Affirming our Nature Workshop with Ken Otter and Taira Rester -
Miguel Luciano // Kenya // smARTpower Born in… – Bronx Museum of the Arts
About Us | Brush Fire Painting Workshops
In 1998 Naomi Rifkin experienced first hand the power of Process Oriented painting as a student in a class called A Brush with Creativity. In this class Naomi connected to herself in such a profound way she knew that “someday” she would bring this powerful personal development process to communities in need. Process Oriented painting is firmly based on the The Painting Experience and The Point Zero Methods of painting that prioritize art creation as a tool for personal growth, authentic expression, and expanded sense of possibility. Process Oriented painting focuses on the creative process, unlike traditional art methods that concentrates on the products of the artistic process.
In 2003 Naomi began volunteering with an art program that worked with juvenile offenders. She saw how the creative process helped these youth gain a sense of purpose and self-worth. Later that year Naomi’s “someday” came; she founded Brush Fire, volunteering her time to bring Process Oriented painting classes to underserved youth. Also that year Brush Fire became a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts.
Eventually, as word spread about Brush Fire, the project acquired contracts with local schools and service providers. Four years later, Brush Fire’s art curriculum has reached over 300 youth all over San Francisco. The program is funded by individual donations, community and school contracts, and by in-kind donations-including the time of a cadre of committed workshop volunteers.
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“Traveling Postcards” enables women to share their stories and empower each other across borders and in spite of distance and difference. I organize postcard-making events where women create small works of art that represent a moment in their life that they wish to share with another woman. Each card is the size of a postcard and can include bits of memories, objects and hand-written stories.
All cards are given away. They travel from one country to another, crossing borders unobstructed and uncensored. I imagine cards from mothers whose children are at war reaching mothers of the soldiers they are fighting. I imagine women who have been living in shelters reaching out and sharing their stories with women who want to know what they can do to stop domestic violence. I believe that these postcards can be our opportunity to creatively voice and record our collective insights as women.
Women like to pay tribute to the relationships in their lives. By using their pictures in a creative way, they adorn and nurture themselves. They place objects such as feathers, beads, paint, buttons, glue and paper on and around their pictures with the knowledge that their images will be sent to another woman who will be inspired by what she sees. Paying creative attention to themselves and those they cherish creates a mindfulness that opens the door for more intimate conversation. Wisdom flows more freely as memories become unlocked.
One Beach Plastic
Since 1999 Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang have been visiting 1000 yards of Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Sea Shore. We have rambled this one remote beach hundreds of times to gather plastic debris washing out of the Pacific Ocean. By carefully collecting and “curating” the bits of plastic, we fashion it into works of art— art that matter-of-factly shows, with minimal artifice, the material as it is. The viewer is often surprised that this colorful stuff is the thermoplastic junk of our throwaway culture. As we have deepened our practice we’ve found, like archeologists, that each bit of what we find opens into a pinpoint look at the whole of human culture. Each bit has a story to tell.
via One Beach Plastic.
Brett Cook
Brett Cook’s work cohesively integrates the breadth and depth of his diverse experiences with art, education, science, and spirituality. For over two decades, Cook has produced installations, exhibitions, curricula, and events widely across the United States, and internationally. His museum work features drawing, painting, photography, and elaborate installations that make intimately personal experiences universally accessible. His public projects typically involve community workshops and collaborative art, along with music, performance, and food to create a more fluid boundary between art making, daily life, and healing.
via Brett Cook.
Combat Paper Project
Coming home from war is a difficult thing. There is often much to account for as a survivor. A new language must be developed in order to express the magnitude and variety of the collective effect. Hand papermaking is the language of Combat Paper. By working in communities directly affected by warfare and using the uniforms and artifacts from their experiences, a transformation occurs and our collective language is born.
Through papermaking workshops, veterans use their uniforms worn in service to create works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Participants use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniforms as art and express their experiences with the military.
The Combat Paper Project is based in San Francisco, CA with affiliate paper mills in New Jersey, New York and Nevada. The project has traveled to Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Kosovo providing workshops, exhibitions, performances and artists’ talks. Combat Paper is made possible through the collaborative effort of artists, veterans, volunteers, colleges and universities, art collectors, cultural foundations, art spaces, military hospitals and installations.
Through ongoing participation in the papermaking process, we are broadening the traditional narrative surrounding the military experience and warfare. The work also generates a much-needed conversation between veterans and civilians regarding our collective responsibilities and shared understanding in war.
via Combat Paper Project.
