Lyrebird or Seahorse?

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

First up, thank you.

I express gratitude.
Gratitude that in spite of all that is going on in the world right now, I am in the lucky place of being able to sit at a computer in a cosy room in Sydney, Australia, the planet and share my creative musings with you.
Gratitude to YOU for engaging with the space of Art and Soul.

Thank. You. Here. Now.

Who knew?

The Watergrass Urn of Love and Holding
Sally Swain

Art and Soul playshops have been taking place in the Zoomosphere.

Who knew that a playshop on this platform could be

so friendly, so warm, intimate, heartful, authentic and comfortable.
And….dare I say it?

Brimming with

actual,

feel-it-in-the-chest-region

LOVE.

Please peruse the little paintings that I created during the Zooms, while participants were

arting during Soul Bricolage

or Nourish and Flourish,

or writing during Heartwrite.

Leaf Woman
Sally Swain

You might think that making art during a group means I’m paying less attention to the participants, cos I’m caught up with my own art. But no.

It’s the OPPOSITE.

Engaging in this type of small, light Response Art helps me be more present. I am tuning in even more deeply to the energy of the group, the essence of the client, the nature of the relationships between and amongst us. Art-making can help me Zoom in on an intuitive level just below the rational, trying-to-figure-it-out-linearly mind.
It’s all about Intention. If I am making art in the service of the clients, I will not disappear into my own Zone. If I do notice my attention starting to head towards my own art interior and away from Being With the clients, I quickly correct my path.

What are your thoughts on this? As a potential client? As an art therapist or creative facilitator? Do you make art while attending to others?

As Yet Unnamed
(what do you reckon a title could be?)
Sally Swain

So yeah. I share with you the joy, depth, beauty and connection of the Art and Soul Zoomospheric playshops to date, plus four little pictures they have sparked.

Lyrebird or Seahorse?

Or some other life form?

What do you see in the image below?

Lyrebird or Seahorse or…?
What do you see?
One Art and Soulie saw a lyrebird; another a seahorse. I love both those perceptions. They hadn’t occurred to me at all. I was just seeing a plant. Do you notice the word HEART is in amongst it all?

with love, art and soul
from Sally

What grows in the garden of you?

Posted on November 23, 2018 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

What would you like to cultivate?

What would you like to prune or weed?

(Let’s have a jacaranda-coloured post, in keeping with the season)

The Seven Trees of Us
Sally Swain © art
very mixed media on a small strip of paper

I ting a Tibetan bowl and lead a guided contemplation for the six women participating in the Art Garden playshop.

We sit with four elements that potentially nourish the self-garden.

Soil

What’s your ground? What helps

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A Trace

Posted on April 27, 2018 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

What is left behind?

A Trace
Red Flower of Life
Sally Swain’s Paper Towel Art

Hey folks, be warned:

This post has a high *NVUF rating.

I’ve invented something. It’s called the Art Therapy in Residential Aged Care Evaluation, or ATRACE. Pronounced ‘a trace’. I am doing the complex, detailed, organised, dynamic, reflective work of implementing this investigative tool.

I hope one day that other art therapists will be able to make use of it, in the service of ever strengthening the work we do.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, I play with painted traces in a small experiential way. I guess you could think of this process as art-based inquiry.

A Trace
a bit Rorschach
Sally Swain Paper Towel Art

You might have come across

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What’s with all the hearts?

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Hearts

are just about the only thing coming out of my brush at the moment.

Musical Swirly Heart
layered, acrylic paintage

Fat,

thin,
pink,

lopsided,

gold,
bosomy,

blue,

pointy,
busy,
small,

large,

soft,

squishy,

protected,

exposed,

alone,

companioned

supported
hearts.

Why the hearts?
Ah, she says mysteriously,

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Which Way Round?

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Make art, even if it’s upside down

This way?

Which Way Round?
One

I am loving felt pens plus water. I’m not sure why it’s taken me fifty-something years to discover the joys of such simple ingredients, but it has.

Or this way?

Which Way Round?
Two

Felt marker pens, particularly at school, were something you didn’t want to get water on. You drew or wrote with them because of their precision. You admired their clean lines. You were in control. You didn’t want to lose all that nice neatness to a soggy mush-ball.

Water brings with it an unknowing.

It brings an unpredictability and a, sometimes scary, lack of control. What joy!

This way?

Which Way Round?
Three

Felt-pen-plus-water art-making is just the ticket for debriefing from an art therapy session in residential aged care. After

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For Humble Magic, Just Add Water

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

A tale of art therapy in residential aged care

Just Add Water 1
A Humble Magic
felt marker on paper towel
Sally Swain © original art

I am delighted.

I’ve just run an art therapy group in a psychogeriatric unit.

I’ve had an unusual level of support, with two whole entire art therapist helpers.

It feels like a dance. We three weave in and out of being with different aged care residents at different times, each with our own energy, skill and strength. It is an elegant Jane Austen era dance; maybe a minuet or a quadrille.

One art therapist sits

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Sister Pools

Posted on September 1, 2017 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

A Creative Support Partnership

Rosey
a Sister Pool picture
by Sally Swain

Last week, we looked at the Handala – a small mandala with carry-handles.

The Handala arose while I waited for my sister to ring for our creative conversation. An Art and Soul Space blog reader (thanks, Gallivanta) loved that my sister reads me her writings. Inspired by my dear reader, let me tell you about … ta daa … Sister Pools.

For the past year, whenever we can, my sister and I form an interstate telephonic dual Creative Support Partnership. We read each other our writing-in-progress. We talk about current glitches, hitches, joys and successes in our creative process. We divide the time fairly equally.

I paint while she talks or reads.

She writes (or doodles) while I talk or read.

I might paint a preliminary shape on one page of the art journal, then squish the pages together, forming a Rorschach-type mooshy print. (Squish and mooshy being highly technical hoity-toity art terms).

I develop each page differently. Intuitively, spontaneously, I listen to her words, thoughts, feelings and to my own art desires and intentions. It’s a type of Response Art.

Here’s what emerged

in our very first meeting.

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Restoring Wonder to Our Lives

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Art and Soul Creativity Coaching since 1993

Wonder.

Where did it go?

Ceramics in Schools
coordinated by
Kristyn Taylor
for exhibition:
Human – The Child Artist Response Project

We most likely had a bucket-load of this magical curiosity-and-amazement stuff when we were children. The world was an intriguing place of potential. A cardboard

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