WORKSHOPS...
One-Day Workshop
“Eight is Enough: Essential Self-Survival Skills for Artists”
A one-day workshop based on Eric Maisel's “Coaching the Artist Within” and supplemented by material from
other sources. Each topic will be briefly introduced and followed by self-evaluations, group exercises and
discussions, all interspersed with art-making activities.
The Eight Topics:
• Finding Dreams and Making Meaning: Head in the Sky and Feet on the Ground
• Understanding Our Minds I: It’s Not What You Think
• Understanding Our Minds II: Taming the Beast Named Fear
• Exploring Energy: Hold Onto Your Hats!
• Goals, Plans, & Routines: It’s Anything But Routine
• Embracing Mistakes: We Are NOT Our Work
• Creating Within Chaos: And Life IS Chaos!
• Growing the Creative Life: A Thumb of Many Colors.
Three-Day Workshop
“Hand, Mind, and Heart—Painting with Self-Awareness”
A workshop for painters which incorporates creativity coaching techniques and exercises. A typical daily
schedule includes brief periods of group coaching with self-evaluation exercises, followed by extended periods
of painting, in which both painting techniques and coaching suggestions are offered. The aim of the workshop
is to improve not only the specific technical abilities of participants but also to give them a set of self-coaching
tools which they can employ to improve their creative lives.
Three-Day Workshop – under construction
“Whole Person, Whole Artist.”
The entire focus on this workshop centers on the critical issue of learning to recognize, honor, and bring into
balance those personal characteristics which are typically labeled Yang/masculine and Yin/feminine.
Our society is out of balance: we dishonor the feminine by suppressing and disparaging it and we distort the
masculine by insisting it fulfill all roles and functions at all times.
This is a critically importance issue for all artists. We must learn to work from a point of centered wholeness
and balance, to learn when to work in “Yang mode” (rational, analytical, active, outward oriented, etc.) and
when to work in “Yin mode” (not-knowing, intuitive, quiescent, inward oriented, etc.), to see that both are
equally valid and necessary, and, most importantly, how to skillfully move between the two as the work demands
it. Exercises will help participants develop skill in choosing—
- when to insist on control and when to let go
- when to judge and when to refrain from judging
- when to follow rigid plans and when to create spontaneously
This subject will be explored in the context of all the facets of being an artist: the creative process, marketing
and promotion, negative self-talk/feeling, setting goals and making plans, dealing with anxiety, finding
meaning, etc.
This workshop will be facilitated in partnership with a female coach. It will be open to all artists.
Two-Day Workshop – under construction
“Dancing with the Beast: Fear and Art-making”
Believing that the majority of our blocks and self-limitations are fear-based, this two-day workshop will help the
artist and would-be artist learn to recognize, understand, and manage fear and anxiety.
This workshop will be a participatory event for attendees, filled with exercises, question and answer periods,
group discussion, demonstrations, and periods of intensive art-making. It will entertain, enlighten, challenge,
and nurture the artist within as it encourages self-awareness and honest self-exploration in an environment that
provides security and support.
One-Day Workshop
“Eight is Enough: Essential Self-Survival Skills for Artists”
A one-day workshop based on Eric Maisel's “Coaching the Artist Within” and supplemented by material from
other sources. Each topic will be briefly introduced and followed by self-evaluations, group exercises and
discussions, all interspersed with art-making activities.
The Eight Topics:
• Finding Dreams and Making Meaning: Head in the Sky and Feet on the Ground
• Understanding Our Minds I: It’s Not What You Think
• Understanding Our Minds II: Taming the Beast Named Fear
• Exploring Energy: Hold Onto Your Hats!
• Goals, Plans, & Routines: It’s Anything But Routine
• Embracing Mistakes: We Are NOT Our Work
• Creating Within Chaos: And Life IS Chaos!
• Growing the Creative Life: A Thumb of Many Colors.
Three-Day Workshop
“Hand, Mind, and Heart—Painting with Self-Awareness”
A workshop for painters which incorporates creativity coaching techniques and exercises. A typical daily
schedule includes brief periods of group coaching with self-evaluation exercises, followed by extended periods
of painting, in which both painting techniques and coaching suggestions are offered. The aim of the workshop
is to improve not only the specific technical abilities of participants but also to give them a set of self-coaching
tools which they can employ to improve their creative lives.
Three-Day Workshop – under construction
“Whole Person, Whole Artist.”
The entire focus on this workshop centers on the critical issue of learning to recognize, honor, and bring into
balance those personal characteristics which are typically labeled Yang/masculine and Yin/feminine.
Our society is out of balance: we dishonor the feminine by suppressing and disparaging it and we distort the
masculine by insisting it fulfill all roles and functions at all times.
This is a critically importance issue for all artists. We must learn to work from a point of centered wholeness
and balance, to learn when to work in “Yang mode” (rational, analytical, active, outward oriented, etc.) and
when to work in “Yin mode” (not-knowing, intuitive, quiescent, inward oriented, etc.), to see that both are
equally valid and necessary, and, most importantly, how to skillfully move between the two as the work demands
it. Exercises will help participants develop skill in choosing—
- when to insist on control and when to let go
- when to judge and when to refrain from judging
- when to follow rigid plans and when to create spontaneously
This subject will be explored in the context of all the facets of being an artist: the creative process, marketing
and promotion, negative self-talk/feeling, setting goals and making plans, dealing with anxiety, finding
meaning, etc.
This workshop will be facilitated in partnership with a female coach. It will be open to all artists.
Two-Day Workshop – under construction
“Dancing with the Beast: Fear and Art-making”
Believing that the majority of our blocks and self-limitations are fear-based, this two-day workshop will help the
artist and would-be artist learn to recognize, understand, and manage fear and anxiety.
This workshop will be a participatory event for attendees, filled with exercises, question and answer periods,
group discussion, demonstrations, and periods of intensive art-making. It will entertain, enlighten, challenge,
and nurture the artist within as it encourages self-awareness and honest self-exploration in an environment that
provides security and support.
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| John MacDonald 1021 Hancock Road Williamstown, MA 01267 413-458-0056 |
| The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. -Albert Einstein |