After reading an inspiring novel as a teenager, I always knew I wanted to facilitate healing through the medium of art. But as it happens, life had other plans.

I first became an early childhood educator and then mother to three beautiful children of my own. Once they were on their feet I went back to school and studied to become a Therapeutic Art Facilitator.

Studio Muse arrived about 20 years ago, and my aim was always to create a kind of sanctuary where one could come to engage in a gentle creative dialogue with oneself, with one’s inner artist. Something I believe sits within us all. When we slow down and take the time to engage with ourselves through art-making, we are often surprised at what is revealed. 

The spirit of the studio is one very much based on feeling: we try not to analyse or judge our own or others’ creations but instead, objectively observe what we see. It is in this way we can rather allow healing to take place, through the actual creation of the artwork.

I have found over the years that when we observe the composition, colour or mood of an artwork, we come closer to its therapeutic value. Rather than if we were to try to analyse the meaning we imagine might be being expressed by the artist.

Life is so full and busy these days that it’s hard to metabolise all that our soul encounters and adventures. The studio often serves as a place to integrate and digest some of that excess stimulation; the art-making creates spaciousness, internal peace and quietude.

Many who come to the studio on a regular basis comment on how their relationship to their innate wisdom is awakened and that they make better choices for themselves in the world, due to the fact that they have come into a more direct, regular dialogue with themselves.

Overall, I would say that making art in the studio is mostly a listening activity.

I always say to my students our art classes are a contemporary way of socialising, no one knows your story and yet we jovially drink tea and eat chips together while we witness each other’s often extraordinary creations which are nothing less than expressions of our soul life. And so we know each other well and yet know very little of each other’s stories.

iseeyousee magazine approached us a while back and said they wanted to collaborate with us. I gave an emphatic ‘yes’,  because I love their photographs. It has been a wonderful project. 

We journeyed to South Sudan, sometimes to what felt like Paris or the Dutch masters. Often students recreated the same images and yet each person’s interpretation was absolutely unique. 

I have always felt that when we create art, we reveal our blueprint, and this project has confirmed that for me.

Last week two of the magazine’s photographers arrived and photographed some of us in action. This felt good and slightly edgy; being witnessed is part of the therapeutic process, so this too belonged to our collaboration! 

We took the witnessing a step further by exhibiting our beautiful artworks at First Thursdays in Kalk Bay (in the studio) on the 5th of September 2024. It was a special evening!

Thank you so much Alexa Singer and the iseeyousee magazine for this wonderful experience!

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