in Art Garden playshop

power.

bush truck
Janine McAullay Bott
from Sculpture by the Sea

What

Continue reading →

Creature Conversations

Posted on November 8, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Creature Conversations
Sally Swain art

Who knew these little winged beings would emerge?

I admit I’m rather fond of them.

Creature Conversations was created over four separate chats with fabulous art therapists. I found it an intriguing way to approach art-making – keeping one piece going over several different exchanges.

Conversation one
with the Dotties – an art therapist peer support group I am blessed to have in my life.

Laying down tissue,

adding paint,

gently watching

the watercolour run,

seep,

move across the mini-landscape

Creature Conversations
Sally Swain art
One

Conversation two
It turns out a respected, experienced art therapist is seeking me out for supervision. I am honoured.

Surrounding,

linking

background colours appear.

I spread out.

Creature Conversations
Sally Swain art
Two

Conversation three
with my lovely colleague about Leaf-by-Leaf project possibilities. We spark. We are dually inspired.

I look at the picture so far.

I see blobs and shapes

that could be little critters.

I draw them forth with texta.

First, a butterfly.

Then a winged cat.

This is truly fun.

Creature Conversations
Sally Swain art
Three

Conversation four

in which a colleague generously listens to what’s been happening in my world. She helps me reconnect with the ground of being.

Earth swirls appear.

Lightly.

Yes – the whole thing is watery,

yet

I have a sense of earth and sky.
It’s elemental.

Creature Conversations
Sally Swain art
Four

Do you

ever make art

while on the phone?

Creature Conversations
Sally Swain art

Oh yeah – I am not great at figuring out how to link up my social media stuff, but I recently joined Instagram. I’m artandsoul.sally . Creature Conversations appears Instagramatically.

with love, art and soul
Sally

Sometimes you’ve just gotta

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

go to your Happy Place.

Pink and Green
Ode to a Tree
Sally Swain art

Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
Get out of the house, your worrybrain, your care duties and connect with nature.

Once there, you don’t know what you might do.

Turns out, Late Middle-Aged to Early-Old Crazy Art Lady lurks in a small soft corner of your soul. Out she comes! No shame, that one. No self-consciousness. She will direct you.

So you

Continue reading →

Teacup Galaxy

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Ruby specialises in galaxies.

Galaxy of Ruby Brilliant

Watercolour shapes and galaxies.

Delicate pastel watercolour shapes with fluid interiors and defined edges…

and galaxies.

Teacup and Galaxy
Jennie and Ruby
mother/child art

Niece Ruby is thirteen. She’s found her artist medium and content. For now.

The labour of love,

the neural pathway-powering concentration,

the exquisite immersion in detail.

The calm, the absorption, the creativity, the flow.

Not for her the formulaic, dehydrated art education on offer in many early high school classes.

For her, the uniqueness of it.

The specific layering of materials.

Watercolour brilliants, an aquabrush, a facial tissue, some glue, a white pen.

It doesn’t take much space to be a slender thirteen year old expanding ever-outwards into interplanetary dream play.

Her mum adds a teacup, an earth, a teapot. Ruby decorates it.

Teacup, Earth and Galaxy
Ruby and Jen
mother/child art

I come in,

Continue reading →

What we stand for is what we stand on

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Climate Strike
Sydney
September

Listen to the voices.

Climate Strike
Sydney
September

Climate Strike
Sydney
September

Speak the words.

Climate Strike
Sydney
September

Be together.

Climate Strike
Sydney
September

Extinction Rebellion’s
Red Rebels at the Climate Strike Sydney September

You

Continue reading →

Art, Love and Realness

Posted on September 13, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

We are Pod.

We are.

We.

My little Pod group formed randomly … or was it laced around some invisible design?

After Australia’s election in May, I felt a strong urge towards community, to be with like-hearted people. I sent out an email to maybe twelve creative arts therapists to get together, to lament, to make art, to see what emerged.

Art, Love, Realness
in the Pod
Sally Swain art-in-relationship
Transforming Grief into Gold

Four of us turned up on the day. We bonded immediately.

We became Pod.

Pod is for grieving, expressing our true feelings, making art and, importantly, eating too much cake. We’ve now met several times. We don’t necessarily talk politics or big picture stuff. We speak whatever matters to us at the time.

ART, LOVE AND REALNESS

was

my impassioned happy-slogan

in meeting three.

Pod gathering number four begins. We have cake on our plates. We have art materials at our fingertips. We have landed.

I slap down a bit of collage. It gives me a ground; a starting point. How about a pre-painted magazine page and a paint-dabbed tissue?

Art, Love, Realness
in the Pod beginnings
Sally Swain art-in-relationship

I notice the letter W right there in the centre, on its side. Can you see it? I pause. W? What might that mean to me right now? Straight away the answer comes. It stands for ‘We’.

It stands for the ‘We’ of Pod.

It’s a reminder of community, of interdependence. It tells me I don’t have to try and figure out my life, my work, my struggles, on my own. Even as I write this sentence, I breathe out a sighhh. It is so easy to get caught up in individualism, where I think I have to solve problems in my busy head; where I have to be a self-made woman and put myself out in the world.

Do you relate? ‘Making it on your own’ is so embedded and idealised in our culture. Such pressure. Anyway, it’s a myth. Nobody truly succeeds on their own. Always, someone somewhere sometime is supporting us.

I write a little ‘e’ next to the W. We.

Art, Love, Realness
in the Pod
Sally Swain art-in-relationship

I paint a Pod. I write the word ‘We’ lots and lots of times. The word becomes weird and funny, but demands to proliferate.

Art, Love, Realness
in the Pod
Sally Swain art-in-relationship
We We We We We

Gold arrives.

Art, Love, Realness
in the Pod
Sally Swain art-in-relationship
Gold arrives

More white tissue beckons. Laying it down is a bit like a tourniquet. Ew. Suddenly I don’t like the picture. It looks like blood and a bandage. We-e-elll …Pod was kind of forged in blood. And a community of ART, LOVE AND REALNESS is incredibly healing.

Art, Love, Realness
in the Pod
Sally Swain art-in-relationship
Transforming Grief into Gold

I still don’t particularly like the picture, but I want to share with you the sustaining spirit of ‘We’. I want to live in the Creative Love Exchange.

(Here’s another post about seeking solace in creative community)

Along those lines, here’s a wee (We) community noticeboard.

Let me link you to upcoming offerings

of several non-Pod Sydney art therapists.

Penelope James: Sydney Art Therapy Group for Therapists in Glebe over 6 Tuesday evenings from 15^th October www.arTTi.com.au

Anne Buckingham: Art + Mental Wellbeing workshops at Lane Cove Gallery in September info@gallerylanecove.com.au

Gabriel Lawrence: Embrace your Inner Superhero (for women) in Ryde on Saturday 14^th September http://www.into-arts.com.au

Romny Vandoros: is to co-lead one of her Artful Retreats…in Crete! October 1^st to 4^th. https://www.artfulretreats.com/crete-4-days?fbclid=IwAR2nJKgrvf67-jnLhxqYK4ohJrrqz2d5MuzGl1n_isXpMX891JNJw4aTjZI

Phillipa Tayler: A Creative Look at Chronic Pain several Monday mornings in Willoughby https://www.workshoparts.org.au/course/ArtTherapyChronicPain

Roxy Taylor: The Benefits of Art Therapy in Residential Aged Care podcast https://www.wisecare.com.au/blog/episode2

Oh yes. There’s me. Sally Swain: I have one or two spots in Creative Wellspring on Saturday 21st September in Glebe, Sydney.

We are ART THERAPY ABUNDANCE!

with love, art and soul from Sally

How do you convert pain to gain?

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

How do you transform rottenness to hope?
Dispirited dillusionment to forward-looking possibility?

Why, through relational art-making.

Golden Fish Friends Find Healing and Repair
Sally Swain art

I admit. Relational art-making, or art-making all on your ownsome, is no panacea. It’s not for everyone, or for all the time. And it doesn’t always succeed in its mission of enhancing wellbeing.

But it’s a damn good tool and resource, literally at our fingertips,

that can help

with easing difficulty

and re-orienting us to a sense of OKness.

I get together with an art therapist friend/colleague to talk about possible collaborations.
But first, we need to debrief difficulties. We’ve both been in situations where we felt disrespected and we’ve both been ill as a result.

I tear up – no, not cry – though I’ve done my weepy share of that. I tear up pieces of paper. I rip a pre-painted greenish collage magazine page, a pinky-mauve sponged page and some vivid green tissue.