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Art as a Spiritual Connection

Art as a Spiritual Connection™ is a new kind of experience that uses the art medium as a ground for a relationship with the Divine. With a variety of art programs for all ages, Art as a Spiritual Connection™ creates a nurturing environment, and provides tools for art exploration, to foster connections to God, self and others through the creative process. Giving is at the heart of art making, and when we create something with our hands, we integrate our minds to our hearts, making space for our spiritual life to develop and flourish. In art, we can express our true identity – the Soul.

Archives

November 11, 2015 by Jane Gerdsen

Re-Imagining Incarnation: A Soul Collage® Advent Quiet Day

Art as a Spiritual Connection is offering an Advent Retreat using Soul Collage®! Begin the season of Light by setting your intentions and exploring contemporary insights into the Incarnation process, while still honoring traditional incarnation theology. We will utilize images to collage new understandings about the Incarnation process and how it manifests in our lives. This retreat will take place on Saturday December 5th from 9:30-4:30 at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Cincinnati (10345 Montgomery Rd).  The cost is $30.  Program includes all art materials, snacks, and drinks.  Please bring a brown bag lunch with you. For more information and registration information click here.

soulcollageadvent

Does Christmas Day find you exhausted and drained?
Do you breathe a sigh of relief when the holiday season is over?
Do you worry that once again you will miss the meaning of the season?

One way to avoid feeling deflated on December 25 is to spend time in early Advent reflecting on what you would like to see happen during this liturgical season. Setting intentions to accomplish your desires is the first step toward a more meaningful Advent.
Christians have traditionally used the four Sundays and weeks of Advent to prepare for Christmas. We will honor this tradition by reflecting on traditional incarnational theology as well as exploring more contemporary insights into the Incarnation. We will then utilize images from magazines and other publications to collage (SoulCollage®) new understandings of the Incarnation for ourselves. No artistic talent or training is needed! Ages 18+.

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Understanding the Vision of Beloved Community
Young Adult Gathering 2018: Come Again with Joy

Midwives – A Reflection from Karl Stevens
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Young Adult Gathering 2016

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection, arts communities, Featured · Tagged Advent, Art, soul collage, Spiritual Practice · Leave a Reply ·

Archives

February 19, 2015 by Praxis

Soul Collage

fabsoulcollage

Art as a Spiritual Connection™ and Praxis Communities will offer SoulCollage® Workshops in 2015. SoulCollage® is a creative art experience that combines creativity, spirituality, and psychology.  Through a simple process of cutting and pasting images from magazines, participants will create a unique set of cards that will help them to access their inner wisdom, quiet their thinking mind, and allow space for the voice of the Holy Spirit to emerge.  Workshops run Friday evening to Saturday afternoon and are limited to 12 participants in each session.  The cost is $60.   For more information and registration check out their new website!  Don’t miss out on this beautiful experience!

DATES & LOCATIONS for 2015

Facilitators: Fabricia Duell and Mooydeen Frees   

February 27, 28 – St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Terrace Park, OH
Facilitators: Fabricia Duell and Mooydeen Frees

March 13, 14 – Ease Gallery, Columbus, OH
Facilitator: Fabricia Duell

March 20, 21 – All Saints Episcopal Church, Cincinnati, OH
Facilitators: Fabricia Duell and Mooydeen Frees

April 17, 18 – St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, Cincinnati, OH
Facilitator: Mooydeen Frees

 

Related Posts

Midwives – A Reflection from Karl Stevens
Young Adult Gathering 2016
“What we are sculpting is ourselves” – Duane McDiarmid on Art & Action

Re-Imagining Incarnation: A Soul Collage® Advent Quiet Day
Learning to Be a New Kind of Artist: A Week at the “Art as a Spiritual Connection” Summer Camp
Art Camps

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection · Tagged Art, soul collage, Spirituality · Leave a Reply ·

Archives

June 13, 2014 by Karl Stevens

Learning to Be a New Kind of Artist: A Week at the “Art as a Spiritual Connection” Summer Camp

We’re sitting in the sanctuary of All Saints Church, in a circle of dim light.  It’s morning and we’ve finished doing yoga and put the mats away, and now Fabricia is talking.  There is a theme for this first day, as there will be for most of the days of the camp – connection and community.  How do we set our egos and need for attention aside, and become truly attentive to the people around us?  Artists are famous for their temperaments, their fragile egos.  The permission to even engage in art is hard won, the talents that can make a person an artist are extolled as individual and unique.  Most people observe and understand the world without feeling a compelling need for expression, but for artists the world isn’t quite real unless its been filtered through their imaginations.  As I listen to Fabricia, I feel a touch of fear and a great deal of wonder.  Is it really possible to make art in a community, art that surrenders individual vision to an interpersonal ethic?  Art that imitates the self-sacrificing love of Christ?  The first thing we need to learn, Fab tells us, is that an artist who loves is an artist who gives away her best work to other people.

There are thirteen of us sitting on the sanctuary carpet, nine girls and four adults.  I’m here with my daughter, who has just finished fifth grade.  On this first morning we’re shy of each other.  Some of us know each other, but we’re not a community yet.  We move from the sanctuary to the social hall, which has been transformed into our studio for the week.  Fab gathers us around her and shows us how to make prints with an array of wooden stamps that she’s constructed and collected.  There are trays with colored printer’s ink laid out at eight tables, and we take white or black pieces of paper, roll the ink onto the stamps, and print patterns, moving from table to table, color to color, building up images.  We are aware of each other’s movements, we often have to stop and wait for someone to finish with the color we need, but our primary focus is on our own work, the vibrant, stamped images on the page.  We make multiple prints, setting them out to dry and cleaning the stamps with baby wipes, which we also set-out to dry.  These look like tie-dyes, with myriad colors smeared across them.  When we have finished with this hour of print-making, Fab provides the object lesson.  We will pick our two favorite prints, she tells us.  One of them we will give away, and one of them we will display in the art show at the end of the week.  The print we give away will be cut into 2” x 2” squares, distributed throughout the community, and used to make mosaics at the end of the week.  An artist who loves, she reminds us, is an artist who gives away her best work to other people.

It’s early afternoon on the next day, and we’re in the sanctuary again.  We’ve spent the morning creating designs of the tree of life and then cutting them into linoleum blocks.  We will print these designs onto the tie-dyed baby wipes from the day before, because in Fab’s artistic process nothing is lost and any object can be transformed into art.  Now we are singing, and Brianna is leading us.  The day before she taught us to sing in a round, and then asked us to improvise within our parts.  Today she’s spread us throughout the church, and as we sing we move from our separate places to form a circle around a candle that’s set in the center of the carpet.  Some of the children have followed the sound of their own voices into wild disharmonies, and Brianna calls us all back to the center, to the simplicity of the song.  We have to listen to each other, she tells us.  If we each pursue our own melodies, the music’s beauty is lost.  This balance between individuality and community, between improvisation and harmony, is hard for all of us.  But singing together gives us a chance to practice it.

Fab tells me that we are engaging in spiritual direction through art, that art is a means of attaining wisdom, and not an end in itself.  We are all talented, smart, and clever.  But are we wise?  I am the only man in the group, and I find myself wondering about the kind of wisdom that Fab is extolling.  Much of it is other-directed, founded on the idea that wisdom comes from surrendering some part of oneself for the good of a community.  A large part of me agrees with this, and I am enjoying the way that we practice this idea as we make art.  But I also have a strong distrust of communities.  I’ve felt manipulated by communities in the past.  Worse, I’ve felt that many of the communities I’ve been a part of have had little interest in me as an artist, or, if interested, have wanted me to use my talents to further some community goal that’s based in needs and traditions that I don’t share.  I’ve rarely experienced a community that simply rejoiced in the gifts and talents of its members, and was willing to be shaped by those gifts and talents.  Is this distrust a male attitude, part of my socialization since boyhood?  Or is it a cultural attitude that effects both genders?

I think about this on the third day, as we paint portraits.  The lesson this morning is about Jesus as the Soul Friend.  If we are to love one another, Fab tells us, we must first learn to love ourselves.  She breaks us into pairs and tells us that we should paint our own portrait, and then the portrait of a friend.  She’s taken photographs of us, and we work from them, staring into our own faces and then the faces of our partners.  I find it easier to paint my partner, and I wonder if this is because I’m less invested in her face than I am in my own.  I squander time and thought on my portrait, trying to bring out my own sense of who I am.  I decorate her portrait with tiny clay mosaic tiles that I made earlier in the week, prettifying it.  I want to honor her, but she doesn’t present a question to me in the way that my own portrait does.  I’ve made three self-portraits in my lifetime and in a way this is the hardest.  I’m not permitting myself the same ironic detachment that I usually bring to the effort.  I’m trying to love myself through daubs of paint, and wondering why I look dour, sulky, a little defensive.  I keep working, slowly painting over these expressions, until a pleasant face emerges.  This is the face I’d like to present to the world, the wise face offered for community consumption.  But under it lies the individual face, the first portrait that I put on the canvas, the wary face.  I wonder which face Jesus loves best, and I suppose that Jesus loves both equally, the selves that give gladly to the good of a community and the selves that seek isolation and have difficulty trusting.  But which self do I love more?

On Thursday we stand opposite each other at a table where Fab has placed a large, square canvas with concentric circles painted on it.  We have squeeze bottles of colored sand standing ready.  We join hands and pray together for a moment.  Then she takes a bottle and makes a pattern of white sand on the canvas.  I add to her pattern with blue sand.  We go back and forth, changing each other’s work, making a mandala that spirals out from the center of the canvas to its edges.  When the design feels finish, we look at each other and nod.  We begin to smear it with our hands, rake it with our fingers, making new patterns as the lines of color are blended together.  This is a movement of trust and surrender.  We’re interested in the process of making the mandalas, not in the mandalas themselves.  At this point in the week we’ve become so sure of each other within the community that our thoughts can go outwards.  I find myself meditating on an old friend whom I’ve become estranged from.  He’s written to me earlier in the week, and I’ve been wondering how to respond.  As we make and unmake the mandala, it becomes clear to me that I have to let go of the hurt I feel because of the estrangement.  I phrase and rephrase how I’ll respond to him.  When we’re done with the mandalas, I slip off and write a message to him.  And I realize that I trust this small community of artists.  Our work together has pushed my concerns beyond myself, and beyond our little circle of thirteen, out into the wider world.  Anyone can make art, Fab says, whether they’re an artist or not.  And any artist can learn to make art with a new spirit and a new ethic, art that frees those who practice it and moves them beyond the narrow concerns of self, moves them towards something that feels preciously close to a state of grace.

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Why I Practice Morning Prayer

Sacrament, Story and Sacred Land: An Episcopal Pilgrimage in Israel by Jason Oden
Young Adult Gathering 2017: Kindle a Hope
Midwives – A Reflection from Karl Stevens

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection, Featured, Reflections · Tagged Art, Community, Fabricia Duell, prayer, Relationship with God, Spirituality, Workshops · 1 Reply ·

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April 25, 2014 by Praxis

Hilary Wolkan’s Reflection Lent: Creativity As Spiritual Practice

By Hilary Wolkan, Floral House Resident 2014 266790_10150299454196077_728586076_9525993_4522088_o

I don’t have a long history of observing Lent. Having been raised in an atheist household, my experience with Lenten promises consisted of watching my Christian friends routinely give up something—sweets, soda, swearing—and likewise routinely fail, year after year. The idea that was presented to me was that we make a sacrifice in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Once I became Christian, I too found myself in this rut of giving something up and failing. This might be due to my lack of self-control, or just my insatiable love of chocolate and carbonated beverages, but I never seemed to be able to make it the whole 40 days.

Inevitably, there would always be a moment about four weeks in when I would slip, and a small voice in my head would say “Well, there goes that, might as well not try for the rest of Lent” and I’d continue the rest of the season feeling ashamed at my failure. How could I not even give up something as benign as desserts for 40 days when my Savior gave up His life for me? This obviously isn’t the right way of thinking, but being a new Christian, I had no other understanding, and I was far more comfortable with guilt than I was with forgiveness.
It wasn’t until I reached grad school when I started to think about Lent differently. What if, instead of a physical sacrifice, I made Lenten promises that would sacrifice unhealthy mindsets or emotional practices? What if I used Jesus’ story as inspiration to become a better person, instead of using it to year after year remind myself that I am human, imperfect, and therefore ultimately will not fulfill my promise? With this new realization, I began to attack the ugliness within me. Whether giving up gossip or negative thoughts about others or myself, I strove to better myself, to make myself more Christ-like, to shine a bit of light into the darkness of who I was. And when I slipped indulged in departmental gossip, or caught myself complaining about a co-worker, I showed myself the grace that Jesus would show me and tried again. Lent thus became not a source of anxiety or depression, but a time for me to draw closer to God and to become the person God created me to be.

This year, however, I’ve been really struggling to connect with God. Although I’ve surrounded myself with wonderful, spiritual people and communities, the normal routine of church services and Bible studies seemed to be smothering my fire for the Lord rather than stoke it. I decided that my Lenten promise this year would be to make more of an effort to cultivate my relationship with God, and in ways that gave me life. I began to worship for 30 minutes daily, singing my praises to God even when I didn’t feel like singing, and to apply creative practices to spirituality on a weekly basis. I realized during a SoulCollage retreat that although art and poetry had been such a regular activity in my life back in high school, I couldn’t remember the last time I wrote a poem or created a collage. What was one such an integral method of expression for me had been lying on a shelf for the past 8 years (has it really been 8 years?), unused and collecting dust. As a result, I resolved to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and give myself space to create and write for the Lord.

What resulted was unexpected. Not only was I able to reconnect with a part of me that had long been neglected, I also began to appreciate the creativity bestowed upon me, the intentionality of every thread He had knitted into my being, and the diverse ways the Lord likes to be related to. For the first time in months, I found myself excited to spend time with God, looking forward to the next morning’s worship, the next poem to be scrawled onto crisp white paper, the next magazine cut-outs to be plastered to my artist’s notebook. I was no longer ashamed to explore alternative modes of spirituality; rather, I fully embraced it as God embraces it. I began to realize that God loves all sorts of relationships, not just ones that involve incense and ancient chants. He created me in his image, to be a creator of beauty just as He is a creator of beauty. I shouldn’t feel the need to sweep that part of my personality under the carpet, especially when it is an expression of my love for Him.

I began Lent with the intent to spend more time with Jesus. As I journey through these 40 days, the mere act of worshipping and praising God through regular, creative means which are true to who I am has allowed me to see the world like Jesus does. It wasn’t until I began to revive and use this side of me that I could see God’s love for diversity and the necessity for a spectrum of spiritual practices, all tailored to His individual children. What started as a simple act to resuscitate good spiritual practices actually became a whole new mindset and way of life. While I still slip up and fail in following my Lenten promise, I feel closer to God than I have in a long time, and closer to being who I am meant to be. That, to me, is all I can ask for.

By Hilary Wolkan, Floral House Resident 2014

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection, Brendan's Crossing, Featured · 1 Reply ·

Archives

April 17, 2014 by Praxis

Art Camps

artcampphoto

Art as a Spiritual Connection is offering summer art camps for children and youth.  There are four camps being offered this summer.  Registration here!

Mixed Media Art Camp – a new kind of art camp experience for youth entering 4th through 8th grades.  Deeply rooted in contemplative spirituality (living in the moment), the program uses art medium as a ground for a relationship with the Divine.  Designed to be a small, high quality camp open to mixed media art exploration.

– Offered June 2-6, 2014 at All Saint’s Episcopal Church 9 am – 4 pm                               (6301 Parkman Place, Cincinnati, OH 45213) — $150/child (12 spots).  Flyer here.

– Offered July 28 – August 1, 2014 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church  9 am – 4 pm (100 Miami Avenue, Terrace Park, OH 45174) — $150/child (20 spots available).  Flyer here.

The Mystical Girl: affirmations of love and grace Mystical Girl is an experimental art retreat designed for girls ages 12-15.  The retreat is a creative space to nurture girls who are transitioning into their new, developing bodies to claim the totality of their beings: body, hear, mind, and soul.  The path to share about wholeness with girls is the way of the mystic – knowledge through direct experience of the presence of God.  Media media art projects include acrylic painting, collage, block printing, polymer clay and reclaimed objects. All art projects and spiritual lessons will be developed around the concepts of wholeness and vocation.  Flyer here.

– Offered June 19-13 at All Saint’s Episcopal Church 9 am – 4 pm (6301 Parkman Place, Cincinnati, OH 45213) — $150 per girl (12 spots available).

The Art of Love: mixed media art camp

The Art of Love is a new kind of art camp experience for children ages 6 to 9 (first through third grades).  Deeply rooted in contemplative spirituality (heart centered mindfulness), the program invites children to reconnect to God through nature and to use LOVE, the energy of the heart to heal the world. Mixed Media projects include acrylic and watercolor painting, collage, polymer clay, the art of mandalas, sand work and reclaimed objects. Our mornings will be filled with art making, spiritual lessons, and healing practices with the earth.  Flyer here.

– Offered June 16-20 (mornings 8 am to noon) at All Saint’s Episcopal Church (6301 Parkman Place, Cincinnati, OH 45213) — $80/child (12 spots available)

 

Related Posts

Midwives – A Reflection from Karl Stevens
Young Adult Gathering 2016
“What we are sculpting is ourselves” – Duane McDiarmid on Art & Action

Soul Collage
Learning to Be a New Kind of Artist: A Week at the “Art as a Spiritual Connection” Summer Camp
Embarking on the Journey

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection · Tagged Art, camp, connection, Spirituality, summer · Leave a Reply ·

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April 17, 2014 by Praxis

Meet the Artist

fab squareFabricia Duell is an artist, mother, spiritual director and mystic. She is also the Founder of Art as a Spiritual Connection – offering a variety of art programs for all ages.  She believes that art is for everyone, and is a way in which we draw closer to God. Her preferred art mediums are acrylic paint, colored pencils, polymer clay, watercolor and collage.

Here is a sample of some of Fab’s artwork!

Fabart1

fabduell2soul collage

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection · Leave a Reply ·

Archives

April 7, 2014 by Praxis

Art as a Spiritual Connection

ac rec logo

Art as a Spiritual Connection™ is a new kind of experience that uses the art
medium as a ground for a relationship with the Divine. With a variety of art
programs for all ages, Art as a Spiritual Connection™ creates a nurturing
environment, and provides tools for art exploration, to foster connections to God,
self and others through the creative process. Giving is at the heart of art making,
and when we create something with our hands, we integrate our minds to our
hearts, making space for our spiritual life to develop and flourish. In art, we can
express our true identity – the Soul.

Art in all forms is one of the greatest gifts we have for
communication and self-expression. It is a portal for
other worlds, and offers us new ways of seeing and
appreciating our own reality. Through images,
colors, shapes, and lines we can tell a story and
express a variety of ideas.

Art as a Spiritual Connection™ works with four concepts also found in the spiritual
journey:

Art is universal art is for all
We are all artists by design, created to respond to Creation. Everyone has a signature, a
style, a way of seeing things, a preferred shape and color, and a creative self.

Art takes time art is created layer by layer
Just like life is a journey, art is a process, and it takes time to unfold. To truly express
ourselves as creative beings, we need to embrace our gifts and limitations.
Imperfections and mistakes are part of our learning process and development. Art
happens when we let go of trying to be perfect and simply embrace the creative
process.

Art requires practice art is a daily practice
Our emotions need release, and our minds need to be creative, and our bodies need to
move every day. We need to give ourselves permission to make things and leave our
mark in the world, by making space and time to be creative. When we create from the
heart, the place of grounding, the world is a better place.

Art builds community share what you know
In art making we can transcend language, race, gender, age, culture, and faith,
connecting our stories in profound ways.

Click here to download an Art as a Spiritual Connection flyer.

Posted in Art as a Spiritual Connection · Leave a Reply ·

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