International Soul Art Day Gallery

What Inspired you to do a Soul Art journey?

I’m at a point of major transition, having just moved both my apartment and my office, and have been fluctuating between feeling elated and inspired and feeling deflated and directionless. Creative expression tends to get the wind back in my sails and pulls me out of the doldrums more quickly and more reliably than anything else, and having a framework and a community in which to create took all the pressure off of generating concepts.

How would you describe your creative process?

It was kind of sporadic. None of the paper I had was big enough to trace the body part I felt drawn to (hips and waist), except a pad of giant Post-It notes. I traced it out, and loved the shape but not the paper, so I ran down the block to the art scrap store for new supplies, and ran back with the paper inside my dress to hide it from the rain. That in itself was worth the investment of time, because it felt just odd enough to be fun. Then I started the guided process and realized I needed magazines, and I don’t have any, so I browsed my Pinterest feed instead. I was really surprised by how much overlap there was among my selected words, “health,” “nature,” “freedom,” “communion,” and “ecstacy.”

What insight did you receive from your Soul Art?

I need to trust more that I am ripening in exactly the right time and in the right way.

What is the most important thing you would like to share about your Soul Art experience?

I was surprised by how vibrant and vital the image that came out of me was, because I’d just spent two days going through some much heavier stuff. I’d had a major release as part of another process and had felt quite drained afterward, and had cried quite a bit the next day in conversation with someone else, so I was amazed that my portrait of my energetic state was one suggestion of cyclical fecundity and awakening after another.