Adventures at Expressive Arts Teacher Training

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Last week I was at the second retreat of my year-long Expressive Arts Teacher Training program with Chris Zydel. In addition to painting daily, this time we each got to lead a movement session and shadow Chris. It was delightful getting to experience each woman’s unique energy and leadership style during their movement session. We danced, sang, stretched, practiced yoga, breathed deeply, pranced around with colored scarves, and had an all around good time.

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I thoroughly enjoyed my turn shadowing Chris while the other participants painted. I had the honor of witnessing each woman’s painting process and internal creative world in more intimate detail as I observed how Chris gently supported and encouraged everyone. I learned so much about the magical dance that happens between the participants, their paintings, and their creative intuition. I can’t wait to shadow again during the next retreat and to start taking a more active role in leading intuitive painting retreats. It’s such a rich and exciting experience!

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My latest giant crazy painting continued to grow and get more surreal, which was fun. I cracked up a lot at the inside jokes to myself that would suddenly appear on the page. When I take a step back and look at this one, it feels like it’s a peek into another dimension and the door in the middle is keeping out the “real world.” The painting is still not done with me yet, so I look forward to getting back to it this week at class and seeing what else emerges.

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And here are my fellow teacher trainees acting silly with Chris. We had lots of great laughs all week! Can’t wait for the third retreat at the end of February.

3 thoughts on “Adventures at Expressive Arts Teacher Training”

  1. Oh, this is so awesome! I’m glad you had a blast at the training. It must be so fun to see Chris in action and witness others diving into the process. I especially love the silly pic at the end of the post. Made me smile! 🙂

  2. Your training sounds so awesome! Have you ever heard of Shaun McNiff? He writes a lot about arts and healing. Art as Medicine is one of his books and it is great! I am taking a class with him at Lesley university in Jan, which is very exciting! Maybe I will have to look into the training that you are taking too!

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