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Using clay in therapy taps into the most fundamental of human experiences - touch. This book is a comprehensive step-by-step training manual that covers all aspects of 'Work at the Clay Field', a sensorimotor-based art therapy technique. The book discusses the setting and processes of the approach, provides an overview of the core stages of Gestalt Formation and the Nine Situations model within this context, and demonstrates how this unique focus on the sense of touch and the movement of the hands is particularly effective for trauma healing in adults and children. The intense tactile experience of working with clay allows the therapist to work through early attachment issues, developmental setbacks and traumatic events with the client in a primarily nonverbal way using a body-focused approach. The kinaesthetic motor action of the hands combined with sensory perception can lead to a profound sense of resolution with lasting therapeutic benefits. With photographs and informative case studies throughout, this book will be a valuable resource for art therapists and mental health professionals, and will also be of interest to complementary therapists and bodyworkers.
"Body of Clay, Soul of Fire" will delight art lovers, potters, and collectors, as well as everyone who is interested in Japanese and Benedictine traditions. Richard Bresnahan is a preeminent American potter and an ambassador for the natural environment. Reared on a farm in North Dakota, he graduated from Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and apprenticed as a potter in Japan. Returning to Saint John's, where he is an artist in residence, he built a massive wood-burning kiln, which, with its innovative flame flues and water channels, dwarfs all other North American kilns. By digging his own clay, using local seeds and hulls as glazing materials, and firing with deadfall, Bresnahan also practices a brand of environmentalism worthy of his Benedictine surroundings.
More than a third of the houses in the world are made of clay. Clay vessels were instrumental in the invention of cooking, wine and beer making, and international trade. Our toilets are made of clay. The first spark plugs were thrown on the potter’s wheel. Clay has played a vital role in the health and beauty fields. Indeed, this humble material was key to many advances in civilization, including the development of agriculture and the invention of baking, architecture, religion, and even the space program. In Clay, Suzanne Staubach takes a lively look at the startling history of the mud beneath our feet. Told with verve and erudition, this story will ensure you won’t see the world around you in quite the same way after reading the book.
"Galleries and shops across the United States are filled with American Indian art. Especially popular is the striking pottery handmade by the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest. Talking with the Clay tells the story of this pottery from the uniquely personal view of the potters themselves. Stephen Trimble interviewed sixty artisans in the pottery-making Pueblo villages, from Taos, New Mexico, to the Hopi reservation in Arizona. Their eloquence fills this book. They speak of 'picking clay' as they would pick flowers, and of the enormous amount of work (fully half their time) necessary to prepare the clay for building their pots. Coil by coil they create jars, bowls, and figurines, and then sand, polish, and paint them. Firing is done outside in a dung-fueled 'kiln' built from scratch for each firing. Trimble shows how Pueblo pottery embodies all the beliefs and values that are central to Pueblo culture. Yet what defines a Pueblo pot is not strictly a matter of tradition, for, as Grace Medicine Flower says of her Santa Clara miniatures, 'Now they call this contemporary; years from now they may call it traditional.' Instead, a Pueblo pot is defined more than anything by the way it feels, and this book captures that feeling in both words and photographs. Talking with the Clay is a joyous, fascinating, and moving book filled with information and insight." -- Back cover
The story of Shearwater Pottery and the Anderson family's artful enterprise
In a provocative book that explores the fascinating link between the creative and the sacred, Robert Wuthnow claims that artists have become the spiritual vanguard of our time. Drawing on in-depth interviews with painters, sculptors, writers, singers, dancers, and actors, Wuthnow includes the spiritual insights of accomplished artists who have gained prominence as Broadway performers, gospel singers, jazz musicians, poets, Native American painters, weavers, dancers, and installation artists. He profiles such national figures as novelist Madeleine L'Engle, playwright Tony Kushner, photographer Andres Serrano, sculptor Greg Wyatt, dancer Carla DeSola, and woodcarver David Ellsworth. Situating these artists' reflections in the context of wider cultural ferment, Wuthnow argues that spirituality is coming increasingly to focus on the inherently ineffable character of the sacred—what artists refer to as divine mystery. As growing numbers of Americans doubt the adequacy of religious creeds in defining the sacred, they are turning to artists who seek a more intuitive sense of the sacred through symbols and imagery. These artists provide rich insights into the social and cultural problems of our time. Many have been shaped by the growing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity of the United States. Many are at the cutting edge of new thinking about body, mind, and spirit, and many are seeking ways to integrate their understandings of spirituality with interests in nature and preserving the environment. For readers interested in exploring contemporary spirituality or engaged in spiritual pursuits of their own, this engaging, elegantly written, and erudite book will answer many questions about the changing moral and spiritual role of creativity and the arts.
14 lectures, Stuttgart, August 21-September 5, 1919 (CW 294) How do Waldorf teachers put their educational ideals into practice in the classroom? How does a teacher connect geography and art and language in a way that enlivens the souls of children? What does a child's respect for the teacher mean for later life? These are only a few practical aspects of this initial course for Waldorf teachers. During an intensive two weeks, Rudolf Steiner gave three simultaneous educational courses to those who would be the first teachers of the original Waldorf school. One course provided the foundational ideas behind Waldorf education (The Foundations of Human Experience); another provided a forum for questions and lively discussions on specific issues in the classroom (Discussions with Teachers). In this course, Steiner takes the middle-path by integrating theory and practice. Here, Steiner spoke of new ways to teach reading, writing, geography, geometry, language, and much more. His approach is tailored to the spiritual and physical needs of the children themselves, not to an arbitrary curriculum based solely on external results. At a time when public education is in a state of crisis, this book describes how children around the world are being guided into adulthood with a fuller sense of themselves and with a creative approach to life and the world around them. German source: Erziehungskunst. Methodisch-Didaktisches (GA 294).
The resource is designed to help spiritual directors and others use expressive arts in the context of spiritual direction. It is the latest book in the unique SDI series, designed for professional spiritual directors, but also useful for clergy, therapists, and Christian formation specialists. The Spiritual Directors International Series – This book is part of a special series produced by Morehouse Publishing in cooperation with Spiritual Directors International (SDI), a global network of some 6,000 spiritual directors and members.
Reflecting the increasing recognition of the importance of the spiritual in healing, Spirituality and Art Therapy is an exciting exploration of the different ways in which the spiritual forms an essential, life-enhancing component of a well-rounded therapeutic approach. The contributors are leading art therapists who write from diverse perspectives, including Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and shamanic. They explain how their own spiritual and creative influences interact, finding expression in the use of art as a healing agent with specific populations, such as bereaved children, emotionally disturbed adolescents, and the homeless. The relationships between spirituality and visual art, art therapy and transpersonal psychology are examined. Story and image are interwoven in the spiritual journeys of therapists and clients, and suggested creative exercises make this an accessible, practical resource for those who desire to understand and execute an holistic method of therapy. Arguing that art therapists can mediate between the sacred and the mundane, this pioneering book is an affirmation of the transformative power of art therapy.
Examines the role of the sacred in art and makes a compelling case for its continued contemporary relevance.