RVML Resource Center 2002-2007 Calendar Archives
11
December 2007, Tuesday
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Lecture: Improv Painting for Self-Discovery and Joy by Shoshanah Dubiner
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: RVML Event Center - 258 A St, Ashland
Shoshanah Dubiner- Click for more information Lecture: Improv Painting for Self-Discovery and Joy- Exploring Life with Paint and a Brush
By Shoshanah Dubiner


$5.00 - 20.00 Suggested donation, everyone welcome







Presentation Description:

Improv painting is a way to play directly and spontaneously with color and imagery, freeing you to discover and enjoy the power of your own creative capacities.

After 40 years as an artist, designer, and teacher, in 1999, Shoshanah discovered "process painting" as described by Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley in their book *Life, Paint, and Passion.* During the next four years, painting intensively at Barbara Kaufman's Center for Creative Expression in San Francisco, Shoshanah's artistic vision and understanding of the creative process radically transformed .

Since 2006 Shoshanah has been guiding others in Improv Painting. In addition to her own deep understanding of and passion for the creative process, her teaching methods utilize Buddhist Mindfulness practice and the Hakomi Method of assisted self-discovery.

Improv painting is for people who have never painted before, or who were told as children that they weren't good in art, or who are accomplished professional artists. It is a method that allows them all to engage immediately in the creative process and become child-like in their freedom of their expression - TO HAVE FUN.

In a class situation, painting is done silently in a group. As the brush moves on the paper, we let any and all images that are held in the unconscious to come out on paper -- whether angelic or demonic. As we paint, we are mindful of judgments and doubts that arise, and we practice letting go of the inner critic. We focus on our inner process, not on the product on the paper. Because improv painting gives us permission to express ourselves authentically, it is inherently a healing experience.

Comments from students:

"The class I had with you gave me permission to express myself; I lost the fear of painting. . ." -Carmen Barroso, Therapist

"As someone who hadn't painted since grade school, I found it both fun and meditative to put paint on paper again." -Ann Strauss, Rehabilitation Teacher


Presenter's Biography:

Shoshanah Dubiner is an accomplished artist, designer and teacher. After receiving an MA in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and an MFA in Theater Design from Brandeis University, she worked as a costume designer and exhibition designer before founding her own computer graphics company, The Interactive Muse. She designed the educational animations for Microsoft's "Encarta" and "Explorapedia."

It was only after a period in the mid-1990s of teaching handwork and art at a Waldorf school and starting a practice of Buddhist meditation in the California Gold Country that Shoshanah discovered the power of "painting for process, not product." She was able to tap into deep sources of creativity that had previously eluded her, despite her successes as an artist and designer. Returning home to San Francisco she continued doing improvisational painting and had a solo exhibition entitled "Infinite Worlds Within" at the Canessa Gallery in San Francisco in 2003.

Shoshanah Dubiner now teaches painting to people who believe they can't paint or who long to experience the joy and spontaneity in painting that children have naturally. She has seen how almost everyone can benefit from expressing themselves in images. "All that most people need to lose their fear of painting is simply permission to be authentic in their creativity." Her classes and workshops here are called "improv painting," and are inspired by the writing of Steven Nachmanovich's "Free Play: Improvisation in Art and Life" and the teachings of Michelle Cassou and Stewart Cubley, who wrote "Life, Paint and Passion" and with whom she has studied. In her classes, she helps people dip their toe into the ocean of creativity and gain the confidence to swim.

Since moving to Ashland in 2004, she has volunteered as an artist-in-residence in the Ashland Middle School and curated an exhibition, hosted by Gallery DeForest in March 2007, of AMS students' artwork. In Ashland, she has exhibited at Gallery DeForest ("Miracle of Connecting" in 2004" with Craig Comstock, her partner at the time and now her husband), at Pangea ("Painted Dancers" in 2005, and "Dancing Scissors" and Dancing Brush" in 2006), and as Illahe Tile Gallery's featured artist in April 2007, and has participated twice, by invitation, in "A Taste of Ashland (2006 and 2007)."

Shoshanah recently opened Studio Viva, LLC in Ashland's 'A' Street Arts Building. There she offers classes and workshops, and pursues her own artistic interests, one of which is exploring "patterns in nature." Shoshanah's fascination with patterns in nature began in the '80s while designing a museum exhibition about symmetry. By 2003, she and Trudy Myrrh, the founder of YLEM (a San Francisco Bay Area group of artists interested in technology) had started a study group in visual math and pattern in nature in the Bay Area. Shoshanah, after taking a course in cell biology at SOU this summer, founded Patterns in Nature North, a group of Ashland art-and-science-minded people who want to look at and explore images of microscopic membranes, branching trees, and spiral galaxies.


More information: 541.292.4284 e-mail: cybermusing@earthlink.net

Website: http://www.cybermuse.com
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TUESDAY LECTURE SERIES FORMAT: 90-120-minute lecture presentation including break and Q&A period. All events conclude promptly at 9:00pm.

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RVML's VISION STATEMENT: "Our ability to discern truth is enhanced by exposure to a broader perspective on the human experience. By integrating new truths into our awareness, the expansion of knowledge in the collective mind advances the evolution of human consciousness."
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RENT RVML's PRESENTATION FACILITIES: The 1,000 square-foot (15'x65') presentation area is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible with full audio-visual capabilities available.

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