Art as Healing vs. Art Therapy

In dialog with what is being created, having no expectations, letting the process lead...

Art: something that is created with imagination that expresses important ideas or feelings Healing: to restore and make whole again Therapy: the treatment of physical or mental illnesses Art as Healing: My Way Most times when I explain what I do, I am met with the response, “Oh. You do art therapy.” I reply no, not…

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Art as Healing: Beginning an eCourse

The re-branding of Courageous Creagting

When I first heard the words eCourse, I panicked. After serving our local area for 20 years, I knew we had a Solid Mission and our board wanted us to have a Global Vision!  We’ve ushered thousands of cancer survivors through our offerings.  We’ve helped change lives and wanted to extend our reach beyond South Carolina.   Agata and Deana, our…

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Community Healing: The Monks Are Coming!

The Tibetan monks are ready to begin our community mandala.

    A Video Captures Our Story Our community needed healing.  Three weeks before the Tibetan monks were to arrive from the Drepung Loseling Monastery, our city was devastated by a”100 year flood.”  Extremely heavy rains caused our rivers to overflow, which caused many dams to break, which caused huge devastation throughout our community.  Homes were destroyed. Our water…

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Tibetan Inspired Community Art: Mandalas, Talismans and Prayer Flags

Talisman of Healing

  Tibetan Inspired Community Art For our 20th anniversary exhibition, Circles of Life: Making Art, Creating Communities of Hope, I wanted to pay tribute to the Tibetan Culture, as they had influenced the design of my creativity practices for at least 15 years. Curious why Tibet?  Read our earlier post – Travel Inspiration: Stumbling Across the Tibetan Sacred…

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Make Art: Creativity is Our Birthright

What is Art? In describing the work that we do at Healing Icons, many times I am fearful of using the word ART, as it can be intimidating. It conjures up images of hushed museums and galleries with stark white walls, where everyone is dressed in black, looking very pretentious and serious. Art has become more…

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Our Creativity Manifesto: Rules to Live By

“Care of the soul is quite different in scope from modern notions of psychology and psychotherapy.  It isn’t about curing, fixing, changing, adjusting or making healthy, and it isn’t about some idea of perfection or even improvement.  It doesn’t look to the future for an ideal, trouble-free existence.  Rather it remains patiently in the present,…

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Fear No Art: Trust & Blind Contour Drawing

Many times, it is plain, old-fashioned fear that keeps survivors from signing up for our offerings – not the fear that comes with a cancer diagnosis, but the terror associated with the words creativity and art: “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly. I do not have a single creative bone in my body.” We believe that everyone has creative bones;…

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Tranquility Practice: Creating Radiant Mandalas

There is a wonderful strangeness about meeting in a classic business boardroom for our Lunch and Learn series. A very large, stately, dark mahogany table fills the room. Two of the four walls are almost floor-to-ceiling glass. It is an elegant space that holds us well. This boardroom is transformed when we meet the first…

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