Practice art.
Practice meditation.
Practice togetherness.
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Saturdays, April 1 to 22
10am-noon PT
Online
Register through San Francisco Zen Center
Led by Art Monastery Abbess Suiko Betsy McCall
Beginners welcome. No experience necessary.
Do you love making art but struggle to actually do it?
Have you longed for an intimate group to build a deeper community amongst art-makers and meditators?
To support each other in making art in a way that’s more integrated into our daily lives?
To explore the ongoing connection between our spiritual and creative practices?
Let us join together as creative folk who meditate
and meditators who make stuff.
We will gather via Zoom for two hours on four Saturdays to:
- build community
- make art
- interweave our spiritual & creative practices and chewing on the challenges that arise from that tapestry
- come together in symbiotic support and mutual inspiration, in all our vulnerability and prowess
- for the benefit of this beautiful planet and all beings
Does this idea make your energy go up?
Register at sfzc.org
Schedule
10am to noon PACIFIC
10-10:30 PT — Artmonk Practice (begins with seated meditation and leads into improvisatory drawing/writing/sounding/movement)
10:30-11:10 — Heartshare in small groups (themed on topics relevant to the challenges and glories of artmaking and spiritual practice)
11:10-11:25 — break
11:25-11:55 — Artshare
11:55-12 — Closing & Dedication of merit
Register at sfzc.org
Course Host
This class is hosted by Art Monastery Founder and Abbess Suiko McCall.
Retreat leader bios...Suiko Betsy McCall brings her experience as a competitive synchronized swimmer, professional knitter, and founder of the Art Monastery Project to inform her visual art and her retreat hosting. Garnering degrees from Yale University and San Francisco Art Institute, Suiko’s paintings have been exhibited from San Francisco and New York to Amsterdam and Rome. In 2013, she co-authored and illustrated the book, “Hosting Transformation: Stories from the Edge of Changemaking”. In 2017, she authored and illustrated the workbook, “Live Your Dream. Start Here. Start Now.” Her paintings have been published in International Interiors Magazine, Leaping Clear Literary Magazine, and Cream City Review. She is the Founder and Abbess of the Art Monastery, an arts organization dedicated to cultivating personal awakening and cultural transformation through artmaking, spiritual practice, and reciprocal relationship with the earth. An American non-profit, the Art Monastery is one of the founding organizations in the International Partnership for Transformative Learning. Suiko lived at the Art Monastery in its various locations throughout Italy for seven years and Art Monastery Vermont for five years. She lived at Green Gulch Farm / Green Dragon Zen Temple in California for four years. Suiko now lives on the ancestral land of the Kanaka Maoli, the Big Island of Hawai’i.
You can see Suiko’s paintings at suiko.art.
Register at sfzc.org
Fees & Registration
Full price $200
San Francisco Zen Center members $180
Discounted $50-120
For additional financial support, please email rezoffice@sfzc.org.
Register online or call 415-354-0360.
Register at sfzc.org
Materials
There are no particular supplies you need for this course. We will be engaging in a kind of improvisatory drawing. I encourage you to use whatever you already have. That said, I know that it can also be inspiring to acquire new supplies. 🙂 Here’s what I recommend:
-
- a sturdy sketchbook
- a set of colored pencils (my favorites are Prismacolors),
- water soluble oil pastels (or these more expensive but delicious water color sticks),
- black pens (lately I’ve been enjoying drawing with a fine point Sharpie or the more refined Molotow fineliners)
- color pens
- For fine lines, I’ve been enjoying Tuls available in a set or individually at most OfficeMaxes)
- For wider coverage, nothing beats Posca Paint Markers
- and perhaps watercolors or gouache (For the most beautiful, lovingly & responsibly made, check out Beam Paints, such as the Spectrum 11 Gouache Set).