Art Applied to Life; Journeys with Expressive Art

As a writer and photographer, I have personally experienced the transformative power of art – that seemingly magical way art can touch hearts, change lives and express the most intimate and profound mysteries of the human spirit. My personal journey to better understand this profound power led me to the vibrant and growing field of Expressive Art, to study at the Expressive Art Institute of Salve-Regina University and to my practice as an Expressive Arts Facilitator.

At its root Expressive Art is a way of dialoging with your heart’s voice. It is based on medical research into the role of visualization, inner imagery and the body-mind connection. Expressive Art is widely used to facilitate both emotional and physical healing. Yet, Expressive Art is about much more than healing wounds. In its essence, Expressive Art is about creativity and consciousness, the understanding that we are all creators, and our most precious creation is our inner selves and the path we travel through life.

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 Expressive Art and how it can be used to explore our relationship with and place in the natural world keep reading below.

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

Expressive Art and the Natural World

In today’s fast-paced, highly industrialized world, it is easy for us to loose 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.

Expressive art offers a way to reconnect with the natural world and re-experience our place within it. It offers a way to communicate with nature, to experience nature as a teacher and guide, to explore our inner nature and natural self by opening to the things that nature has to show us.

My study and work in this area involves the convergence of Expressive Art with the fields of Eco-psychology and Deep Ecology (there are shades of difference between the two). Both are rooted in the belief that humanity is part of the earth, not separate from it, and see planetary and personal well being as 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.

Email me (dianne@diannemonroe.com) for information about workshops and other ways to reconnect with the natural world through Expressive Art.

To learn more about how Expressive Art actually works, keep reading below.

More About Expressive Art

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.

Expressive Art is a holistic approach to healing, self-discovery and transformation. Increasingly, healing is emphasized less while self-discovery and transformation is emphasized more, although in this context profound healing does occur.

Expressive Art is based on medical research into the role of visualization, inner imagery and the mind-body connection. It is rooted in an understanding of how the autonomic nervous system works, the role of the stress response and how stress impacts the immune system. Expressive art is used to complement and increase the effectiveness of medical treatments for people facing serious and life-threatening diseases, to facilitate emotional healing and self-discovery, and as a guide in understanding your journey through life.

How Expressive Art Actually Works

Research into brain functions shows that we experience things first as images and then translate them into words. Our senses and the right side of the brain take in our experiences and emotions as images, then the left side of the brain translates those images into verbal thoughts. By the time we interpret our images as words, there’s already a filter or distance from our feelings.

Because images are our primary and inner language, they are the most direct way to get in touch with what’s really going on inside. Learning how to work with our inner imagery enables us to both express our true feelings and understand what to do about them. Exploring inner imagery through Expressive Art can put us in touch with our true feelings, show us how to heal from painful emotions and guide us on our journey through life.

Autumn Pond

Mi Tierra

Tide Bird

Rivertoes

Taqueria