The BioArtback Loop

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Art Balm

Art as a balm,
a source of calm

flows through your heart,
your hand,
your arm.

The Fish with Hearts for Eyes (detail)

You paint a world.

You cook a soup.

Intermingle (detail)

You feed
the
BioArtback Loop.

Heartbeat (detail)

Art as a balm,
a source of calm

flows through your heart,
your hand,
your arm.

You paint a world.

You cook a soup.

You feed
the
BioArtback Loop.

Living with Water (detail)

I am a bit excited about the concept of BioArtback Loop.

Tell me what you think it means…

What it might mean to you?
I haven’t yet quite put it into words.

with love, art and soul

from Sally

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.

Wild Pink Flower

Posted on July 19, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Houses Tiny Worlds

Can you paint grumpiness into joy?

Wild Pink Flower Houses Tiny Little Worlds

The microscopic transformations

of making one small picture

ripple through the pages of personhood,

radiating ever outwards.

Grumpy. Tired. Hyper-vigilant.

Stray shreds of tissue. Let’s make a beautiful flower with spiral centre.

Oh no! It’s a grumpy tired spider flower.

Bright. Too bright.

Spiky. Too spiky.

Art doesn’t lie.

Can’t let the world see me like this.

Too Bright. Too Spiky.
Art Doesn’t Lie.

Paint over, paint over.

Paint pink, white, gold.

Vigorous. Begin to feel better, calmer. Practise the art of upliftment.

But it’s pretty. Too pretty. Sweet. Too sweet.

Pretty It Up

During creative community pod gathering, add pre-painted magazine page.

Viscous, white on shiny, black paper.

Define, strengthen, re-introduce the truth.

Bring substance and depth.

Friend says, ‘I can see tiny little worlds behind the petals’.

Bring in the black and white. The spine. The substance.

Later. Black fine-liner. Scribble, scrawl with restless, artful purpose.

Red oil crayon. Swirl firm spiral centre. Scrape side across the raised dry tissue texture. Feel the old skin and know what’s beneath.

Voila.

Rough and smooth.

Concealed and revealed.

Authentic layers of life.

Joy.

Wild Pink Flower Houses Tiny Little Worlds

(Here’s another Tiny Worlds post.)

with love, art and soul from Sally

Gnome Sweet Gnome?

Posted on February 15, 2019 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

or Gnome Bittersweet Gnome?

Confession One:

I do like a fairy garden.

There. I came out and said it. Does that make me twee? Not just any fairy garden. It has to be tongue-in-cheek, ideally with social meanings, a political message, or just a plain crazy-offbeat combination of miniatures.

Gnomes are OK, as long as you’re aware of their inborn kitschness.

Unlikely friends

Confession Two:

I easily tune into brokenness these days.

Loss, dying and dementia wrap around my personal and professional spheres. I notice and respond to the sorrows of those around me. I guess I have a negativity bias. Do you?

They say it’s commonly human to focus in on the one negative thing in an armful, a roomful, a lifestyle-full of health, love and glitter. Yeah, well, didn’t the Buddha say, ‘Life is suffering’? And that it helps to be with it, look at it, breathe it in; not always run away, or always crave something better.

Even if I’ve lost my hat, I welcome you

But hey – the purpose of this blog is to cultivate creativity, and creativity isn’t just made of neat, fully-formed fairy wings. Creativity acknowledges the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ (thank you, Billy Shakespeare). It fashions the mottled, the battered, the forgotten into something new and possibly sparkly.

Gnome Home in the ‘Hood

I chance upon a Gnome Home in my neighbourhood. I don’t care what anyone says….

Continue reading →

Art and Soulie Spot 2

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Stories from the Creative Path

Introducing…the woman who listened to the sky…

the multi-talented…

Linda Neil

The woman with roses growing out of her brain
Linda Neil original art

In her own words:

the woman who listened to the sky: living locally with love and gratitude

At the beginning of 2014, after many hectic years studying, writing, performing and travelling, changing health circumstances indicated my life needed a complete overhaul.

Without any clear idea about

Continue reading →