Wishing you strength, creativity and health!

Dear Art Garden community and friends (near and far),

We are sending you much love in this strange and challenging time.
We wish you strength, creativity and health and want you to know that even though our physical studio space is closed until we are advised that it is safe to reopen, we are woven together with you as a community and care deeply about your well-being.

For some thoughtful suggestions to support your and your family’s well-being, please click on the link below for a beautifully written article by Deb Habib
of Seeds of Solidarity Farm and Education Center in Orange, MA:

https://seedsofsolidarity.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/parenting-in-a-pandemic.pdf

 

Drawing outside is just one of the things Deb suggests. (This is 6-year-old Emma drawing during our Farm & Art program last year.)
Looking closely and trying to capture what we see can help focus the mind in a way that can be very calming. Given all the uncertainty of these times, it doesn’t really matter if what you draw looks anything like what you are seeing.
The practice of looking closely is valuable in itself.

Two nights ago I noticed that someone had left this large heart stamped into the snow in my yard:

It was such a sweet surprise, reminding me that I am loved and that there are so many creative ways that we can support one another. Thank you!

If you have ideas for how The Art Garden can support our community in this time, please let us know by emailing me at csartgarden@gmail.com.

with affection,
Jane Beatrice Wegscheider

 

 

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Imagination Is A Bridge!

The following reflection was written by Jane Beatrice Wegscheider
for the 90th Anniversary of the Bridge of Flowers, October 5, 2019.

Imagination is a bridge!
Today we are celebrating something that connects us –
to each other and to ourselves –
to this physical place that many of us call home.

Home is also something imagined –
something we co-create in community.

Imagination is the soil of community –
because community, like a garden, has so much variety –
so many unknowables, so many differences.

We come together in community through our creativity –
through imagining what is possible.

Creativity cultivates that part of ourselves that is responsive.
Creativity is an essential part of being human.

The Bridge of Flowers cultivates our responsiveness –
to colors, patterns, light, shadow, textures, shapes, sounds, smells –
to the unexpected, exquisite, and delightful –
to birth, death, decay, and re-birth –
to nature which is core to who we are
and which we are so often estranged from.
To the river that runs through and in us –
a constant mystery.

This bridge of flowers draws us into the creative process.
Walking on it, in it and through it is an experience
which involves a coming together of our senses, bodies, hearts and minds –
a journey of moments that pull at us to be fully present.

What an amazing thing to be part of the creative community
that TENDS to the nurturing of imaginations!

What an amazing thing to be here with you in this collective journey of moments to celebrate all the work of that tending.

To tend and care for our need for experiences that feed our souls,
awaken our imaginations, and connect us to the beautiful
is good work –
sometimes hard, sometimes tedious, and most often lighter when done together.

Working together is an act of creativity.
Working together is community.

Playing together is a celebration of that community work.

And celebration is the bridge back to what inspires our imaginations.

And imagination is a bridge that connects us to ourselves and to each other.

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