Grief is a Garden: Tending the Heart in Preparation for Winter at Denver Botanic Gardens

Conscious Grief tending through creative studio practice. No artistic experience required - only willingness and curiosity.

Dates: Sundays, Oct. 6, 13, 20, 27 and Nov. 3

& Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm

Fee**: $225 DBG member, $270 non-member

**Shimmering Wings will once again offer partial (50% off) scholarships to students who inquire. For additional information contact Shimmering Wings at 720-443-3178

Course Description: 

Grief is a Garden: tending the heart in preparation for winter is a collage mixed-media course that aims to facilitate tending to the growing matter of grief through creative, visual art and multi sensory experiences. 

Grief is often misunderstood as a sad mind-state from which to try to escape, but we may better understand grief as a rich, dark feeling place - a healthy “soil” from which we grow and find beauty, meaning and our own style of tending. Finding and using ready-imagery, color and texture to visually communicate the grief that is often difficult to express in words, participants will follow the intuitive process of collage. Assembling a personal grief garden, one may find a place for the grieving psyche to rest and to discover one’s own resilient creative practice of soul-tending. 

Participants will learn how anyone can use creative art processes to process emotion and settle during disorienting states of normal human experience.

Utilizing accessible media - paper, scissors, glue, pencils, pastels, paints, etc. - Students will be guided through the beginning to end of landscaping their personal grief metaphorical container as a growing garden.

Along with visual arts activation, there will be corollary “breaks” or additions to active art process - for example: poetry, doodle sessions, “get-up-and-move”, observing and sharing times. Participants will have access to the garden beyond class-time.  Non-lyrical music will be played during studio sessions to further engage senses toward creativity.

Prerequisites No prerequisite required, but bring your curiosity along.

Required Materials (Materials that students purchase and bring to class): No required materials, but participants are strongly encouraged to bring any and all print media (magazines, catalogues, calendars, photographs), art papers, and scrap papers of their own to incorporate into the fertile collage of their garden-scape. Ok to wait until class 2 to better understand what you might want to bring. 

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