Gwendolyn Natusch: Workshop Facilitator

Gwendolyn is the creator and facilitator of the Telling Your Story Workshop. She has been teaching for many years in the field of special education. Her experience is varied through her work as an artist, professional costume designer, drama instructor, and theatre production director. Currently she is working towards another master’s degree in clinical social work after having attained a master’s degree in education. Her own journey through telling her autobiographical story through art has inspired this workshop.

Telling Your Story Workshop

"Stories are who we are,they are inside

of us,the secret self that we are."

-Linda Joy Myers

Telling Your Story

A Workshop of
Creative Self Discovery

This workshop is an opportunity to explore your

life story through art, writing, and dialogue.

Workshop Format

In this workshop the participants will create an art piece that tells their life story. Through writing, dialogue and art you will re-count your life script and by doing so draw a larger sense of yourself.

Each Weekly Session is Inclusive of the following:

* Opening & Closing Circles for each evening

* Open Art Studio time

* Relaxation & guided imagery

Workshops are available in four formats:

*8 to 10 week workshop

*One day introduction and beginning of the process

*A two day weekend

*One month of Saturdays from 9am to 4pm

Art Project Choices

Workshop facilitator will assist with descriptions and steps for suggested art projects. Please note that different workshop formats will determine the types of art projects that can be accomplished.

Autobiographical Quilts

Personal Totem Pole

Collage Time Line

Painting Series

Story Boxes

Individual Choice

Note: The option to exhibit completed art pieces at the end

of the workshop will be offered to the group.

Story Telling:
Underlying Concepts

"The voyage of discovery lies not

in finding new landscapes,

but in having new eyes.

-Marcel Proust

This autobiographical story telling workshop is a process that allows you to take time to build a new relationship with your life. It is an opportunity to examine your life from different perspectives and to discover how to consciously create your life rather than allowing life to keep on truckin’ without you being fully present at the helm.

During this workshop you will explore your past and open the door to getting to know yourself and your soul more intimately. Your soul is the deeper part of yourself that is connected to a larger source. It is your authentic self.

The process of creating your autobiographical story through art will allow you to question how your perceptions of the past have built the stories you tell yourself today. It is the act of revisiting these stories that allows you to shift them and your current perspectives to create a different relationship with your past, present, and future. This process can potentially free you from limiting beliefs and life scripts that keep you from expressing your authentic self.

Richard Bach, author of Running From Safety, reflects upon the story of his life. He looks back through his memories and builds a new relationship with himself by re-examining them. During this process, Bach gains new perspectives through the process of reclaiming and retelling his story. It is this concept that we will address during this workshop.

"The individual must find their own myth

that has to do with the conduct of his life."
-Joseph Campbell

Art:
Underlying Concepts

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is
the oyster’s autobiography."
-Federico Fellini

Creating art is a unique process for each individual. This process offers opportunities for self determination and self directed choices as you move through the landscape of your past. This workshop allows you to find and apply your own themes and mediums to represent the substance of your autobiographical story. Participating in this workshop’s art process leads one into calm waters by providing introspection and connection to your inner self. Telling your story through art will also provide an avenue for you to explore your own internal, personal symbols.

Art is form without language and has the potential to loosen the restrictions you might impose upon yourself as you move through memories and belief systems in the creating of your autobiographical art piece. It is through art that memory, emotion, and possibility can be brought out and will speak to you of your inner world and imagery. This process allows you to be carried to a place of new awareness, self understanding, and transformation. The process of creating your story through art can also change a life script and set a new course and purpose in your life.

Your Story is waiting, suspended, ready to be told.

For more information on this workshop call Gwendolyn Natusch at 508-696-1927 or write to PO Box 713 Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.