A sensory journey navigating the transition of the seasons; drawing from nature as an opportunity for insight.
Laurie will take you on a journey inspired by nature and the transitioning of seasons from autumn to winter. As the leaves and petals fall it may appear as death, but it is nature rooting itself deep into the earth, it is a time for reflection, restoration and rejuvenation.
The session intends to reconnect us to the land, to the seasons and, ultimately, to ourselves through gentle movement, meditation, breathing & drawing.
Laurie will open the session with some movement, breathwork and meditation to get us out of our heads and into our bodies enabling us to access a more intuitive state as a means of creative expression and sensorial connection.
Using a still life of seasonal plants as your stimulus, Laurie will then guide you through a process of intuitive drawing. We will be working with the visual form through a series of playful and freeing drawing exercises. We will lay emphasis on our connection to the changing seasons through breath and felt sensation, exploring the process of moving ink around the paper. We will blur the hidden lines between representation and abstraction, paying attention to moments in between each breath as opposed to the image that is unfolding.
We are here to open up the whole idea of what it means to draw and ultimately, to create. In doing so, gaining insight of ourselves through the lens of our ever changing seasons.
In elemental alchemy, our environment at this time in the Northern hemisphere is predominantly water, earth and air, so to balance the elements within we cultivate our inner fire. In the alchemical process, death begets life and is a prerequisite for transformation - in order for the quintessence, or elixir of life to be extracted, a plant must first die. This session also falls on the pagan festival of Samhain, although nowadays it is commonly celebrated on Halloween, was traditionally astrologically calculated when the sun is at 15 degrees Scorpio, this year being the 7th November. This Celtic festival celebrates the thinning of the veil between worlds, where the realms of spirit are most potent on the Earth, where life and death meet.
You are invited to gather plant material in the days prior to the workshop, this can be fallen leaves, branches, wild or garden plants. We will make a ritual together, working with fennel tea and fennel seeds to stoke our inner flame and set our intentions and seed ideas - Prometheus stole the sacred fire from Olympus he hid it in the hollow of a fennel stalk. Come with an intention for this practice - a sense of what you want to let go of through the autumn and winter, and what you wish to call in spring.
Workshop open to all. No experience of drawing needed.
“Every line is the actual experience with its unique story” - Cy Twombly
Creation is the process of making something without knowing how it will end up. It’s going on a journey without needing to know the destination. At its best, it’s the enjoyment of creating.
Art, like planting, in its broadest term, is a process. The work of art that is actually being created is the artist itself. A process of creation and self exploration.