I am half way through Level 2 of the Master’s Program at the Expressive Arts Institute of San Diego(or EAISD) under the directorship of Dr. Judith Greer Essex, PhD EAT, and Wes Chester. It has been exhilarating, challenging, expanding, terrifying and very much the perfect place for me! I mastered Level 1 exams, presenting my art based research project on Laurie Anderson which included the required paper, a 10 minute performance piece, oral presentaion and related paintings. Performing live was an experience like none other, committing to giving it my all an accomplishment I am proud of and the feedback from that evening stays with me.

The art based research process helped me through a difficult time where the loss of the artist’s hermit life I led for so long became overwhelming. Once again, it was the arts that saved me, helped me wander and sit in the darkness as long as it lasted while germination and transformation took place. In time, my enthusiasm returned, hope and confidence have been restored, new insights appeared and new ventures undertaken.

I am currently preparing for my second summer session at EGS beginning July 8 and have been working on a portfolio of the past year’s work and learnings. Dr. Essex will be teaching there this year and poet laureate Elizabeth McKim will the artist in residence.

My practicum work continues at Montecatini, where I will officially become the Expressive Arts Therapist on staff this coming August. I also began an ongoing weekly Expressive Arts Therapy group at the Turning Point Home for women in Golden Hill in the spring.

The new Soul Doll Workshop is a true Expressive Arts Experience. People have responded with rave reviews to this new format I developed from my classic doll workshops and my therapy practice and education.

In my art affiliated art studies for the Master’s program, I continue to work with Expressive Arts Therapist Mary Reich, reknowned Dancer/Choreographer and co-founder of Lower Left Dance Collective , from time to time, a relationship that has been life changing. Her assistance in preparing for my exams was invaluable as well as that of Master Artist Kathrin Keune, renowned German singer/performer and a recent EAISD graduate, in Voice Movement. I have also been learning and creating with Master Puppeteer, Iain Gunn of Animal Cracker Conspiracy, Zirk Ubu, San Diego Guild of Puppetry and the Ancient Gallery for more than a year and our giant puppets have performed in Old Town, Mardi Gras downtown, Sushi, for Amway China and other events.

I am  continuing to grow in the Minstrels of Story Playback Theatre group in San Diego under the artistic direction of Taru Rivera. Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which the audience members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted or played back immediately in a safe and supportive environment. Storytelling remains the most ancient of arts, told around campfires and circles for thousands of years. In the past year, we performed for residents at VVSD and Providence Place and are looking for new sites for our fall season including Lost Boys of Sudan (now Lost Men and Women) and the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation. If you have a site where Playback Theatre can perform, please contact me.

Dolls have finally begun speaking to me again. I actually finished two pieces that had been in process for several years and am looking for time and space to create others who are not so patiently waiting. I continue to sing and am learning to play the ukulele, making giant puppets and maintain my costume business, mostly though, my organic vegetable garden is heart and soul, center and ground to everything else.

It has been life-altering to say the least. Fears and terrors faced and befriended, feeling exposed and vulnerable and raw, thrown into chaos and new community, provoked and shaped by group process, my world continues to expand. Some days I don’t recognize myself, the layers shift rapidly and slowly. I do miss my hermit artist life something terrible and I’m walking, dancing, slithering between the two. For now, I’m answering a call heard in 2006 on the road back from my first trip to New Mexico to become more visible which, step by step has led me to this life as artist, student, training practioner and peer.

This is a full-time scholastic endeavor based on a self-directed adult learning, circular and experiential model and is undoing all manner of notions about education and more. In my educational requirements are required hours in Expressive Arts Therapy sessions with a recognized teaching professional in the field, required hours of study with an authorized Master Artist in an art form that is not my own as well as required hours of practicum work in the community with assigned supervision in two different locations long-term.  I’ve chosen to work with Mary Reich, a reknowned Dancer/Choreographer and co-founder of Lower Left Dance Collective a graduate of EAISD and Expressive Arts Therapist, first since movement has been key in my life and health in the last 3 years and to help me in relationship to this renewed body I have. I continue to learn what an excellent choice I made as therapist/teacher, what a gift she is. For the Master Artist requirements, I studied with nationally recognized modern Painter, Reed Cardwell, for a period of time before choosing to pursue Performance Art, the most terrifying and the strongest attractor, adhering to the directive “Follow the Attractors” and “How will the study of an unfamiliar art form inform and influence my own art?” In this vein, I am now studying with Kathrin Keune, renowned German singer/performer and a recent EAISD graduate, in Voice Movement. I found my body’s love of singing in school this past year and am currently working on an arts based research project of Laurie Anderson, performance artist supreme, which I will present for my Level One exams.

I am also an active member and player in the Minstrels of Story Playback Theatre group in San Diego under the artistic direction of Taru Rivera. Playback Theatre was developed in 1975 by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas, who still run the School of Playback Theatre. Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which the audience members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted or played back immediately in a safe and supportive environment. Storytelling remains the most ancient of arts, told around campfires and circles for thousands of years.

I attended and successfully completed my first level of three at EGS this past summer and look forward to returning next July. The summer program in condensed, demanding and challenging and the spectacular Swiss Alps provided me with the nature hikes to balance the long hours of daily class work. 23 days in a row, no days off, most days from 9am-10:30 at night. I came home thoroughly exhausted to a point I’ve not experienced in years, if ever. Next year, I will schedule a week off afterwards to recuperate!

My practicum work has consisted of the ALBA school, working with at risk teens in Drama to develop healthy and appropriate social behaviors so they can hopefully return to the schools they were removed from; Expressive Arts Therapy groups (including my evolving Doll Workshops) at an eating disorder treatment facility; Expressive Arts Therapy groups for San Diego Youth and Community Services (SDYCS) which have included art groups with homeless teens at the SDYCS Storefront Shelter and currently with at risk youth ages 5-8 with behavioral and socialization issues.

In the meantime, among the reading and paper writing, I am from time to time practicing the piano, which I took up just before leaving for Switzerland, or writing melodies to accompany the songs I’m creating, or painting or dancing or puppetting or practicing stilt-walking or even once in a while paying attention to some in work dolls who are very, very patient.

What is Expressive Arts?

Expressive Arts (EXA) is a therapeutic field in which the arts—dance, music, visual arts, theatre and poetry—are used as a catalyst for change in an individual, organization or community. EXA works by activating the imagination and stimulating the senses, expanding cognition beyond the logic of the intellect.

Simply put, EXA helps us move from limitation to possibility. As we engage our creativity we develop confidence in our ability to produce and manage change in our lives and in the world. EXA is appropriate for clients of all ages and abilities. No arts experience is needed.

How does Expressive Arts help in therapy?

The arts enable us to give expression to pain and distress that is beyond language—to move it from the abyss within into a physical form that can be examined, acknowledged and released by the sufferer, clearing the path to change.

The arts also give a physical presence to hopes and dreams; as we shape our images they in turn shape us. When we depict with a drawing, collage or sculpture, or enact a new way of being in the world, it is empowering. Practicing a new behavior in the imaginal realm paves the way for a shift in the physical world.

EXA is often used in conjunction with, or as an alternative to psychotherapy. Among many applications, it is highly effective in the treatment of eating disorders, substance abuse, depression and mental illness. It is helpful, too, for clients who are dealing with loss, facing a life-threatening illness, and for those who have experienced trauma.

or – how I thought WordPress would be the simpler answer for managing web content…….this is the slowly migrating lynndewart.com website. One of these days, it will be the official site.