SoulCollage® workshop coming up

Hello again. 
My next Introduction to SoulCollage® workshop will be held in Brisbane on Saturday 27th July from 9am to 5pm.  For full details, go here. 

Please contact me on inner_artist at yahoo dot com if you would like to attend the July workshop, or if you would like to be notified when details are available for future workshops. 

I'm intrigued that I seem to have several cards in my deck featuring leopards, yet I don't have a leopard as one of my Companion animals. While I've gained a lot of insight from dialoguing with these cards individually, I subsequently reflected on what the repeated presence of this motif in my deck means in my inner life and afterwards I did a quick Google search for the symbolic meaning of leopard. This was among what I found: "Silent, inconspicuous, strong intuitive abilities. Aids in overall sensitivities, communication abilities and movement in dream world and the unconscious realms. Leopard teaches the nuance of hearing your heart and intuitions and when and how to react.  Are you listening carefully to the world within and around you?"  That last question -  a timely reminder! 

Try looking through your deck to see if there are any motifs occurring regularly amongst your cards (e.g. a certain animal, hands, hearts etc). Read back over your original dialoguing, and any you might have from drawing these cards in a subsequent reading, and reflect on the meaning of this motif in your life. You could also pose a question around this and do another reading from these cards. Ask them how these parts of you might be related to each other. You may very likely be surprised at what you learn as you go deeper into your inner Self through your SoulCollage®.

Getting creative at Fibre Arts Ballarat 'Reliquaries & Shrines' workshop

I've just arrived back from Melbourne (LOVE Melbourne!) where I spent a wonderful week with my sister, Lynne, after attending a five-day art workshop at Fibre Arts Ballarat, convened by Fibre Arts Australia.  The experience of being back at boarding school again was a bit surreal (it was a live-in forum at the Ballarat Grammar School) but fortunately boarding school is 200% better than when I attended boarding school in Armidale NSW more years ago than I care to remember!

The workshop I attended, 'Reliquaries & Shrines for Pleasure' was taught by the wonderful and very talented Christine Atkins from Western Australia. Visit Chris's website to be inspired by her beautiful, numinous artworks.

I needed to take a whole extra case of checked-through baggage on the plane, loaded with tools and other paraphernalia, including an electric drill, a router (or laminate trimmer), large clamps and various other items usually found only in hardware stores or the backyard sheds of 'blokes'. I can now router, drill and hammer with the best of them!

Suffice to say that I haven't worked so hard for a long time and it took me a few days to recover under the tender ministrations of my sister in Melbourne later!

However, what FUN it was, and so satisfying and inspiring, and I learnt so many new techniques. I'm now excited to be the proud owner of my own beautiful hand-made shrine, although unlike the other participants, I didn't quite finish mine (I didn't get time to assemble and put in my treasures) so you will have to wait for a picture of the completely finished shrine, which began as a block of virgin wood. Meanwhile, here it is below at the exhibition on the last night where all participants in the 12 or so workshops were able to show off their inspiring creations. I'd love to show you everyone else's shrines but feel I shouldn't post pictures without getting their permission first.

I LOVED the routering!

Demonstration for making the doors.

More-or-less finished  (both the shrine and me!)

Yes, those are rusty nails around the edge and I rusted them myself (I love rusty stuff!). We also cut and etched the copper around the doors. I can't wait to see what else I can conjure up in my studio in the future using the techniques I've learnt. 

To see the Ballarat workshop programme for 2014, go here.

You'll notice that some workshops are already full so if you're interested to attend, I suggest you book in soon. 

There are also forums in Ballarat and other cities between now and then. I can highly recommend the experience!

SoulCollage® Institute online courses coming up.

The SoulCollage® Institute in the USA has been set up to provide online courses as further training for SoulCollage® facilitators but is now offering some courses known as 'Salon' courses, to anyone in the SoulCollage® community interested to further their knowledge of this amazing process. These interactive courses are very easy to access using Skype.  If you're unable to be online at the time the session is running, recordings are available for purchase afterwards. Please note the information about needing to register by a few days beforehand at the links below for each course. If you would like to talk to me about these courses, either about the content or the technicalities of the hook-up, please email me on inner_artist at yahoo dot com with your phone number and I will call you. I've done some of these courses before so I'm familiar with how they work.

Coming up in 2013 are:

'How We Are Using SoulCollage® in Spiritual Settings'


Date: Monday, 29th April, 2013, 6am to 7.30am (Brisbane time)


Cost: US$22 (similar in Aust dollars, depending on the exchange rate at the time you book)

Presenter:  Audrey Chowdhury, M.S., ATR-BC, art therapist and SoulCollage® Facilitator/Trainer, and author of the CD: Using SoulCollage® in Spiritual Settings 

Through the practice of creating and speaking from SoulCollage® cards, one ignites that “spark of the holy” that resides in each part of our many faceted Selves. Many of us are using, or thinking about using, SoulCollage® as a tool for Spiritual guidance and reflection for ourselves and others in many different spiritual and religious settings. Join this SoulCollage® Institute Salon for an informal and lively discussion and share or discover how your unique style and gifts inspire you to develop your own special approach to the spiritual nature of this process. 

Click here for more information and to book for the course above.

'SoulCollage® and Art Therapy' 


Date: Monday, 29th July, 2013
, 6am to 7.30am (Brisbane time)

Cost: US$22

Presenters: Kat Kirby and Audrey Chowdhury

Description: Two art therapists, the authors of SoulCollage® and Art Therapy, will host this Salon, which will be open to the public. SoulCollage® Institute invites art therapists who are not yet Facilitators and those who are already SoulCollage® Facilitators to join a lively discussion about using SoulCollage® in art therapy settings. Some time in this Salon will be devoted to small group discussions about this application of SoulCollage®. Participants will be able to address questions to the hosts and address comments to the whole group.

Click here for more information and to book for the art therapy  course.

SoulCollage® workshop in May

My next 'Introduction to SoulCollage®' one-day workshop will be held on 

Sunday 19th May, from 9am to 5pm in

Red Hill, Brisbane.

Find full details here.

Next Workshop

'Introduction to SoulCollage® one-day workshop

Next Saturday 9th March, 2013

Red Hill, Brisbane

9am to 5pm. 

Find full details here.

Home again!

Hello and Happy New Year to all! I hope you've had a very special festive season. I've just arrived home after my wonderful four-month trip to Vancouver, Canada; New Mexico and New York, USA; and Berlin, Germany, and now trying to deal with jetlag, combined with the awful heatwave affecting Australia at the moment (up to 49+ degrees C in some parts).  My thoughts are with those who've been affected by the bushfires which are covering much of eastern Australia. I didn't manage to post anything here while I was away as it was a very busy family time but hopefully I'll be back to normal soon.  

VICTORIA, British Columbia, CANADA. Sept. 2012

Accompanying text: 

This mask, carved from red cedar, represents Raven on the outside. Bak’was, the wild man of the woods, appears within. The transformation mask is one of the most dramatic carvings of the Kwakwaka’wakw peoples. It depicts the inner and outer being. The dancer emerges from behind a dance screen with the mask in the closed position. As the dance proceeds, the dancer whirls about and the mask snaps open to reveal the inner being. 

Artist: Stan Warniss is from Gwa’yee, Kingcome Inlet (Tsawataineuk peoples on the central coast of British Columbia). Stan states that, “Raven knows Bak’was the best because he sees him all the time in the forest.”

               SANTA FE (also ALBUQUERQUE), New Mexico, USA.
                                       Sept/Oct/Nov 2012 

Shop window display featuring one of the iconic motifs from the area (animal skull) covered with turquoise gemstones.

NEW YORK CITY, NY, USA. Nov 2012

Sunday artist in Central Park

BERLIN, GERMANY. Nov/Dec 2012/Jan 2013

WeinachtsMarkt (Christmas market) at Gendarmenmarkt, with the Konzerthaus in the background. On opposite ends of this historic square are the lovely Deutscher Dom (German cathedral, now a German history museum) and Französischer Dom (French cathedral - although not actually a cathedral, a church - built by the Huguenots). The square dates from the 17th century and was almost totally destroyed at the end of WW2, but has been beautifully restored since German reunification in the early 1990s. The Christmas market is on the square bordered on 3 sides by these lovely buildings.