Exchange Journals: Collaborative Journaling Using Artist's Techniques

This workshop is for everyone, not just artists. Using journals collaboratively, you will develop your curiosity in an artistic exchange by sharing what you see, think, and wonder about while exploring ARCH and its surrounding neighborhood. 

Exchange Journaling is a tool for anyone looking to deepen their curiosity and understanding, spark creative thinking, and develop collaboration skills.  

What participants can expect:

At the start of the workshop, each participant will be given a journal with prompts focused on exploring ARCH and its surrounding area.  You will learn about and use tools that artists and writers employ to find, follow, and develop paths of inquiry.

Examples of these tools include using the “powers of ten” (viewing the world at different scales) to develop a varied method of observation, creating a found poem with words collected from the group, and translating your experience into a symbol. 

For each exercise, you will either work alone or with different partners.  While most of the time will be spent exploring and following the prompts in the journal, we will gather several times to share and reflect as a whole group.  Some guidance with materials will be given, but we will not be concerned with high levels of craft and technique. 

The process is where the learning and growth happen - this is not a workshop focused on a perfect finished product, but rather a time to slow down and connect with the world and the people around you.

Jennifer Stuart is a Bay Area artist whose artwork investigates and expresses the mysteries of the natural world. Throughout her career as an artist, educator, and curriculum designer, she has followed her curiosity to explore how art can help us to see and think about things beyond our own experience. Jennifer attended Rhode Island School of Design, where she received a BFA in painting, and Columbia University Teachers College, where she received an MA in arts education. Along with over 30 years of teaching experience, her publications include a curriculum guide and a co-edited book about arts integration, Artful Teaching. She co-founded the arts non-profit Out of Site (now known as Youth Art Exchange) in 2000. So far this year, she has had work shown in Artist’s Vision at Marin’s Society of Artists Gallery, Driven to Abstraction at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, and in Abstract Sanctuary at the Verum Ultimum Gallery in Portland. She will be an artist in residence at the Lucid Art Foundation in late summer.

"My art practice causes me to be conscious of myself as a temporary collection of cells in a mysterious universe. The beauty of the state of flux of which we are a part is both calming and overwhelming. It allows me respite from the stress of daily life and gives me a powerful feeling of connection to our world."

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