Practice art.
Practice meditation.
Practice togetherness.
Register now
Beginners welcome. No experience necessary.
Do you love making art but struggle to actually sit down and do it?
Have you strayed from or want to renew a daily creative practice?
Have you longed for a sincere community of art-makers and meditators?
Do you want to deepen & explore the ongoing connection between your spiritual and creative practices?
Let us join together as creative folk who meditate
and meditators who make stuff.
Dive into a journey where art meets meditation, and community flourishes. Whether you’re picking up a brush for the first time or seeking to deepen an existing practice, this course offers a sanctuary for both. Join us to intertwine art and meditation, fostering a daily practice that enriches your life and the world around us.
Suiko McCall, Art Monastery’s visionary, enhances this year’s experience with her unique blend of mindfulness and artistic expertise. Expect to explore improvisatory drawing with whatever materials you have, inspired by Suiko’s inclusive approach to creativity.
We will gather via Zoom for two hours on four Sundays to:
- build community
- make art
- interweave our spiritual & creative practices and chew on the challenges that arise from the creative process
- come together in symbiotic support and mutual inspiration, in all our vulnerability and prowess
- for the benefit of this beautiful planet and all beings!
This class supports you to
- create (or rejuvenate) a daily art practice of your own
- deepen your creativity
- bridge your creative & meditation practices (even if you don’t already have those)
- connect with a heartfelt community of Artmonks for mutual encouragement & accountability
- share your work, should you so choose
Sundays, April 29 to May 19
9-11am PT
Online
Register at SFZC.org
Schedule
9 to 11am PACIFIC
9-9:30 PT — Artmonk Practice (begins with seated meditation and leads into improvisatory drawing/writing/sounding/movement)
9:30-10:10 — Heartshare in small groups (themed on topics relevant to the challenges and glories of artmaking and spiritual practice)
10:10-10:25 — break
10:25-10:55 — Artshare
10:55-11 — Closing & Dedication of merit
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 teaching. 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 Budapest. 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.” In 2023, she published another workbook, “Live Your Power. Become who you are.”
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 is a certified Mindfulness Meditation teacher, Morning Altars teacher, and Transformation Host. She received lay ordination from Fu Schroeder in 2019.
Suiko lived at the Art Monastery in its various locations throughout Italy for seven years, Art Monastery Vermont for seven years, Art Monastery Hawaii for two years, and Green Gulch Farm for four years. Suiko now lives in San Francisco. You can see Suiko’s paintings at suiko.art.
Fees & Registration
Register now
General $200
San Francisco Zen Center members $180
Sliding scale $50-120
For additional financial support, please email rezoffice@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),
- watercolor or water soluble brush pens
- 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
- For fine white lines, I’m a fan of Sakura Gelly Roll white pens.
- watercolors or gouache (For the most beautiful, lovingly & responsibly made, check out Beam Paints, such as the Spectrum 11 Gouache Set) or liquid water colors.