oh, god of second chances...

and so there is opportunity to begin again, and a class assignment to have a blog, read others, make comments. and so i revive what i began the very first night of the jfku experience as it made it self up with me. i begin after coming to this part of the end--this beginning of the end of the gradual school journey. god, i am so dramatic. i am always talking about beginnings and endings as if they are somethings--some threshold, which i suppose they are--some way of starting something. gotta be starting something, gotta be starting something. it's interesting the way the brain works now--with youtube videos and the ding, clang, ring of bells and the sounds, always the sounds, of the ambient noise of my surrounding life. i think of it all in terms of transformative art. i am forever talking about john cage. i like the whoosh and boom of it. i like the sounds of the songs that can not be sung as songs. i like the web of interconnection punctuated by footsteps down a long hallway while a noisy keyboard tries to keep up with the synapses firing their sing song nothingness as play. meaningless play, that means everything.

i am spending my days with my collaborator at the sun gallery in hayward turning 6 and 7 and 8 year olds onto transformative art.

there are lots of old school teachers who taught it their way that sort of hang around wishing we were more obviously structured--or so i imagine.

and there are kids and parents who get their own kids and just need and want a place to let their young artists come alive.

and there's us. arriving in my painted mobile studio. raven carrying one of his many animals. we arrive, sit in circle, be ourselves, do what we do, open the cupboards, provide inspiration and permission, and notice the flow of energy that comes up from these 21st century kids.

they are smarter, as they arrive, than we will ever be.

i should speak for myself.

i watch them put themselves together, replay for us what they've heard at home, find their amazement at the answer, which is always (if they're asking me), yes. yes. yes, you can do that. yes, you can make this. yes, you can use this. yes. yes. yes. yes. and no, i'm not going to tell you how to do this, how to make this, but if you ask what you're making how to make it, it will tell you.

i say this.

i say this often.

i say this multiple times a day.

i notice that i am forever in the play of this.

i notice *this* as transformative art--whatever this is--some combination of yes, permission, freedom and everyday art materials and the story journey that takes place privately in the act of making inside each precious being who journeys toward making. these story journeys are sometimes shared--sometimes evident--but always recorded in the making of the making of the thing of the thing.

it is always collaboration between the hands and the imagination freed and the space that sets the stage for this freedom.

Faces of Your Soul: Luminous Body

Faces of Your Soul: Luminous Body
Originally uploaded by Kaleo Ching

I've just had the most extraordinary experience assisting Kaleo with a maskmaking class this weekend. While this was not our soul group--meaning the group that assembled this weekend--it is an extraordinary example of what a soul group looks like at the end of a dna altering experience with Kaleo & Elise Ching. Flickr is the best place to be able to see the depth and breadth of the work Kaleo & Elise inspire. Their work--their artform--is teaching. The space they hold and create when they are working together is the single most healing environment, energy, attitude, outlook, possibility that i have ever experienced. Being in the space they hold--being held by that space--feeling the chi through the chi gung forms they've evolved that are integral to their teaching is quite literally life changing. Kaleo & Elise Ching represent the best teachers and transformative artists i have had the privilege to meet and work with. I highly recommend their books and classes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaleoching/

transformation arts find of the day

http://www.artsforhealth.org/

i'm initiating a new direction for this blog--i want to discover and assemble programs and individuals that are acting in a transformative arts capacity in the world.

today, when googling, i tripped into this team of folks bringing art to health centers in manchester. this is a model for what can be done in health care environments. this is a model for adding art to the mix of physical health centers and traditional medicine--and it makes a huge impact on healing.

it's interesting to think about what a visit to the art doctor--different from a visit to the art therapist--might make possible in the world of healing.

i love discovering that there are models for this new kind of integrative behavior inside health care settings. do visit their site and post your comments on what you think of them.

call for stories: new book on spiritual entrepreneurship-a history & guide of transformative artists and the wealth they create in our world

it occurs to me, in my enthusiasm to create, that there might already be a billion dollar industry in transformative arts. and so, as a way of researching to determine if this is true, i am inviting stories of spirit led enterprise. it's my hypothesis that true transformative artists are the biggest grossing professionals in our world community. and so, if you've got a story or know of one, please let me know about it--so that it can inform this new book project.

thanks!

creating economy for tranformative arts & the changemakers and practitioners who want to get paid

this past weekend i attended the first ever HOLISTIC APPROACHES TO ARTS EDUCATION conference at the berkeley site of jfku. i'll be participating in their MA program in Transformative Arts and one of the things that might become my thesis (and my future) is this idea of creating economy for transformative arts & the changemakers who practice the craft.

in my enthusiasm throughout the sessions of the conference and the community we found with each other, i was shocked by the conversations of the last day. as in all changemaking conferences or experiences that last three days and an evening, there are the BLARING REALITIES of moving back into the outside world where your community vanishes and no one you see on monday morning has any idea of what you experienced on saturday night--and there you are, in the loneliness of the circumstances in which you find yourself, working to keep your art job by pretending to not be such an "artist".

and so i want to start a public conversation about how to create a profitable economy for transformative art and artists in community--a franchise, perhaps (ala starbucks--but for the soul) that works holistically for individuals, groups, community and the wider world.

any ideas?