Writing

Musings

Sharing one’s art can be a vulnerable thing! My initial posts on social media were terrifying! Overtime, I came to appreciate the boldness of this act and also obligated myself to appreciate and encourage other artist’s work. From this effort, I was recognized by the online magazine “Conversations with Artists” and asked to contribute an article. I was honored to be asked.

SoulCollage® as a Third Thing

Collage is an art that takes many forms. SoulCollage is one practice I have come to know. On the surface it is a simple collage process, pairing a background with a foreground image to create a card. However, the story embedded in the card, and in your collection of cards over time, reveals your unique inner world and its gifts, challenges, and questions. I was invited to contribute an article to the World of SoulCollage Global Newsletter about my own experience with this process.

At the End of This Year, A Mirror of Questions

I have long been a fan of John O'Donohue and have used his blessings for many occasions. I adapted this particular one -- At the End of the Day: A Mirror of Questions -- as an inspiration for a 2020 year-end reflection. In it I've tried to capture an unfolding flow of inquiry, a kind of dance between memory and insight.

2020 was a particularly challenging year and I found these questions to be a helpful way to sort through and make some sense of it all.

Busy? Create More Yutori In Your Work

Our lives are so full. Meet up with any friend, ask them how they’re doing, and you are likely to get a response that implies how busy they are. Busy. Sadly, this is often my own default response and I find it concerning.

Musings

Work As Art Series

Collaging Compassion

In a conference gathering, we used collage to facilitate reflection about the experience and impact of extending compassion to others in the context of work.

Viewing Each Other as Works of Art

Rendered in 2-D or 3-D, we often don’t know a great deal about our work colleagues. Imagining colleagues as works of art invites us to experience a very different way of seeing and appreciating each other in the workplace.

Art as a Catalyst

There is an experience of organization life that lives outside of words — the felt experience, implicit rules, unexpressed emotion, and more. What if art is uniquely equipped to expose and explore this layer of organization life and leverage that knowledge to create a more thriving workplace?

Art as an Artifact

Artifacts hold individual and collective memory. In the workplace, artifacts can be intentionally used to support and sustain an organization’s values and culture.

Art as Sense-Making

“Art expands what we can imagine, and thereby expands what we can do.”‍ Art can help us explore complexity and find ways to navigate the world with greater insight and skill.

Art as Metaphor

The language of our lives is animated by metaphors and symbols. These images can play a powerful role in understanding organization life.

Work as Art?

Anyone interested in organization culture will attest to the many ways this term is defined and discussed. It can be quite overwhelming. Some useful theories and frameworks certainly exist but knowing how to apply this wisdom is an art and a skillful practice. Imagining work as art is an imaginative way to approach this work. How might the workplace be like a work of art? How might seeing work in this way unlock different ways of of being and working in organizations?

Work As Art

A blog series exploring the use of art at work and the possibilities that become available when we can imagine work as art.