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AHN NEWS: August 2006
This month's issue of AHN News is dedicated to ART & SPIRIT. I interview Alice Masek about her work with Prayerful Papercutting, and review two books: Spirit Taking Form and Art is a Spiritual Path. Our featured link this month is SpiritArt.org.
Approaching art as a means to connect with the divine or one's soul can be a wonderful way to open to the healing power of art. This news page is just a small sampling of this large topic. I welcome your insights, resources and experiences with art and spirit. Please email me at marydaniel@artheals.org.
Wishing you a creative and spirit-filled August,
-Mary Daniel Hobson, Director, Arts and Healing Network
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AHN INTERVIEW:
Alice Masek on Prayful Papercutting
A 9 x 12 foot papercutting of
the Angel of Pilgrim Place
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"People in my workshops comment about how relaxing and healing the cutting process is for them, once they find they can do it. The healing can be personal, but also communal, as teamwork is strengthened over the tables through shared silence and spoken sharingÉ. The images can also reveal healing insights and allow participants to move on in their lives in fresh ways."
-Alice Masek
Alice Masek is a member of the Guild of American Papercutters. For the past ten years, she has lead a nationwide ministry of Prayerful Papercutting Workshops, offering classes to church and interfaith groups as well as to caregivers and to women in recovery from addiction. This August she is participating in the 2nd International Festival of the Art of Papercutting in Huhhot, Inner Mongolia - the purpose is to promote international exchanges and friendship around the art of papercutting. She was interviewed by Mary Daniel Hobson in July 2006.
Mary Daniel Hobson: Tell me a little bit about your background in the arts? When did you begin to work with papercutting?
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Alice Masek: I was gifted with the ability to draw things from early on, and always enjoyed "Art" even though I had no formal training beyond that offered in public school. While my children were in a Parent Participation Classroom in the 1980s, I drew scenery for their plays, to be painted by the kids, giving me the experience of drawing large scale on the floor and letting other people complete the work.
I saw the art of Nancy Chinn on display in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral in the mid-1980's, which included some elegant large scale "Paper Lace" of the "Days of Creation," and put it in the back of my mind that I would like to try that one day. Eight years later (1993), someone in my small church said "Let's do a Nativity Triptych", and I ended up drawing my first large scale papercutting for others to cut. I was studying at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley at the time, and when I graduated with an M.A., much to my surprise, God began opening doors for a ministry in Prayerful Papercutting. This has developed into a nationwide, interdenominational, and ecumenical (interfaith) ministry to churches and religious orders, synagogues and helping organizations.
Mary Daniel: Tell me about how you work with groups with Prayerful Papercutting? How is the imagery chosen? How do you create a tone of reverence?
Alice: When a group contacts me about a Prayerful Papercutting event, we talk about the needs of the group, themes and images that might further the spiritual growth or enhance healing in the people involved, and the size of their display space. If I have already developed suitable images in pattern form, we will use those. If not, I will custom draw to fit the group's needs.
As I arrive to do the event, I often set up a small altar as a focus for reflection. It is covered with a cloth linked to the workshop theme (like butterflies on a dark background for transformation), and there I light a "spirit candle" to remind us that the Creative Force is present in our work. The altar has other candles and objects related to the theme to lend interest. I read some prose passages to invite the participants to a greater depth of seeing and listening, and we pray for guidance and grace in the cutting process. Then I take the group around to the cutting tables to "meet" the various designs we will be cutting, sharing some of the powerful metaphors around the images as we go, because as I draw the images, ideas come to me of how they are relevent to our lives. I verbalize some of these to model the concept so the cutters, as they work, can be open to insights applicable to their particular paths. At the end, we admire the completed cuttings, light the altar candles to celebrate, and pray that the cuttings may also bless those who view them for the first time.
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This 9 x 15 foot papercutting features figures from
the "Garden of Hands" about spiritual healing
and self-care for caregivers
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Mary Daniel: Mary Daniel: What has the impact been on participants?
Alice: Prayerful Papercutting is one of few art forms in which the artist's work is done and the work is not yet complete. It is a flat, lifeless drawing until the cutting knives start to work. Over tables protected with flat cardboard, the cutters follow my lines with an Xacto knife, and lift out the pieces of paper marked with an "X". Because the paper comes off a roll (Photo Background paper, like that used behind models for photo sessions), it has a natural "curl" and the edges take on a life of their own. Loose parts, like wings or leaves, rise above the surface. The cutting seems to "lift to life" as we work. (One cutter said, with amazement "Why, that leaf is more 'HERE' now that I have removed it, than it was when it was in place!"). For some people, it is the first time they have experienced the "incarnational" step, and as the finished cutting is lifted and they see the whole thing, they are awed that they have helped create something so beautiful. The papercut form itself has internal metaphors, as the meaning is communicated by the shape of the edges, the places where the "there" and "not there" (seen and unseen) come together. The Lutherans named this "Cutting Edge Theology." The impact of this creational awe, along with the metaphorical view of the relevance of the images, creates an opening for healing and transformation, and can leave participants seeing life in a whole new way. (I have had testimony of this even a year after a workshop.) Even churches can be healed -- with the shared papercutting pulling together generations and factions that had been split by conflict.
Mary Daniel: You have worked with papercutting for healing with women in recovery and those engaged in caregiving. Can you talk a little bit about that process?
Alice: In some residential programs for women in recovery from addictions, the women (who would be in jail if not in the program) are isolated from their families, and the most difficult time for them is the holidays. So each year for the past four years, I have had the privilege of working with such women in November or early December, giving them an eye-opening evening of Prayerful Papercutting, a few hours in which they produce several images that bless them in the cutting ("I can DO IT!"), and are then donated to the churches and organizations that support their program ("I can give a GIFT!"). In the closing session, I use a beautiful little candle lantern that beams flickering shapes of candle-light on the ceiling to illustrate a message: as the lantern was badly shattered and carefully mended, and still shines forth God's light, so shine the faces of each woman in the circle. The sharing around this mended lantern goes beyond words as each woman in turn holds it in her hands.
One of my cuttings is of women in a garden, each representing an aspect of spiritual healing, including anointing with oil, contemplative prayer (meditation), ritual bathing (baptism), permission to grieve, aroma and play. This is useful to remind caregivers, chaplains, parish nurses, and counselors that they must also care for themselves and allow themselves to heal from the suffering they deal with day to day. I have developed patterns of the individual "women" that, cut-able in about two hours, will fit into office spaces. I hope for more opportunities to build healing workshops around these images, or to make them available to others who lead such events.
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This is a 14 x 9 foot papercutting
of a "Safe House" for women.
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Mary Daniel: Do you believe art can heal and if so how?
Alice: Art in many forms has been a vehicle of enormous healing in my own life, so yes, I do believe it can heal. As an outlet for my emotions in troubled times, music, dance, poetry, writing, drawing with pastels, and now the drawing of the Prayerful Papercut designs have all offered transformative and healing releases and inner explorations.
People in my workshops comment about how relaxing and healing the cutting process is for them, once they find they can do it. The healing can be personal, but also communal, as teamwork is strengthened over the tables through shared silence and spoken sharing (fellowship, like a "Quilting Bee", only with faster results.) The images can also reveal healing insights and allow participants to move on in their lives in fresh ways.
Mary Daniel: What valuable insights have you learned through your ten
years of Prayerful Papercutting ministry?"
Alice: First, I have learned that in each group I serve, each church or organization, there are human flaws and gifts, and that in each group I find beauty and evidence of God (or a healing force) at work. I find that the strengths outweigh the flaws, and I enjoy and celebrate the gifts.
Second, I have found a deepened respect and gratitude for the power of
metaphors, whether in dreams, in art, or in language, as aspects of images are applied to our lives in healing ways. As the caterpillar metamorphoses into a chrysalis and butterfly, we go through many stages in our spiritual and personal
journeys, and metaphors can help us name and understand those changes,
promoting both healing and growth.
If you would like more information about Alice's work with Prayful Papercutting, please email her at alicehelen@juno.com. (Please note she will be away from email during the month of August while she participates in the 2nd International Festival of the Art of Papercutting in Huhhot, Inner Mongolia.)
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FEATURED BOOK:
Spirit Taking Form: Making a Spiritual Practice of Making Art
By Nancy Azara
 "I sit and sit in the silence, looking hard into the blankness and wait and wait quietly for my hand to bring me form, for my heart to speak to me and for spirit to surface. In making art, we use our bodies and our minds, our hearts and our spirit. Spirit, once it comes, sits on our shoulders and gives us vision and presence, brings form, and speaks to the spiritual practice of artmaking. When spirit takes form, the healing properties and magical qualities inherent in artmaking take shape, holding its presence in the work of art, speaking to the viewer with its radiance.Ó
-Nancy Azara
In her book, Sprit Taking Form, Nancy Azara offers tools and insights to help each of us "open the door to a deep place within us." She outlines hands on exercises, meditations, and visualizations to enhance the creative process and access one's inner wisdom. Each chapter is full of concrete examples and stories from Azara's own life and the life of other artists. The writing style is personal and accessible, and the book feels good in your hands. Topics covered include "Beginner's Mind," "Meditation and the Creative Mind," "Healing the Inner Critic," and "Opening the Heart toward Loving Kindness." This book is a great resource for anyone, at any level of creative experience, who is seeking to explore their inner wisdom through art practice.
This 148- page softcover book was published by Red Wheel in 2002. Click here to order through Amazon.com
You can also learn more about the author at www.nancyazara.com.
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FEATURED BOOK:
Art is a Spiritual Path: Engaging the Sacred Through the Practice of Art and Writing
By Pat B. Allen
 "ÉArt is my spiritual path. I am a transdenominational soul and art is my prayer, my ritual, my remembrance of the Divine. Art is the way I knit together the beliefs and practices that guide my life. Art is not a religion, but a practice and a path. As a practice it has its own demands and discipline. As a path it can take us more deeply into whatever place it is that our soul calls home whether that place is a church, a shul (synagogue), a mosque, a dance studio, a soup kitchen, or a deep forest.Ó
-Pat Allen
Pat Allen's latest book, Art is a Spiritual Path, is packed with wisdom, insights and stories about how art can be a spiritual path leading us more deeply into our true nature. She breaks the creative process into three stages -- Inquiry (discovery, research, exploration); Engagement (bringing ideas into form); Celebration (the path to meaning which includes witnessing the work and learning from what it has to say). Pat Allen brings to this book many years of creative experience as an artist, art therapist, professor at the School of the Arts Insitute in Chicago, and co-founder of the Open Studio Project. All of this contributes to her rich understanding of questions such as how to renew and revitalize one's relationship to the divine, how art can heal, and how can art be of serv ice. This book will be an asset to anyone looking to deepen the sense of meaning in their creative process.
This 242- page softcover book was published by Shambhala in 2005. Click here to order through Amazon.com
You can also learn more about Pat Allen's work at www.patballen.com.
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FEATURED LINK:
SpiritArt.org
www.SpiritArt.org
The goal of SpiritArt.org is Òto provide a site where you can enjoy spiritual art, and rest for a moment beside all rush of the world-wide-web. Art is the language of the soul, and art has many forms, we would like to support some approaches of spiritual art here with the state-of-the-art technology.Ó The art on this site includes visionary art, mandala art, guitar music, photography, shaman art and more.
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FEATURED POST:
The Arts & Healing Connection Center
Each month, we publish a highlight from the Arts & Healing Connection Center. This month, we feature a post by artist and teacher Mel Kreitzer Scott.
"In 1996 I watched my mother die from Ovarian Cancer...a long drawn out process. After her death I was asked to produce 20 art works for a one woman exhibit. The assignment was to paint in a style I had not previously used,using a new medium , surface etc.....to do this I used mothers bedroom as my studio. I used art to heal myself...art therapy.....not that expensive for me....but so rewarding. The images that appeared thru meditation were so powerful....Using acrylic paints in a quiet space, no music, and leaning alot on intuition ...I was forced to keep the ego out of the room. I accepted each image as a gift, made no judgements, did not talk to anyone during the process......the museum curator asked me to write about each painting. I am not a writer ....at least I did not know I was until I was given this opportunity. The entire show was a success...not in sales (altho several could have been sold but the museum staff felt the paintings should not be separated).....I began taking the paintings and writings to high schools, detention centers...and lectures. People responded with writings, poems, and some teens even wrote lyrics to music. I can honestly say I felt like I had been bathing for a year....I felt so released from most of the sorrow of watching my mother die. I learned to trust my inner voice....using acrylic paints, brushes and canvas.....what an experience.
This post prompted several others to post messages as well -- to read the whole dialogue, please click here or visit the Connection Center's forum called Share Your Experience of Art and Healing.
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READERS RESPOND
Please send us your thoughts and feedback on this issue of AHN News.
Was this issue of AHN News helpful and how?
Do you have other resources about storytelling and life and death you would like to share?
Are there other topics you would like to see addressed in AHN News?
Please send your comments, ideas, and feedback to marydaniel@artheals.org.
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