Jon Becker has seen the potential of Artfulness from the start. He acted as the GEHLI team’s sponsor and then continued to offer the support of ALT Lab as the site came together.

Joseph W. Cates received his MFA in Poetry from VCU in 2002. He has taught writing and critical thinking in VCU’s Department of Focused Inquiry since 2007. He also teaches a service-learning course devoted to ensuring food security in the local community.

This project has reminded me that a creative practice nourishes the body, the mind, and the spirit and free and always available. Remember. Don’t hold your breath.

I’m in love with the concept of artfulness, and I hope this project will bring many more creative moments of mindfulness into the world.

I’m interested in utilizing mindfulness as a tool for decreasing burnout and increasing physician well being. I enjoy working creatively with glass and am excited about art as a mindful practice.

This project resonates so deeply with me. Daily meditation helps me stay focused and feel great. Who doesn’t want that? This project spreads the knowledge and joy of artfulness and mindfulness.

As a cross disciplinary artist whose social practice work engages directly with multiple and often accidental audiences, I welcome the opportunity to share may practice with participants in the Artfulness project.

Artfulness allows us space, time, and method to glimpse our own souls. When we see our souls, we love ourselves better, can thereby love others better, and experience the aim of true human empathy.

Remember the story you told as a child – through your uninhibited movement, motion, and imagination. I believe the sublime can be found in deep play, and I believe good stories can change the world.

Artfulness blossomed from a team project within Grace Harris Leadership training. What excited me was the notion of self-care for the prevention or treatment of that “overwhelmed” feeling we all get.

As a clinician and educator, helping students to learn mindfulness skills has helped me to grow my own practices. Learning how to take short breaks and be present enriches our lives and our health.

Improvisation

I’m a philosopher tech head with a passion for motorcycles and public radio. I teach in African American Studies.

Arnold Kemp is an American artist that works in painting, print, sculpture, and poetry. He was a founding member of the Artfulness project.

I am a nurse and scientist whose biobehavioral research focuses on integrative health interventions. I study how mindfulness can promote wellness across the lifespan.

I am fascinated by the potential creativity and inspiration available to us at given moment, just waiting to be unearthed. The process of artfulness, is a practice of unearthing.

The fact that Artfulness can be practiced by anyone, anywhere, regardless of skill is what keeps me engaged and practicing.

I appreciate mindfulness as a root of learning and creativity. Through compassionate attention we make connections – on the page, in the studio, in ourselves, and with each other.

This has been a beautiful project to be a part of and I am so grateful for everyone that I am sharing this page with for helping me make it happen.

I’m passionate about teaching the importance of mindfulness and how it can be integrated into all aspects of our lives — from our relationships, to our art, to our work.

My art practice is dance. In my career, I’ve danced with multiple companies, including 13 seasons with Ballet Hispanico of New York. These experiences helped me connect my body, my mind and my soul.

As an avid practitioner of both yoga and meditation, I have worked to employ centering techniques I’ve learned from them to both achieve peace in my own professional life and in the lives of my students. The human brain is capable of giving us wings or crippling us depending a great deal upon how well we are able to stay mindful and actually live in the present moment. This is why I find this project vitally important.

I live in the world of creative. I love problem solving with strong concepts and great design.

I have often found that mindfulness, as an act of self-care, has become an increasingly important part of my practice as a designer and as a person in general. You are your own catalyst of creativity, making it vital to keep your mind and body in harmony with each other.

I’ve always held a deep interest in learning about ourselves as a species, as well as on a more personal level. Our behavior is often illogical and our actions and inaction often hurts ourselves or others. Mindfulness can overcome some of these inconsistencies in life and help us be better friends, partners, co-workers, parents, siblings, all the above. In my session, I hope you will gain a better understanding of what makes you feel the way you do and how you can, at least for a moment, re-center your focus and stimulate an awareness for yourself and the people around you.

I helped originate the Artfulness Initiative. I’ve been leading students in mindful creative writing practice for over twenty years. My background is in English, vocal music and interdisciplinary studies.

As an animator, I respond to all around with stories and visual languages that fit. Thus mindfulness is always the key in my creative process, and thus brought me into this project.

As a graphic designer, illustrator, jewelry maker and glass caster, I love bringing the act of making into my daily life. It calms my stress level and provides a much-needed break from the digital world. I like to make physical objects that enhance my digital designs when I can.

My teaching and artistic practice is informed by a somatic/body/mind approach. I have the greatest opportunity to embed awareness of the wisdom of the body with both movement practice and cognitive learning.

Through illness, I found out just how valuable creativity and mindfulness can be. Drawing, movement and writing are absolutely the things that keep me on my feet and able to move forward.

The mind that connects creativity with purpose, openness with direction and passion with decision is obtainable. Frequent acts of artfulness build a path of choice for one’s self. This is what brings me here.

I’m in favor of anything that makes the world a more interesting place.

I like to unravel things. I like to make messes. I think there’s a lot to learn about your practice- whatever it is- by letting something fail and then making something new out of it.

Cameras often inhibit connection to our surroundings. But if you keenly focus on movement, texture and color, photography and filmmaking become meditation.