Below is an example of an old CLASS DESCRIPTION from my Artist’s Way small groups. I hope to offer my next one in 2024, Spring/Summer.
15 Week Series, facilitated by Dana Wilde.
SUNDAY AFTERNOONS 12:00 - 2:00 PM, Eastern Time
MAY 2 - AUGUST 8
*No meeting during week 7
Please read the entire class description before deciding to apply .
QUESTIONS? Use the contact form, or email danawildeart@gmail.com
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Restoring Creativity is the newest iteration of my 15-week small group class for people seeking support, connection, camaraderie, and encouragement around completing The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity self-help course book by Julia Cameron, from start to finish.
The whole intention behind starting these small group classes in 2016 was to bring the element of social connection, routine and community to an important self-help course that many people I’ve met over the years have found otherwise difficult or impossible to complete all on their own.
So while your face, voice, and presence are integral to the group -- it’s not about being “on,” or being performative (nor is it anything like working on a “group project” like for work or college). It’s much more of a class/support group hybrid -- a chance to show up as yourself, be honest about how you’re experiencing the Artist’s Way reading and assignments from each week, and exchanging attention/care with your classmates. The invitation is to practice being curious and compassionate toward yourself and others.
>> Past student’s testimonials & photos
ABOUT THE BOOK
"The Artist's Way is an empowering book for aspiring and working artists. With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron leads you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces. The Artist's Way is unique in three ways: 1) It links creativity to spirituality by showing in non- denominational terms how to tap into a higher power that connects human creativity with the creative energies of the universe. 2) It links creativity to personal empowerment, and in each of the twelve weeks of the course helps remove one or more seemingly insurmountable barriers to artistic confidence and productivity. 3) It links creativity to learnable skills, guiding you through a variety of highly effective exercises and activities that spur imagination and capture new ideas. Whatever your spiritual orientation, The Artist's Way will resonate in your creative mind with truth, wisdom, and inspiration."
4th thing that I link (that the author/book does not)
I link creativity to societal, cultural, and environmental forces -- both in terms of how they have affected our relationship with creativity, and in terms of how our creativity is deeply needed to affect change in these areas. I contextualize creativity as something that’s deeply impacted by -- and potentially impactful upon -- the world around us.
What commonly gets called our “inner critic” and sort of treated as a silly neurosis or personal shortcoming is actually just our personalized internalizations of the oppressive anti-creativity culture most of us have been absorbing since we were kids, and which takes on new guises all the time.
In other words: We have difficulties with creativity because various aspects of normalized culture actively undermine it -- not because there’s anything deficient about us, or our creativity!
Common inner critic mantras include, “You won’t make any money selling art, so what’s the point?” and “Can’t you just be normal?” and “Who do you think you are?” amongst many other classic hits that many of us know by heart. Anti-creativity forces are all around, and they make us disconnect from our authentic selves when we’re young -- a disconnection that lies at the heart of so much adult suffering and dysfunction.
My groups are intended to assist in healing that disconnection.
Students are invited to share themselves and support one another in this process of restoring creativity. Doing this inner work is timely, important, relevant, and actually about restoring our individual and collective integrity. Our nurtured creativity enables effective participation in movements (big or small, private or public, inner or outer) of healing, recovery, repair, liberation, beauty, and justice.
We need our creativity to transform the harmful qualities of the status quo that fester and operate inside and outside of ourselves -- and to reconnect us with the larger whole of life/creation/nature and humanity that we belong to.
What Happens At Class?
Firstly, understand that you will be doing The Artist’s Way weekly coursework ON YOUR OWN, between class meetings, and that consists of:
Themed chapter reading -- ideally done on Sunday nights or Monday.
Tasks -- Homework at the end of each chapter. Pick a few (no need to do them all).
Morning Pages -- Writing in your notebook every morning.
Artist Date -- Taking one small solo excursion for your artist-self’s pleasure, fun, nourishment.
Then, we gather every Sunday for class, where you will have a timed chance to “check-in” and talk about your personal experience with the above. We also have a group discussion about that week’s chapter subject (see below).
I originally did the course by myself in 1997 when I was 23. Despite the fact that I petered-out near the end and had no support, it changed the course of my life during a very precarious, pivotal phase of life. I credit its influence with guiding me to crucial people and life-changing things down the road. (You can read more about me/my story on the homepage). Then when I was 41, I did the whole course again alongside the participants in my very first group class at Inner Studio.
I’m always moved and informed by witnessing people having their own experiences, discoveries, complaints, and breakthroughs as they make their way through the material. There’s a richness to the mix of differences and similarities between people’s experiences.
Past student’s testimonials & photos
COST: $300
Included: 14 class meetings (2hrs each), 1 phone session with me during week of June 20 (no class meeting that week), email support between meetings, and PDF materials.
CLASS SCHEDULE
May 2: HELLO / WELCOME /Intro meeting
May 9: Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety
May 16: Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity
May 23: Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power
May 30: Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity
June 6: Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
June 13: Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance
June 20: NO MEETING / catch-up time + individual phone sessions this week
June 27: Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection
July 4: Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength
July 11: Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion
July 18: Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection
July 25: Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Aug 1: Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith
Aug 8: GOOD-BYE / CLOSING meeting
