seminars/classes —

Contact Jeanine at jeaninesemon@aol.com for teaching your group. Classes include slides show discussions, motivational art creativity classes to stimulate life decisions. Click for descriptions, or Jeanine can customize for your specific group.

art is healing —

Since I have found over the years that art is very powerful, beyond what most people think, as a healer of the body and mind, I want to share a description of what takes place in my art classes. This great power was a discovery to me as well, though I've always known that I love art, to look at and to make. Actually, both are healing. Other appropriate words are -- uplifting, relaxing, comforting, joyful. For most people, visiting an art museum totally alters one's mood. Milwaukee, WI's art museum is running "American Fancy", an exhibit like nothing you've ever seen. I think about returning to hover among the beauty and floating in their huge kaleidoscope lighting up the floor.

simply put: art's joy and healing are built into the DNA.

The following is a detailed description of my class. Leave your email if you want to be informed of a workshop and I would love to hear your response to my class description (jeaninesemon@aol.com).

The following is an explanation of a HEALING ART workshop I did in Rome, Italy in December, 2003. Together with other healers we celebrated “The Epoch of the Dove”, a congress organized to bring peace and healing to the world from the feminine energy.

I’d like to begin by quoting from Dr. Michael Samuels and Dr. Mary Rockwood Lane in their book “Creative Healing”: Prayer, art, and healing all come from the same source: the human soul. Research has shown us that a person in prayer, a person making art, and a person healing all have the same physiology, the same brain wave patterns, and the same states of consciousness. I met both the authors at an Arts and Health conference in Marin County, CA many years ago when they made a lasting impression on me.

The most important thing that I teach in my art class is, “There is no such thing as wrong art, everything you do is right.” When you make art, you can’t do anything wrong. Everyone is an artist, everyone has a strong creative center. We were born with it. It is natural. It appeared when we were children, but unfortunately by age seven, most of us were squelched. We thought we had to be a Leonardo DaVinci talent and “couldn’t draw a straight line.” Even those who got into art anyway fight the battle of comparing their work to the great traditional landscapes, portraits, perfect realism in ornate gold frames. Therefore the most important thing I teach is, “There is no wrong art.”

making art is healing —

Our artist’s soul is as fresh and new inside us as the day we were born, just waiting to be taken out and dusted off. Miraculously, it holds the power to heal our mind, body, and spirit. We were meant to be artists, art meaning painting, music, dance, writing, all forms of creativity.

When we do start making art, we realize something has been missing in us. Art fills us in. It allows us to be fully ourselves. When we lose our fear and get a glimpse of the artist within, our spirit frees, goes into a relaxed state, which starts our endorphins running and our immune system flowing. We get happy, passing into a state of being beyond stress, beyond illness or sadness. We concentrate fully on our own art world, regardless of what anyone else creates, doing our own thing. We feel good, it is fun. We become more confident when we see our art take shape.

What we create is ours, it belongs to us. It is beyond criticism. Our art is the tangible evidence of our souls, who we are. It is evidence of our connection to the universal creative energy that flows miraculously throughout time and space. It is the thread of connection to the All. The dust of the stars and us, we are made of the same swirling stuff.