Experience Creativity
A sample of the synergy that happens in a customized, guided experience combining creative process with coaching.
Workshops and retreats are currently paused.
Say It With Color!
“It is satisfying to express myself with color and creativity. I felt so calm and centered after the workshop. My joy really is stronger than my struggles and can help me when I struggle.” - a participant
Have you ever been at a loss for words? Color can speak for you - you are more fluent than you might think! Today at PCC's "Say It With Color!" workshop, we practiced and explored using the visual language of color, shape and line to express feelings that go beyond words. AND we used these sweeeet (artist swoon) tempera paint sticks!
(1-1.5 hrs.)
Retreat can also be adapted to a full day.
Tabiji Eggshell Retreats
“The process felt gentle and peaceful and gave me a kinder perspective toward my grief. There’s beauty in holding its fragility.” - a participant
Express your journey during a simple, reflective half day using eggshells and paint, as Wendy gently guides you through a creative process based on the Tabiji Eggshells. You'll practice creating beauty and honoring brokenness during this hands-on, customizable, interactive retreat. No art experience is necessary and the process is easy and friendly.
(2.5 - 3 hrs.)
Retreat can also be adapted to a full day.
Step On In!
What shoes will you walk in? The future has always been unknown, and while we can’t control the invitations and challenges that will come, we can certainly choose how we want to show up. This virtual workshop explored the possibilities during a guided time of journalling, conversation, creating, and movement.
Shoes were transformed into a playful symbol for how we would like to walk in this new year. We experimented with and expressed how we might walk, stand, and aim our whole selves into whatever this new year might bring.
Themes: New Year, New Season of Life
(2.5 hrs.)
Retreat can also be extended to a full day.
“I have been treasuring the time. I'm really grateful and didn't realize how much I needed it. It was lovely to be led by someone and challenged to express myself in ways that don't come naturally. For me it felt like a beautiful balance of challenge and comfort.”
“The challenge of the art/movement opened my own creativity.”
“I was surprised at how easily the words came. That usually takes me a long time, but the process Wendy led us into helped my creativity flow out naturally.”
At the end of the workshop, each participant stood and held a bowl of water, symbolizing their tears of grief. They were invited to take a step forward with their grief or to remain standing and simply hold their bowl gently. In this manner, we practiced walking or standing with our grief, in the company of all that gives our spirits hope and courage as we navigate this new world unfolding before us.
Guided Grieving
Teams and groups sometimes experience loss as a community - layoffs, changes in leadership, the loss of loved colleagues, offices closing. Grieving together can be a healing and restoring experience that strengthens your team. This Guided Grieving session included art, conversation, guided imagining, spiritual practices and ritual, all of which created a safe and gently facilitated space for a team to grieve their recent common losses together.
This experience can be adapted for any team or group who would benefit from a guided time to grieve shared loss.
(1 hr.)
"This was a healing, life-giving time for our team. We are grateful for the thoughtful preparation, the guidance through the activity, and the gentle way Wendy led the session. It was powerful, vulnerable, moving, and authentic."
La Né Powers, Director, Foster the Bay
Where is it time for you to bloom?
“Enough Winter”, 6″x6″x2″, mixed media: recycled eyeglass frames, paint, paper, thread. ©2012 Wendy Lew Toda
The Perspectacles: an Art Talk
Learn how to see art! Engage with it and expand your visual literacy as Wendy offers guided reflection through a selection of the Perspectacles, a body of her mixed media sculptures. Hear the backstories and conceptual process.
Perspectacles explore the ways we see (or don’t see) through mixed media sculptures the size and shape of eyeglasses.
(45 min.)
Help One Child’s Mother’s Day Brunch, for foster, adoptive and kinship mothers. San Jose, CA
A Taste of Color
Bring a hands on experience of color to your event. Participants are led through a sequence of abstract color exercises designed to facilitate creativity, release stress, and reframe challenges being faced. The process is friendly and safe, no art experience is necessary, and all supplies are provided. Participants learn and practice using color as a visual language of expression that can support personal self-care, healing, and restoration.
(45-60 min.)
"Wendy created a safe, non-judgmental place where the foster and adoptive mothers we serve could explore their feelings and emotions through the medium of color. She led a creative process that was healing and restorative. Many of the women are now looking for more ways to integrate art-making into their own growth, expression, and self-care."
Rachel Taylor, Director of Education and Connection, Help One Child
Sunset Church, San Francisco, CA
Creativity Workshop: Finding My Creative Self
Develop a more creative, flexible mindset as you expand your approach to life, work, and relationships. Deepen your capacity to self-reflect and think beyond what’s expected. Carry that depth into creating new perspectives on existing situations. A mix of teaching, interactive activity, reflection, processing with color, and thoughtful discussion. (Note: not an art skills workshop)
(approximately 6 hrs.)
Soul Care Retreat: Belovedness
Our busy lives can have us running so fast we forget who we are. Invest a half day caring for your soul by stepping into more of your belovedness. Let go of the inner messages that get in the way. There is generous time for reflection with a variety of stations that offer experiences of both, journalling, going for a walk, resting, or meeting one-on-one with Wendy for a mini-coaching session.
(3 hrs)