Instructor: Laurel True

Ready to explore your own creative process in a supportive setting with a community of creative seekers?

Re-Awaken Your Creative Self

Join me and a small cohort of students for a new kind of creative exploration.

One that takes us through not just materials and techniques but through our own consciousness and awareness of our true, creative selves.

This interactive workshop will help ignite your creative practice in new, meaningful ways that are aligned with who you are on your own unique path to discovery.

I felt the creative energy flowing inside me from the very first class.

- Nadia K, Oakland

About Conscious Creativity: A Mindful Approach to Your Creative Practice

I created my Conscious Creativity series courses to assist you in tapping into your creativity, and put it to use in your own creative practice.

My aim is to help you to reach in and access your creative spark, connect with fresh inspiration, and find your creative voice.

This unique course fosters creative exploration, experimentation and play through offering new perspectives and suggestions for mindful, embodied, and gentle approaches to your creative practice. 

Small cohorts offer a chance for interconnectivity in a community-centered virtual space. The small-group format allows for ample time for topic discussions and exchanges. 

Weekly prompts offer participants the chance to explore various mediums, experiment with specific concepts and ideas, and share their creative process in a non-competitive, supportive setting. 

Each week we explore a new topic, and focus on looking at creative work through a new lens, using examples from contemporary art, decorative art forms, and nature.

Prompts are conceptual, personal, playful, thought-provoking and eye-opening. They encourage a mindful approach to creativity that forefront presence, pause, intention, and mindful embodiment.

I draw from my 30 years as a practicing artist, as well as my intense interest in and research into creativity and health. My approach to art and health has been an integrative one. I believe these are inextricably linked in a matrix of creative wellness. I have spent the past decade exploring the neuroscience and psychology of creativity, behavioral science and consciousness studies as they relate to creative practice. These explorations and research, combined with my own professional practice in art and public health, community-based creative placemaking and a multi-disciplinary personal studio practice, combined with 30 years of teaching hands-on art classes helped plant the seeds for a new kind of creative experience that I now offer to my students. I consider myself a guide rather than a teacher. Some of my students would argue this point, but as the course series has grown, I’ve become a learner alongside participants.

Each session focuses on a theme, such as creative identity, art as language, vision and perception, the muse, inspiration, the brain-mind-creativity connection, creative actualization, mindfulness and making, and more.

Each session also includes a presentation, discussion and a creative practice exercise prompt. Most of the prompts are non-medium specific, and encourage participants to look to their own experience, history, interests, and experiences. This is in order to help participants connect with their own intrinsic inspiration and creative voice. I also offer weekly mini-exercises that usually involve engaging in quiet observation, visual or physical gathering of materials and connecting with nature. I also research and present artists and artworks that support the theme of our discussion topic, from diverse backgrounds, cultures and creative disciplines. From Nick Cave, to Hilma af Klint, to decorative house painters in rural India.

Cohorts are small, I limit the course to 12 participants. No art experience necessary. The small cohorts encourage a type of connectivity and also offers a close sense of creative community that many find lacking in their daily lives.

Course meets live on Zoom

Tuesdays, 4 - 5:30 pm Pacific Time

A link will be sent ahead of class each week. Enrolled students will receive a welcome email the week before the first session.

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Feedback from class alumni...

I was honored to be part of this wonderful group of women... who were extremely supportive of me and of each other. Led by Laurel we created a space of artistic potential that I have never before experienced. It turned out that the cohesiveness of the group and all of the group sharing were extremely helpful in allowing me to find my own budding creative process.

- Jennifer Neff, MD, San Diego

This class has been such a balm for my soul and a real healing experience and lovely escape during these trying times.

...It's been a game changer learning how to recognize my patterns of resistance around creativity and deal with them in different ways thanks to your tools and tips. I've loved all the assignments and have been regularly inspired by your energy and generous and kind spirit. I've also been inspired by the work, comments and contributions of others in our cohort.Such a great class! 

-Tracy C, Berkeley

Conscious Creativity was a fantastic opportunity for creative exploration and outlet that exceeded my expectations and opened me up to some many new ideas and possibilities. It really helped jump start my creativity at a time when I felt like I had hit the wall...It really helped me think about who I am as an artist, why I do what I do, and how I can do it--deeper and better.

- Karen Rushen, Toledo, OH