Button Beads and Squashed Creativity….

My Mum came around the other day to paint the button beads we had made for a top she has knitted.
The beads are inspired by regular buttons and we are also making necklaces from them:

…we enjoyed spending time painting them, making a mess, ruining a couple …and talking…

Something happens when you sit and create together…stories begin to flow and memories are remembered as the peaceful, alpha-wave state of creativity inspires the busy mind to slow down … it is a form of open eyed meditation…

Mum was telling me stories from her childhood during the second world war in England. Educated by Nuns who had little time or tolerance for the self indulgence of ‘art’ and ‘creativity’…Mum drew me an image of the only avenue there was for creative expression…to copy a pattern within a pre-existing grid!

Thankfully Mum was able to live a creative life in spite of the repression of teachers viewing creativity close to sinful, artistic passion as selfish indulgence and individuality as yet another flaw in an already suspect Soul.

My two sisters and I are blessed to have both parents alive and well, married 52 years this year…and we are equally blessed beyond measure that our Mother did not lost her creative self in the shaming and vilifying atmosphere of an institution that today is having to face its many flaws and past errors.

It’s official….’ProsperArty’ has been named, signed and sealed!

Last year I began the process to trademark the name “ProsperArty”…a name I created to define my ART of Change tools and programs.

ProsperArty = Experiencing Prosperity by using the mediums of Art / Creativity.

Prosperity as I define it, is  to develop, grow  and flourish in what ever areas we value and consider to be  important…ProsperArty is a personal journey on a Universal theme that recognises the balance and harmony of nature and the creative state.

I had an afternoon tea with some of the Women I have worked with in the past, currently work with or have projects emerging throughout 2009…

It was a wonderful afternoon with some great food… unfortunately in  the images below  my ProsperArty guests are absent, as we were too busy nattering and chattering in our talking circle and eating and laughing to remember to take photos.

However I did capture the food!…and the flowers…and a few other things from the day…beginning with the Zebra that pulled up out the front just as we were getting under way…a noisy Zebra that came to trim trees and chomp branches! Before long we were noisier than the tree munching Zebra of course!

 

Sal made chocolate mousse that I decorated with mint and twelve white chocolate buttons…representing the Clock..because “It’s Time” for ProsperArty……

 

Sa’s gorgeous daughter Gemma made lime and lemon tart…I made peanut crunchie biscuits and apricot with white chocolate and almond balls…What a high calorie, yummy launch!

 

I chose the Celtic triple spiral theme (Triskele)  for the ProsperArty gift …we had a lot of fun threading them onto elastic to create a pendant. The 7 purple dots represent the 7 Sisters…that cluster of stars that has birthed  mythology and Dreaming stories right across the planet.. There were 7 Women present at the time, more guests  arrived later …

My recent trip to Matariki bay- bay of the 7 Sisters in Aotearoa (New Zealand) is a significant part of the essence of  ProsperArty…

 

I liked how the river stone-shaped  pendants looked in their circle before sharing them around. (Made with air drying das clay, painted with acrylics and sealed with high gloss varnish. I drew the design with permanet marker)

 

My Trademark Certification…ProsperArty…

 

Pilawuk made a gift of the most breath taking silk wall hanging based on some of my ProsperArty designs…if you look closely you can see the Warrior Woman image in the centre..and on the sides forming “Yesterday, today and tomorrow”…a theme from my invitation…      

Magic!!…thank you Pilawuk…Silk Queen Goddess!

 

Here is a side view…aren’t the colours just deliciously  ProsperArteous?!

 

Thankyou to my former colleagues Cathy, Desi and the Malvern Place team for the flowers and words of great encouragement and good will…

A lovely afternoon with a group of Women who live and breathe the essence of ProsperArty’s highest hopes and dreams…..

Let the Magic begin!

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“ProsperArty” was dreamt and created on traditional Aboriginal Land and I acknowledge the Kaurna people as the custodians of this part of the country and recognise the authority  of the  Dreamtime as holding the key to many of the challenges we are facing in Australia today.

Create New Dreams…Seeding the Future Vision

We had a wonderful weekend camp…thanks to the gorgeous Goddesses who came from two Communities up north to join us in the Riverland.

Along with the Mandala art and making clay beads, we work-shopped the Vision for the Womens groups…then painted terra cotta pots and planted the Sunflower seeds that will grow along with the new changes..

Thankyou to the Women for allowing us to photograph the art work and capture the many wonderful moments where Nanas and great grandchildren, Community leaders and members sat and enjoyed the  creative processes  together….what better way to spend a weekend in the Riverland sun?

Deanna Nungala and I feel very privileged to have been invited to host the Celeberating our Community camp and look forward to our Miminis Nopin Inc ventures in 2009 when we can return the gifting by visiting the Women and seeing how the Sunflowers have grown….

Miminis Nopin – Women on the Move…

 

We think we have found art based activities that everyone- young and old -can enjoy together…and sme1954 …you may find new pathways open when you get creative too!

 

Deanna and I wearing the clay necklaces we made during the Apology week, to honor the Mothers whose children were stolen from them.  Nungala is a Stolen Generation survivor and a Warrior Woman of the heart in the truest sense….

 

Our Vision Workshopping Board….

 

Painting the clay beads they have rolled earlier in the day is wonderful for concentration for the little kids and fun~creativity for all ages…

 

Little sister can create and paint her own beads too!

 

 

This pot-painter will seed some fantastic changes for her  Community I am sure…

 

 

The gorgeous goddess with the smile that lights up rooms and hearts…

 

Our Chef extraordinaire took time out from her delicious food-making to paint a pot of her own…

 

 

Lady birds for good luck turned up on the top of this artists work….

 

…as you can see….

 

Mother and Daughter creating together……they have a vegie garden at home and the new Sunflowers might fill that garden one day! One single  seed births the seeds of many new flowers over one single season… 

 

…seeding the Vision is a journey of process, attention, watering and ….patience….

 

…all pots are sealed with varnish and the upper torso lean, with head titled upward is a spraying skill learnt after accidentally inhaling a nostril full of varnish dust on the first ever pot.  Interesting shadow cast on the ground there….

Another “Bead Happy” process completed…

They say that you are living  your passion if you answer  ”Yes!”  to the question…“Would you still do the work that you do if you were rich enough not to have to work at all?”….My answer is “Yes indeedy-do!!”…I’d just drive a different car to the venue!

To spend time creating Personal Development art with Women who are walking through journeys of change, healing and Creating New Dreams…is such a privilege……and a whole lotta fun!

Here are a few images from our 5-week “Don’t Worry- Bead Happy ART of Change program 2…

We begin with a formless lump of air-drying clay, thinking about what we would like to create in our life…how things would look and feel in the ‘ideal’ world. We roll and twist and shape and from beads and add a pendant that defines the shape of things to come…

By week 5 have created our own Vision jewellery with our own unique fingerprints pressed into the clay…completing the process by spraying the beads with gloss sealer and hanging them in the afternoon sun to dry.

Rolling the beads is a form of meditation, very relaxing and as the process gets under way, the brain waves relax into the alpha rhythms as the rhythmic, repetitive actions slow down the busy mind chatter and return one to a more centered, present moment focus. It is a very enjoyable, highly effective way for people with mental health issues, stress, anxiety and depression to creatively activate a different ’state’ and access positive creativity over the negative forms of creating thoughts that are anxiety, stress related images.

We think about color and form once the beads are made…. with  relaxing music in the background and conversations around change, personal development and creating the life we want by over coming past patterns and limitations our learning and sharing is focused on  the “How” of change not just the reasons ‘why’…and all what has happened in the troubled past…

 

 

 

 

Makinti Napanangka wins top Indigenous art prize

Winner … Makinti Napanangka (AAP: Paul Exline)

An artist from the Kintore community west of Alice Springs has won the country’s richest Indigenous art prize.

The winners of this year’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award were announced at the Museum and Art Gallery in Darwin last night.

Thousands of people converged on the gallery to celebrate the award’s 25th anniversary.

Makinti Napanangka from Kintore won the top $40,000 prize for her painting on linen.

The $4,000 general painting award went to Doreen Reid Nakamarra from Western Australia for her painting about a rockhole.

Last year’s top award winner Dennis Nona from the Torres Strait Islands won the Works on Paper prize.

More than 300 art works were entered in this year’s award and around 100 pieces which made the final cut are on display at the Museum and Art Gallery in Darwin until October.

Hetti Perkins from the Art Gallery of New South Wales helped judge this year’s collection.

Ms Perkins says the winning painting has a lot in common with the artist.

“It’s very dynamic and charismatic and I have to say that she, from what I know about her, Makinti is very like that,” she said.

“She’s quite elderly now but I think her enthusiasm for art making remains undiluted.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/16/2337310.htm

NAIDOC 2008 – Adelaide

Here are three gorgeous gals who caught up with one another during the NAIDOC march and Family day on the banks of the River Torrens.

Katrina Power, Pilwauk White and Jo Rigney…

Don’t worry… and Just Bead Happy!

I have recently introduced an ART of Change  program using beads that we hand roll from air drying clay to create an “empowerment necklace’ as mentioned in an earlier thread.

Meeting for between 2 to 4 hours a week participants shape their beads based on a Vision they hold for the future or as an expression of love / resolution / Spiritual strength / developing a stronger sense of Self and identity etc. 

Once the personal vision  beads are dry we paint them and give them life, colour and vibrancy. Das clay is FANtastic as a quick drying and very hardy medium that is not heavy once it has dried…
The rolling of the clay and shaping the beads is a very relaxing process that activates the alpha state (open eyed meditative) of optimum learning and relaxation.

The ‘bead happy’ project engages two significant aspects – process and completion, which are often difficult to attain for people who are living with marginalisation, violence, addiction, mental illness, trauma and poverty.

The talking circle format is a very relaxed, informal environment which is more culturally relevant for many of the participants from non-western /European backgrounds. This kind of environment does not have a ‘counsellor -client’ dynamic, it is a far more empowering model that moves beyond pain and issues to the place of connecting with personal power, natural talent and possibility.
The very state we knew as small children before the external world imprinted limitations upon us.
We celebrate “ME” and explore the potential we have to move beyond limitations and past patterns and programs….

Thankyou to the Women whose work is in the image below…although they remain anonymous in the photos, the very personal stories and amazing creativity that is expressed through the clay and the beading affirms to me how privileged I am to provide art based life coaching at the grass roots, community level where so many amazing people have extraordinary stories to share….

Mandala

I made this Empowerment Mandala for our discussion on “Boundaries” in the women’s group…..

Each participant has a black and white copy as a way of ‘kick starting creativity and the use of symbols as an alternative to talk, talk, talk therapy……

One of those ‘must get around to it’ projects…..I finally got around to it!

Some time last year Sal mentioned that as I had commandeered the best end of the couch, I had the table and the lamp and he would really like somewhere to rest his cuppa too!

So as per the no-such-thing-as-coincidence by coincidence the very next day I came across one of those craft-kit tables in a second hand store for less than a cup of tea and pkt of biscuits.

I painted it in a colour to match the very-comfy-new-couch-with-the-swing-out-recliner-at-each-end and never got past doing the first coat of the design….

What better way to spend easter than painting in my outdoor studio on the egg-shaped template, completing the process begun over a year ago….after all Easter is all about endings and beginnings…

Here is the table from half done to complete…

Fancy Stitches Opens in Melbourne

Back in November I wrote about a wonderful exhibition called “Fancy Stitches” when it was here in Adelaide.

I was pleased to hear that the exhibition is going to be opening in Melbourne soon….you can see the details on the poster below.

If you get the chance, go along and look at this inspiring, heart warming and sometimes sad exhibition that captures the reality of living in a country that has been ravaged by HIV / AIDS…and the amazing strength, courage and creativity of the Women who tell their stories through the Fancy Stitches embroidery collective.

Photo essay of Fancy Stitches Exhibition can be seen in my blog here….

Where Gallery 15 @15W 15 William Street Melbourne
When 5 – 31 March 9am – 6pm Mon- Fri