It’s been 5 months since I’ve last posted.
That sentence has confessional feel to it, doesn’t it? I’ve mentioned before that I am increasingly wary of the influence all things social media has on me as an individual and humanity itself. That said, I freely admit to spending an inordinate, even unhealthy, amount of time scrolling and surfing for things which educate, excite, confound, and humor me. Which leads me to where I’ve been – posting and life wise.
For the past 2 ½ years I’ve been working on a little something called The Art of Healing Exposition. A casual conversation about why the creative arts aren’t viewed as valuable tools in a physician’s healing box led me to dream about an exhibition built around the restorative traits of creativity. I’d been dreaming of how I could pull together this show long before covid and am oddly thankful for the shutdown of life for one reason. Being home for months helped me expand upon my original dream and work toward the reality of where the show is today.
I spent countless hours on Zoom with a small group of women who formed organically into my planning team. Our brainstorming sessions suggested the form AoH could take. We wanted the show to feature the creativity of the Nashville community. We wanted to include music, film, writing, sculpture, painting, art – everything creative! It was important that we shared not only the art but the stories behind the art itself. We wanted to build a clinical aspect to the show, involving both practitioners and patient populations. We wanted to share the show with as many people as possible through virtual shows and an on-going social media campaign. We wanted to create ongoing experiences for the community to share the majic of making with each other.
In January of 2021 we issued our ‘Call for Art’ and were overwhelmed by the response. Some 450 pieces of work from 172 artists who shared their talents and their stories of how creativity helped them to heal. I got to spend this past summer meeting with these artists as I received their work and had the most wonderful conversations about creating in a time of chaos and the role of spirituality, fear, loss, love, and joy play in our everyday lives. Talk about a healing experience.
The Art of Healing Exposition show premiered in September and will hang until December 2022 across 5 sites in Nashville. Make sure to check out our Daily Art – every artist who submitted work for the show is being featured physically, virtually, or both! Their work continues to amaze me each time I see it, and that is after 6 months of being surrounded by their work. Additionally, the AoH team has planned an extensive array of Exposition-related events for next year, which should keep me focused on creating until 2023 at least.
All of that to say I’ve been kinda busy (but plan to post on a more regular basis going forward).
P.S. I DID create the AoH mandala above – just so you know I haven’t been a total ‘maker’ slacker!
*The Healing – Guy Clark Jr.
The Grey Goddess 