Creative Counselling
Julie Cunningham
Heroine's Journey
Collage and Memoir
The hero’s story structure saturates popular culture – where an individual is challenged, faces obstacles, failure, only to rise up again and overcome his/her obstacles. Rarely is the shape of the heroine’s story structure referenced.
In a series of five workshops a small group (of 6-8 women) reflect on the heroine's journey and how acknowledging it is timely for us, the planet and for culture now. We explore how our lives echo story structures with ancient roots and working with collage processes we create imagery referencing our lives and, curiously, the story patterns of the heroine.
The sessions involve an introduction to collage techniques, the story structure's different stages, a short meditation, collaging time, a lunch gathering, collaging time, finishing with a shared reflection. Each woman creates at their own table.
The next course runs on Sundays from April 7th through to May 5th, 2024 in Bangalee NSW and is now full. Please contact me to be on the list for the next course.
Responses to the course in January 2024.
Judith
The process was such a gentle and safe one that I felt completely able to explore areas of myself that I have wanted to for years.
The story & meditation allowed me to settle into a grounded place. Additionally the myths engaged ideas and feelings that already existed and helped me express them.
Janet
Referencing the Heroine’s Journey gave structure to my memories and allowed reflection on the universal journey and how our experiences are a part of a well worn path.
The meditation was really useful, allowing the time for our thoughts to settle and our inner world to emerge.
Responding to different images in the collaging process helped me express feelings and reactions without the need to draw. I also enjoyed finding papers that allowed me to express a mood or create my image.
The HJ workshop was a vehicle to help me release my self-directed creativity. Previously my art experiences have been mostly directed. The use of collage and freedom to express what arose was invaluable.
Fran
I really enjoyed the workshop. I was surprised about the direction it took for me as despite having a bit going on in recent years there wasn't anything in particular that was uppermost in my mind when we began.
It was also surprising to see how my collaging varied and developed over the 5 weeks! I've definitely benefited from some other art activities in terms of learning to play with materials and images, and trying to follow rather than force a form to emerge.
I really liked the way the collaging process worked, by-passing the need to explain anything and just going straight to images that appealed for whatever reason. Then the process of working with those brought clarity and form to the abstract feelings and thoughts.
I did quite a lot of writing during the week following each workshop as for myself I found I was still processing and developing the ideas behind the collage that I was working on. Even though I was mainly just finalising the arrangement and form of the images I'd selected on the workshop day I was resolving a lot in the background as I did that.
