I was honored to teach a workshop as part of Why We Rise LA 2021 in coordination with 18th Street Art Center’s Arts Learning Lab @ Home: called: Bookmaking with Self-Compassion.
An initiative of the Los Angeles Count Department of Mental Health, Why We Rise LA took place in May 2021, supporting hundreds of Community Arts & Culture Projects which took place across all Los Angeles County neighborhoods, in partnership with more than 100 community groups, artists, grassroots leaders, healers and other LA County Departments. These projects and collaborations included mural making, ancestral healing workshops, a Countywide public literary art project, a Countywide chalk art program and more to celebrate the remarkable resources and communities in LA County and used arts-based strategies for healing and wellbeing.
Nearly 70 online participants learned to create the “Flower Fold” book structure, then added embellishment, images, and words expressing their experience of the pandemic, where they are at now, what they learned, what they wanted to share, hopes, wishes, dreams, cares , fears, realizations, trauma, and the full gamut of human emotions.
Individually folded sections could be glued together to create a chain that could be folded back into a square.
Covers were added to present and protect the pieces.
The works created are inspiring!
Watch the workshop HERE!