Practice of Creativity Workshop: Ink helps us think

Join us for our first Practice of Creativity workshop, exploring Expressions of the Dharma in the Arts and the Natural World. Participants will have an opportunity to make inks derived from a variety of earthen substances and try free forms of mark-making, such as the traditional Japanese ensō.

Melissa Smedley is an artist, writer, and educator currently based in Salinas, California. Whether designing public sculpture, inventing performances, or podcasting, her goal is to create art for the situation, to discover and transmit art, in a great variety of forms.

Since 2020, Melissa has served as the “The Art Ranger” at The Department of Homeland Inspiration podcast. She specializes in the discovery of “art” in daily life, as well as riffing off various absurd conditions that may surround us.

Smedley received her undergraduate education at Brown University and continued with her MFA at UCSD in 1993. She has taught in the art departments at California State University, Monterey Bay, UCSD, and SouthWestern College: www.melissasmedley.net

Recommended Reading:

“Make Ink: A Foragers Guide to Natural Inkmaking” by Jason Logan

"The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin

“Radiating Incrementally Outward” by Crystal Gandrud and Nuala Clarke