Art Applied to Life: Journeys with Expressive Art

Learn to use art, creativity and inner imagery
for healing, self-discovery and transformation

For Indigenous cultures, art was not for only a special few, but for everyone; not separate from, but intertwined with healing and spirituality. Expressive Art integrates this ancient wisdom with our contemporary world.

As a writer and photographer, I have personally experienced the power of art to touch hearts, change lives and express the intimate mysteries of the human spirit. My personal journey to better understand this profound power led me to the study of Expressive Art and my practice as an Expressive Arts Facilitator.

Two of our most precious gifts are our creativity and our inner selves. Expressive Art is a way of opening our creativity and using it to travel deeply into our inner being. It is an easy-to-use, enjoyable and rewarding approach to understanding who we are, what our feelings are telling us, our path through life and the gifts we bring to this world.

Expressive Art is based on medical research into deep imagery and the mind-body connection. It is used for physical and emotional healing, a deeper understanding of self, and as a guide in one’s journey through life.

Expressive Art is not about healing as much as it is about discovering the full, magical power of your authentic self – in the course of which profound healing occurs.

Anyone can use expressive art – even if you can’t draw!

Email me (dianne@diannemonroe.com)
for information about upcoming workshops
and other opportunities to experience Expressive Art.

To learn more about my workshops,
including Expressive Art & the Natural World,
and The Work That Reconnects (developed by Joanna Macy),
keep reading below.

For more samples of my photography, scroll down to the end.

Workshops by Dianne Monroe

Expressive Art
Expressive Art & the Natural World
Workshops for the general public

Customized Workshops
For families, couples, friends and individuals

Create Your Own Ceremony
Using Expressive Art to commemorate life’s transitions and passages

The Work That Reconnects
A path-breaking approach to re-visioning how we live in relation to the earth and each other, developed by Joanna Macy

“Expressive Art Workshop with Dianne Monroe was an unexpected free release of creativity and joy. I found myself being totally engrossed in simple art exercises with the art supplies she provided and being totally surprised by the flow of poetry coming through me. I did engage in the inner grief and pain and it seemed to move through to joy.”

Lucy Greer Burton

“I recommend Dianne’s Monroe Expressive Art workshops for anyone who wants to uncover their inner artist and poet, and anyone who wants to access abilities, feelings and thoughts that exist beyond conscious awareness….You visualize images that represent your inner feelings and thoughts. Then you get to play with an array of artistic media, natural objects and words to represent your image…It’s creative play with a purpose…I came away exhilarated. Dianne is a great facilitator… Don’t miss this workshop.”

Anne Larme

Expressive Art and the Natural World

In today’s fast-paced, highly industrialized world, it is easy for us to lose our connection with nature and the natural rhythms of life, easy to forget that we are in fact a part of nature. Cut off from nature’s nourishing embrace, it’s easy to feel dislocated, disconnected from others and even from our inner selves.

My workshops often combine Expressive Art with the field of Deep Ecology, using inner imagery, to explore our relationship with the natural world, experience the connection between inner and outer nature, and learn from the wisdom the natural world has to offer.

Simply expressed, Deep Ecology is the belief that humanity is part of the earth, not separate from it, and that planetary and personal well-being are deeply intertwined. According to this viewpoint, the more we expand our concept of self to identify with “others” (people, animals, ecosystems) the more fully we realize our true selves.

The Work That Reconnects

These workshops introduce participants to a path-breaking approach to re-visioning how we live in relation to the earth and each other, developed by Deep Ecology scholar Joanna Macy.

From global economics to global warming – it’s no secret that humanity faces a worldwide crisis of our own creation.

Perhaps less well known are the many ways people are gathering to create new ways of living with each other and in collaboration with our planet. Macy calls this process “The Great Turning” and describes it as, “the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.”

According to Macy, “The central purpose of the Work that Reconnects is to help people uncover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systemic, self-healing powers in the web of life, so that they may be enlivened and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization.”

Autumn Pond

Mi Tierra

Heartrock

Tide Bird

Amsterdam Afternoon