How to resolve AdBlock issue? Arts & Life
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center invites community members to participate in “Reframing Trauma: A Therapeutic Drawing and Writing Workshop,” this Saturday, Sept. 5, from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Zoom.
Artist Antje Howard and Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie will guide participants in a drawing and writing workshop to process and reframe trauma into creative expression. This class is the first of MAC’s current Second Responder series.
The workshop will include a drawing process, a writing process and time to share.
“Drawing will help us to ground and explore the breadth of the emotions we are feeling at this current time,” explained Antje Howard. “We will use the Neurographica technique, a simple intuitive drawing process that can help us to see things from a new perspective. No prior art experience is required, and all you need is a piece of paper, thin and thick black markers or pens and colored pencils, markers, or crayons."
A certified Neurographica specialist, artist, creative coach and mentor, Howard uses Neurographica and mindfulness to catalyze personal and practical change. Her guidance is solution-oriented, with focus on concrete steps to support holistic well-being and growth. Learn more about Howard’s work at http://neuroartproject.net.
Georgina Marie will facilitate the writing portion which will build upon the drawing process. “The trauma we are experiencing may be a result of recent wildfires and evacuations, the Covid-19 crisis, current events, or personal experience. Our work together will help us cleanse, reframe and create new meaning through creative expression in a supportive, and welcoming environment.”
Georgina Marie is the 2020-2022 Lake County Poet Laureate, the first Mexican-American and youngest local poet to serve in this role. She facilitated writing workshops for MAC’s “Resilience” and “Restore” projects and served as co-editor for both projects’ chapbook of writings and art. She has facilitated and participated in poetry readings and workshops in Northern California and online. Visit her website at georginamariepoet.com to learn more about her work.
Upon the community’s return from Valley fire evacuation, the MAC began offering free and low-cost healing art classes. Subsequent fires in Lake County and regionally combined with Covid-19 have triggered flight or fight mechanisms and trauma upon trauma.
“The recent LNU Complex Fire and evacuations further impacted our already vulnerable nervous systems,” said MAC Programs Director Lisa Kaplan “The arts and creative expression can help us integrate experiences and emotions, reconnect us with ourselves, and support a sense of balance, and purpose.”
Participation is by donation $5-25. Pre-registration is required at www.middletownartcenter.org/classes. A Zoom link will be provided upon registration. No one turned away for lack of funds. Email
Find out more about MAC and ways to support their efforts to weave the arts and culture into the fabric of life in Lake County at www.middletownartcenter.org.
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- Written by: Middletown Art Center
We’ve published more than 800 weekly columns to date, and soon I’m retiring as editor and part-time professor.
This column will continue under my name until the end of the year, when my colleague Kwame Dawes will take over.
I’m immensely grateful to my talented and efficient longtime assistant editor, Pat Emile, to the Library of Congress and The Poetry Foundation, and to the English Department at the University of Nebraska.
And, of course, for the wonderful support we’ve had from all of you readers since the day Pat and I started out, uncertain, 15 years ago.
Rather than riding a horse into the sunset, let me clop away down the block on handmade stilts with this title poem from my new book, to be published Sept. 8 by Copper Canyon Press.
Here’s how life looks to me, at eighty-one:
Red Stilts
Seventy years ago I made a pair of stilts
from six-foot two-by-twos, with blocks
to stand on nailed a foot from the bottom.
If I was to learn to walk on stilts I wanted
them red and I had to wait almost forever
for the paint to dry, laid over the arms
of a saggy, ancient Adirondack chair
no longer good for much but holding hoes
and rakes and stakes rolled up in twine,
and at last I couldn’t wait a minute longer
and took the stilts into my hands and stepped
between them, stepped up and stepped out,
tilted far forward, clopping fast and away
down the walk, a foot above my neighborhood,
the summer in my hair, my new red stilts
stuck to my fingers, not knowing how far
I’d be able to get, and now, in what seems
just a few yards down the block, I’m there.
American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by Ted Kooser, "Red Stilts," from Red Stilts, (Copper Canyon Press, 2020). Poem reprinted by permission of Ted Kooser and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
