Integral Education: The CIIS Blog

Never Completed, Yet Constantly Refined

By SARIA IDANA, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

Mentors of mine have urged me to integrate my many aspects, artistic and personal, believing this would bring me greater success and ease in life. I first began the process of integration a few years ago, in an art and activism leadership training. I am starting to think integration is a process that never completes yet is constantly refined. As a person with multiple passions, I find integration to be no easy task. Assembling all the disparate pieces to understand the whole can be painful, disconcerting and agonizing. Understanding how my personal past has affected my creative present, how my actor self informs my singer self, is like finding the puzzle pieces needed to complete the picture, yet sometimes I’m not sure I want to know what the picture is. And still to be a whole of harmonious parts has become my goal.

I came to CIIS wanting to integrate, my artist and educator, my ethnic identity and my woman, my actor-writer-dancer-singer-musician-director. I am integrating my values with my art, my aesthetic with my content. I am starting to understand how all these pieces play in harmonious, and sometimes dissonant, ways to form the symphony that is my personal and public work. I hope one day I will understand how to rearrange these pieces creating related symphonic suites, but suspect I have already been doing this without realizing.

This stretching and aligning to become integrated is making me a better artist, educator, collaborator and a better human being. I find I exert less energy to accomplish more. Yet I often wake in the middle of the night with growing pains; my mind a mess of questions, my legs and shoulders sore. My process is all shook up and in a constant state of change while in a simultaneous state of solidification.

In the Spirit of Feminine Life and Color Flows

By JUAN CARLOS GONZALEZ, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

 This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

 I am reflecting on how brush strokes, color mixing, and texture allow me to weave my emotional responses to imagery and make meaning in this untitled painting, oil on canvas 55” by 50”.

When I started this painting, I was making an inquiry into my feminine side and how I navigate different spaces where life and death are themes. Life-making decisions are fragile and sensitive for me and when I am painting, I engage myself completely in the processes. For example, I feel that when I am in the process of painting, I have the opportunity to follow the paint where it takes me. When making fragile or sensitive decisions, where and how do I use the paint? These questions have an enormous effect on which colors I want to mix: what do they mean to the process and within the context of the painting. I am making an inquiry into my feminine side because we are all mothers. We give birth to our creativity and our art forms; this affects the painting process as it gives birth to new imagery and color themes.

During the journey of making this painting, something really interesting happened to me. In response to my personal inquiry, my consciousness expanded. I continue reflecting on how this painting really embodied what it means for me to reside in the paint and in my feminine side.

While painting, I become more aware of how my feminine side really allows me to be myself—it allows space for emotions to be born without judgment and for the illumination of the imagery and colors that are used throughout my body of work.

The Portrait Project

By MICHELLE CHAMPLIN, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

 This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

My MFA project currently consists of several self portraits. Through the process of creating these I am honing in on and exploring ways of articulating my personal experience and emotions. Through this work, I hope to convey not only these personal aspects, but a larger concept.

I’ve attempted to base most portraits around an emotion that I have felt or was feeling at the time of creating the piece. To avoid a kind of staged look, I attempt to take photos of myself while in the middle of a thought or feeling—not a simple task. I hold my camera comfortably while resting my arm on something and try to forget about the fact that I’m about to take a picture of myself. I am typically inspired to do this when I am feeling something—anxiety, sadness, joy, etc. However, sometimes I don’t feel any strong emotion. I’ve taken a few pictures of myself while meditating; I then choose a photo and draw it. Recently I’ve found myself drawing the portraits while listening to jazz.

I’ve discovered that many of the drawings resemble what I feel I look like when I feel emotion. When feeling anxiety, the lines are thick and hard and my face is somewhat distorted. To me, it appears to be holding a significant weight of some kind. The line quality varies greatly according to the way I am feeling when drawing these images.

To Be Myself Completely

By LISA MARIE BAUTISTA, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

 This post was written for Cindy Shearer's CIA 7712: MFA Project. In these blogs, students are sharing their discoveries, reflections and learning as they enter the process of creating a body of art work and culminate their degrees.

 I have a hard time with comfort, like the time I was sitting in my car, listening to Ani Difranco’s song, Superhero. “I used to be a super-hero no one could touch me, not even myself. You are like a phone booth I somehow stumbled into. And now look at me I am just like everybody else.” I was thinking about my marriage. I was having such a difficult time understanding what I felt, until Ani put it into words that expressed my relationship regrets. I had realized I had to end it yet actually leaving took me weeks, maybe even months, to allow myself to be uncomfortable; so I could start the separation.  I did not know discomfort could be helpful.

Standing on stage in front of people, is like this discomfort I am describing. To walk onto a stage is like trusting the unknown. I have no idea what might happen, but I have expectations. I trust in the universe.  I much prefer committed performances due to the intense responsibility to show up.  I can’t say no to a committed performance.

 

Photo by Lestat (Jan Mehlich): Creative Commons)

 

I step onto stage and I am no longer myself. But the challenge is to be myself completely. This is what the audience wants from me. They want my soul, and I’m not against giving it to them. My instinct is to share with the world because I am part of our collective existence already.

A Tanka for Silicon Alley

By ZACK ROGOW, senior editor at CIIS. His writings include a recent book of poems, "My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers," from Kattywompus Press. He also maintains a blog called Advice for Writers.

CIIS is currently surrounded by construction sites, part of the boom in San Francisco now called “Silicon Alley.” High-tech firms like Twitter, Yammer, and Dolby, and service businesses such as Whole Foods, are moving into the South of Market neighborhood near CIIS as fast as the cranes and crews can build their sites. As a result, even our peaceful retreat atop our building is now touched by the sounds of new structures going up. I wrote this poem in response to that, using the traditional Japanese tanka form. This condensed, five-line form lends itself to bringing together opposites.

Urban Tanka #8

in a Zen rooftop garden
plants trill their green fingers
as high-rises sprout nearby
Why is everything always
under construction

Fall Brown Bag Series Kicks Off with a Performance from Turquoise

We're kicking off our Fall Brown Bag Series with a performance from the Turquoise a capella ensemble on Tuesday, October 9, from noon-1 pm in the 4th floor staff lounge of the CIIS Main Building.

Turquoise is an a cappella group composed of women and gendervariant individuals from within the CIIS community. Since the founding of the group a year ago, it has quickly become a favorite at the Institute, making a sensation at the CIIS commencement in 2012. "We offer music in service of helping others to feel, to heal, and to awaken to the presence of beauty. The songs in our repertoire tell stories from many cultures, and we strive to hold these narratives with responsibility, respect, and care."

The Brown Bag Series features artistic work by CIIS faculty, staff, students, and alums, and is sponsored by the President’s Office and the Department of Writing, Consciousness, and Creative Inquiry. The series continues on Tuesday, Nov. 6, with MFA program alums Karina Jacinda Small and Lois Smith.

Walking and Meditation

By ALLISON RENNIE

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s WRC 7087: Writing as Art. This course exposes students to varieties of work in text and image from illustrated books and blogs and visual journals to graphic novels and memoir and art books—while also asking them to create their own illustrated work, postcards and text/image art and journal.

Walking and meditation are two practices which restore my sense of integrity and help me rest in my own skin again after thrashing about in the world. So given the opportunity to write a manifesto about "something I know" for my Writing as Art class, I chose walking meditation. After writing, the second part of the assignment was to develop a visual companion for the manifesto in the form of a box. The plain white box needed to enter into conversation with the text of my manifesto.

In 2010 I walked the ancient pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago. The Camino is a network of walking paths which terminate at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. This was a profound experience for me, and one that continues to influence my life today. I chose a few photographic images from the pilgrimage and placed these on the outside of my small box (6” x 6” x 3”). The images are not intended to tell the story of the Camino, but rather remind me personally of the learning from the month long walk.

The inside of the box became for me a space to hold simple prompts to support my ongoing practice of walking meditation. I made a small notebook to take out walking; an invitation to gratitude; a tiny box to hold treasures like a soft brown round pebble and a tiny red maple leaf. And this inner space is a quiet container for my manifesto.

I made a simple leather-bound book of text and image.

The pages of the book are 100% recycled agricultural fibre.  The cover is a soft blue leather. It is bound with bookbinding thread, and finished with cream linen book cloth on the inside covers.

I used stamps, photos, hand lettering as well as computer generated print.

The process of construction and the final book reflect the nature of walking practice. 

It took time to make. 

Loom in Essence

By GERARDO MEDINA

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s WRC 7087: Writing as Art. This course exposes students to varieties of work in text and image from illustrated books and blogs and visual journals to graphic novels and memoir and art books—while also asking them to create their own illustrated work, postcards and text/image art and journal.

 In one of my lighter moods, I was contemplating this scarf I made years ago. I really liked it and I’ve just been waiting to give it to the right person. It’s made with a very long cast on and knit lengthwise instead of by its width like most scarves. It is knitted together in garter stitch using bits of yarn that I had left over from various projects and from yarn that had been gifted to me. Most of the pieces were not enough to make a full scarf on their own, but when mixed together, they did a great job. The mix of yarns is made of natural fibers, human-made fibers, novelty yarns and unassuming yarns.

Scarf made of mixed fibers.

When I think of it as a whole, I see this as a metaphor for living. Most people are not made from a single fiber. We are made up of experiences: gifts and different textures from the people in our lives. Further, when we look back on our own personal tapestries, we see the flaws, but this happens when we focus and fixate on what’s “wrong” in our histories. Yet, as we take a step back and see the fabric as a whole, the flaws diminish and we can see the beauty that is our lives.

Following this path, or skein of free thought, I can see so much of life in other knitting patterns. In knitting stockinette, the knitter knits in one direction and then upon turning the work, purls on the way back. This creates a tight v-like pattern on the “right side”. The interesting thing about this pattern is that the knitter can do the pattern correctly. However, when laid out, the ends curl on each other and the yarn is lost in itself because there is no room for it to breathe.

The Leap from Words to Words and Images

By LISA ZAMARIN, creative services manager for the CIIS Communications Department

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s WRC 7087: Writing as Art. This course exposes students to varieties of work in text and image from illustrated books and blogs and visual journals to graphic novels and memoir and art books—while also asking them to create their own illustrated work, postcards and text/image art and journal.

I was pleasantly surprised to take the leap from a short story format to an illustrated version of the story in Cindy Shearer’s “Writing as Art” class this semester. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve gotten into the creative process so freely, and without specific rules or guidelines I needed to follow. What resulted was a wonderful melding. It reminded me just how powerful images can guide the experience of reading fiction.

The project was to write a manifesto, and then create a text and image piece that fit within a box.

Here’s some of my manifesto:

How to Prepare for your College Reunion

Three months out:

1. On receiving the notice, print it out, along with the alumni yearbook questionnaire and place it on the top of your inbox.
2. Email your old friends to ask if they’ll be attending.
3. Set your alarm an hour early each morning to go to the gym before work. Do not let yourself hit snooze.
4. As soon as your return home from work each night, do 30 minutes of sit-ups, and other core exercises, followed by a light dinner.
5. Do not graze afterward.
6. Each night, remember to moisturize before bedtime.
7. Each morning, apply sunscreen 30 minutes before walking to work.
8. Drink 8 glasses of water a day and consume no more than 1,500 calories.

Two months out:

1. Email your old friends to ask if they’ll be attending.
2. Recommit to #s 2-8 above.
3. Ignore local friends who tell you more than once how brave you are.
4. Ignore local friends who ask you if you’ll be going clothes shopping before your trip

When I went about adding images, my initial thought was to blend more traditional/stereotypical collegiate images with quirky ones to show contrast. But the moment I delved into the creative process that got thrown out the window. The play of words and tone found me having a blast working in a very different way.

What resulted was a really fun process of creating, and a final piece I love:

 

Page 1 of a book created by Lisa Zamarin for Cindy Shearer’s "Writing as Art" class.

Somatics Student Exhibits Artwork

By ZACK ROGOW, senior editor at CIIS. His writings include a recent book of poems, "My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers," from Kattywompus Press. 

Genoa Hamiel, a graduate student in the Somatic Psychology program at CIIS, is currently exhibiting her artwork in the lobby of the Mills Building, where the Institute’s Center for Somatic Psychotherapy is located. Hamiel’s sculpture, entitled “Holding Space,” appears in a juried show at 220 Montgomery Street in downtown San Francisco. The artwork is made of white pipe cleaners, shaped into a form that Hamiel compares to a cocoon or an egg. “I see the sculpture as a remnant of something that was once alive and is now decaying,” she explains, “like a coral that’s been taken out of the sea.”

Hamiel feels there is a parallel between her artwork and her practice as a psychotherapist in training. “There’s something about the process of letting a piece take shape, instead of ‘making it,’ that reminds me of sitting in therapy sessions with clients,” she elaborates. “The more I can let both those processes take shape organically, the better they both work. When you sit in the room and hold space for someone else, you become a container for what that person has experienced.”

Hamiel notes that both therapy and the arts involve spontaneity: “I didn’t realize how much my years of doing different arts—sculpture, writing, painting, singing, improv theater—how much they prepared me for the ultimate improvisational act of being a therapist.”

Rebecca McGovern, director of field placement and clinic sites for CIIS, sees a similar parallel: “For me, Genoa’s piece is an elegant reverie on the web of connections and supports that are critical to the experience of therapy and training therapists. ‘Holding space’ is a term used as shorthand for the complicated and difficult process of attending to and being with clients. And we can even see that as a new tenant in the Mills Building, CIIS’s Center for Somatic Psychotherapy literally holds space for the therapeutic process to occur.”

The Center for Somatic Psychotherapy, where Hamiel is a therapist in training, has provided counseling services in the Bay Area since 1991. The center is one of the few body-oriented therapy clinics in the U.S. For more information on the center or to make an appointment, view their website.