A Mini Online Artist Retreat Week 1
Hello
Warmest welcome to you
Below is the first week of A Mini Artist Retreat that you can dip into when you need a reminder that collaborative practice, relationship and community is all that is needed to heal our beautiful and very broken world. There are four exercises that you can engage in, awakening your understanding of the masks we choose to wear, and deep listening as we contemplate the artful question that is sitting just out of reach, such as ‘What can I do as an artist to enrich my community?’ We will then draw a path through our coming year, dividing it up into doable and nourishing steps. We will finish with an exercise that can be done in group (if you have set a group to engage with) or alone with objects/photos/environments that deeply connect us to the world we inhabit.
This week centres on the exercise of understanding our masks, and learning when to use them and when to leave them behind so that joy sits close:
Welcome Meditation
Let’s close our eyes.
Focus in on your breath: watch the breath enter the body. Feel the coolness of the air as it enters the nostrils and feel the warmth of the air as it leaves your nostrils.
On every exhale, allow your body to drop more deeply into the support underneath you, spreading your toes, widening the feet and feeling the floor, the earth underneath you. When feeling the earth, give thanks to the First Nations Peoples of Australia. who have looked after this land, for 10s of 1000s of years. Enormous gratitude and respect for the worlds first story tellers.
And as you sit today, bless those around you.
Metta
Loving Kindness Meditation embraces unconditional love for all peoples (Sharon Salzberg)
May I be safe.
May I be healthy.
May I be happy, and
May I live with ease.
Blessing your loved ones:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be happy, and
May you live with ease.
Blessing the difficult people in your life:
May you be safe.
May you find happiness.
May you be well, and
May you find peace.
And blessing all of those in war zones and unsafe places:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you find ease, and
May you find peace.
As you travel through this mini retreat, remember that you can always come back to a quiet time with eyes closed, feeling the floor, the earth underneath you, the support at your back. And the delight of your breath.
As a young artist, you have much to learn. But learning never stops. I'm 50-plus years into my career, and every day I'm obliged. No, I am driven… to learn new ways of being. To continue to dream the dreams that have seeded in my heart. One of those dreams is to connect with my tribe. With you.
I need to tell you this. You are the weaver of stories, the midwives of new ways of being.
The career you have chosen is one of service, but it is perhaps difficult to see it like that when you've just entered the training.
Acting training usually centres on the individual, rather than the collective, as does our Western society.
“Focus on your voice, your body, and your ability to interpret text”.
“It's all about me and how I will succeed”.
But is it? Really?
TASK 1 AND 2
JOY AND YOUR CREATIVE SELF
THE MANY MASKS WE WEAR
I ask you to pause for a wee while.
· Think about the last time you experienced joy. Perhaps it was when you looked out the window and witnessed the cockatoos sitting on a branch, waiting. Or was it when your dog was stretched out at your feet, trusting you explicitly? Or browsing your bookshelf? Whatever brings you joy, grow the picture.
Fill in the detail. Use your senses: what so you see, what do you hear, how does it feel, can you smell it? Taste it? Use the “What, Where, When, Who and How”, (basic tools used in theatre making), to thicken your story of joy.
Notice if there are changes in your body after sitting with joy. Can you sit with this experience
Without judgment
Without self-criticism
With compassion
Often, when we reflect, we unknowingly select a self-critical lens. It can be easier to slip on the Mask of Judgement, rather than finding inspiration and curiosity in our choices. When we have an idea about what masks we are wearing, awareness sits close, and with awareness comes sensitivity, and with sensitivity comes compassion. We start wearing masks when we feel pressured to be something we are not, or we are in the company of bullies, or abusers, or in a fearful position. Masks protect, but they also hide you, and you become exhausted with the effort.
How do we learn what masks we prefer to wear in public? Here are some masks that some people wear (Psych Central):
TASK 1: See which ones feel familiar to you and write about your experiene with the masks you choose:
The Mask of the Comedian, always making fun of a situation
The Silent Mask
The ‘Let me please you so you will love me’ Mask
The Great Social Butterfly Mask
The Mask of Forgetting or Avoidance
The Mask of the Controller
The Mask of the Victim, the ‘I’m not good enough’ i never get anything right’,
The Mask of the Bully
The Mask of ‘I have everything together’
The Overachiever Mask
As performers, it is important to know your own masks. Your job is to create characters that move your audience, and so you need to know what sort of masking you do, so that you don’t automatically apply it to every character you create. We are, after all, fallible humans, and at different times of the day and different times of our lives we reach for masks in order to survive. It is not bad using a mask, it is important to know when you are, because otherwise you can be robbed of intimacy and deep connection with others.
TASK 2: Ask yourself this question, and then write for 20 minutes about the experience. Read what you have written out loud, and underline the words that surprise and delight:
What if we had enough courage to set sail in a rudderless boat?
No oars.
Just each other. Releasing control.
The wind and the water move us forward.
Thank you for coming on board today, exploring you, the artist, and how you turn up in the world.
Next week will focus on the questions, some clear, some not so clear, that move you forward in your arts practice and in your life.