Stillness is Still Possible

Heidi Zito documents stillness by observing movement, calmness, and slowed time. Together, her scenes paint a picture of heightened awareness through stillness.

Hers is one of several videos viewable at http://stillspotting.guggenheim.org/video-studies. The Guggenheim Museum collaborated with graduate students in the School of Visual Arts MFA program for Photography, Video and Related Media, who participated in a special seminar to create short video studies of the visual, aural, and sociological ecology of the urban landscape in New York. The works reflect and respond to everyday issues of visual noise, anxiety, and stillness. Heidi Zito's is one of my favorites!

It is a comfort to know that stillness can be found even in the most urban of environments!

Monopoly Revealed

"Toys: The Art of Play" is the title of the show my mixed media assemblage, Red, White, & Blue, will soon be part of at Main Line Art Center.  It was done on a Monopoly board over the summer, before the Occupy Movement began, but shares the zeitgeist that was in the air.  

 I'm curious to see the other juried work made from or inspired by toys.  I imagine a lot of it will be cute, funny, playful.  I can't say the same about my entry.  But I will say that it it was very satisfying for me to make it!  It felt good to include "Go To Jail" cards, bloodied hands, a headless falling child,  and of course the pig at the top. 

In Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland note "As a maker of art you are custodian of issues larger than self...In making art you declare what is important."  Sometimes we can't help ourselves.

OccupyPhiladelphia occupies my mind

This child's play tent, complete with toys, continues to occupy my thoughts.  What a vivid picture of why the Occupy movement is a force for social justice and social change.  What kind of world are children and grandchildren of the 99%  growing up in?  And what kind of world do we want them to grow up in! I was there for an event at the Interfaith Tent:  our Rabbi, Linda Holtzman, spoke about the scriptural basis for taking action to repair the brokenness of the world.  In a nutshell: 100% of us are created in God's image, not 1%.  A "renegade Baptist minister" also spoke, who had actually been occupying for 29 days.  He said, "If you really want to know what this is about, come down and participate in some conversations.  Listen to what people are saying."

The young people who were staffing the Interfaith Tent were an inspiration.  They had just had their tent stolen that day, along with sleeping bags and sentimental items.  Fortunately they had homes to sleep in that night, but were determined to keep on keeping on.  They were stressed but undaunted.  They couldn't imagine doing anything else, being anywhere else.  Our group was able to connect them with someone who wanted to donate a tent.  So it goes.  I feel hope for the future because of having met them.

Transcendence and Impermanence

This is the story of the dismantling of a site-specific art installation. The installation itself was a study in transcendence: 1000 hand-cut chimes activated by street traffic. Watching its end was a study in the beauty of impermanence...  It was a happy accident that I saw it across the street from the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, one of the many times I was grateful to have my camera with me.

How SoulCollage® Works!

For a taste of what making and sharing SoulCollage® cards is like, watch this video of our SoulCollage® Facilitator Training made by our Trainer Kat Kirby!  It captures the flavor.

A Collage of SoulCollagers

Richness abounded everywhere at the recent 4th International SoulCollage® Facilitator's Conference.  This video by Stephanie Anderson Ladd, is truly a remarkable visual meditation.  She shared it at the beginning of her  workshop, SoulCollage® and the Divine Feminine - one of the many workshops going on while I was taking some other one.  And yet the energies of all the workshops infused the atmosphere - because we shared over meals, over laughter, and by osmosis.  The synergy was part of the air we breathed.

Reintegrating back into life post-Conference has been a journey for all of us who were there. The shifts - both inward and manifested in our outward lives - are real, continuing, sometimes unexpectedly surprising, and growing. It was a uniquely diverse group of 95 women and one man.  The post-Conference journeys, as shared on the list-serv and in other ways, are also uniquely diverse. We were - and are - like the many separate shapes and colors of stained glass pieces that come together into a beautiful window that shines with one image when infused with light, and the many such windows at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat Center where we met.  I am still trying to understand it all.  All I know is that I am grateful to be part of this amazing community and that I will be at the 5th International SoulCollage® Facilitators' Conference in Portland in 2013! 

Synchronicity Strikes Again...

Daily Oasis, http://www.dailyoasiscollage.com, is a very aptly named website.  Every morning someone's SoulCollage® card arrives in my inbox providing daily food for thought: an incredible visual image combined with an I Am One Who... statement. (You too can sign up for this!).  I have submitted cards to be posted, and never know quite the timing of how long they will be in the pipeline and when they will appear.  This morning, as we are getting ready to leave for the SoulCollage® Facilitator's Conference,  the card of mine above appeared on Daily Oasis, along with this text:

Created & Shared By:
Susan Richards
Ardmore, Pennsylvania
http://www.susanrichardsmultiplevisionsstudio.blogspot.com

  "I Am One Who...

...is traditional and contemporary 
at the same time.
It is not a conflict or contradiction for me.
Both inform and enrich each other."

The second synchronicity of the morning was the message on the KaleidoSoul SoulCollage listserv , from Anne Marie Bennett, the creator and spiritual force behind http://www.kaleidosoul.com, and co-chair of the Conference:

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."  Martin Buber

The words have meaning, for both inward and outward journeys.  They have a particularly special meaning for me, as words of Martin Buber.  I am ready for the Conference journey, and plunging into all of which I am unaware.