March 2011.  Welcome to Cocoonnections! - a place where you can hear about what I'm up to here at The Creative Cocoon.

Each year I vow to update Cocoonnections more regularly. It seems like I just turn round and another year has gone by! What a full year it was. My application to be registered as an Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator was accepted by the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association. It was a long and at times tedious process gathering all the information, case studies and philosophy statements they asked for, however well worth it. It became a reflection of the past fifteen years or so of working with expressive arts including a time when I did not know there was a name for what I was doing.

So far this year I have been computer bound as I helped with an expressive arts program review for the College, finished up writing my share of the Research Report for Visible Voices, and writing a toolkit for Visible Voices that I hope we can sell to help fund the continuation of Visible Voices in our community. The rest of the year is shaping up to be busy with teaching and learning again, and with luck, more travelling in the Autumn. I am also taking an on-line course with Pamela Hastings called Doll Making as a Transformative Process. It promises to be both fun and meaningful. More on that in my next Cocoonections newletter!

I hope this finds you full of the creative spirit. Until next time, be well…

Warmly, Fay.

If you're new to my site, visit the page that tells you about the kinds of things I'm doing and offering.- see my calendar of scheduled workshops, and also about the many workshops I've created for you. If you're looking for something you might have seen on an earlier visit, try the site map. My gallery exhibits my masks, fibre arts and much more

New Work

Last summer I took a class with Kate Church, a doll maker extraordinaire! We worked with polymer clay, a material I have had trouble with in the past. This is the first doll I created in her class. As the week progressed I began putting heads on heads, and hands coming out of heads, and tall, tall standing creatures!

View new work


Adventures

My travels took me to Vermont to the Power of Words Conference, and then to Edinburgh Scotland for the International Storytelling Festival. What a magical time. I met so many wonderful people. I told stories at a school in Glasgow, helped hang crow pictures painted by partially sighted Russian children for an exhibition to raise funds for their school. I visited an Open Arts Studio in Tynemouth where people come with a doctor’s prescription to make art in many forms – from fibre to paint to clay. A trip to Durham got me talking to Mike White who has written so eloquently on the arts and health in the U.K. The time gave me an opportunity to spend time in the Cathedral – which was spectacular. I almost didn’t come back to the Creative Cocoon!

My learnings included working with polymer clay in a doll making class with Kate Church. What a brilliant woman! Her gentle style and stunning knowledge of technique was a delight. One of the dolls I created is shown here in the New Work section. I hope to study with her again this summer in Haliburton.