CREATIVITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT:
OVERCOMING PRECIOUSNESS AND FEAR

Creative behavior may be found not only in the arts but in myriad other forms, including lifestyle, relationship, and community. This how-to workshop on creativity - for any medium of expression - is designed to cut through creative blocks and impel you toward your unique expressive gifts. In this workshop you will explore the power of form to find your most potent vehicle of authentic expression.

Authenticity is discovered by learning to distinguish between the “Three D’s”: Direction (that which you are born to do); Diversion (simply a pastime); and Distraction (that which takes you off course). To facilitate original expression, obstacles such as PRECIOUSNESS (attachment to what is familiar and previously praised), and FEAR (denying what is hidden in the past and shrinking from the unknown in the future), will be transformed into fuel for the creative process. Once you understand that all of the surprises of life - positive and negative - are opulent gifts, catalysts of change and grist for the creative mill, the generative process becomes an inextricable weaving of life, work, and art - an evolving and ascending matrix of positive expansion and compassionate expression.

This is not only a workshop for practicing artists, writers, photographers, and painters, but is also a springboard into the creative process for those who have never dared to reveal themselves through any vehicle of creative expression.Bio

Gilah Yelin Hirsch is an internationally known multidisciplinary artist and facilitator. Her work in the varied media of writing, painting, photography and video has been inspired and informed by extensive travel, extended solitary sojourns in nature, research and practice in the areas of psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, philosophy, global culture, architecture and art. She has lectured, published, exhibited, and has had her work collected internationally. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the National Endowment Senior Visual Arts Grant (USA), and Fellowships from The Tyrone Guthrie Center for the Arts (Ireland), The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio (Italy), and The Banff Center for the Arts (Canada). She holds the position of Professor of Art at California State University, Dominguez Hills, (Los Angeles) and resides in Venice, California.

CREATIVITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT:
OVERCOMING PRECIOUSNESS AND FEAR

“Not only was the artistry fantastic, but her insight is pure genius – the quality people rarely encounter even once in a lifetime.” – Carolyn Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

“Leaves one with life enhancing, life embracing emotional and intellectual after images which etch into one‘s soul” - Stuart L. Brown, Executive Producer of Joseph Campbell’s PBS series: The Power of Myth

WHAT: CREATIVITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT: OVERCOMING PRECIOUSNESS AND FEAR is a workshop for persons from all walks of life designed to stimulate creative behavior and propel personal transformation. This unique method of unleashing creativity and activating the authentic self helps participants overcome obstacles and procrastination and propels them toward their unique expressive gifts. Hirsch’s workshop serves as a springboard into the creative process for those who are feeling blocked or have never dared to reveal themselves through any vehicle of creative expression. CREATIVITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT: OVERCOMING PRECIOUSNESS AND FEAR has been conducted by special request at the Hollyhock Institute on Cortes Island in British Columbia and the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

Participants will: create a space in their lives for personal creativity, uncover their truth and passion, and find their most potent vehicle of authentic expression. Authenticity is discovered by learning to distinguish between the “Three D’s”: Direction (that which you are born to do); Diversion (a pastime); and Distraction (that which takes you off course). To facilitate original expression, obstacles such as PRECIOUSNESS (attachment to what is familiar and previously praised), and FEAR (denying what is hidden in the past and shrinking from the unknown in the future), will be transformed into fuel for the creative process. Group exercises, individual assignments and one-on-one consultations will be included in the course.

“Once you understand that all of the surprises of life - positive and negative - are opulent gifts, catalysts of change and grist for the creative mill, the generative process becomes an inextricable weaving of life, work, and art - an evolving and ascending matrix of positive expansion and compassionate expression,” says Gilah Yelin Hirsch

WHO: Conducted by acclaimed, Rockefeller and NEA award-winning multidisciplinary artist, facilitator and counselor Gilah Yelin Hirsch. Hirsch’s work in the varied media of writing, painting, photography and video has been inspired and informed by extensive travel, extended solitary sojourns in nature, research, and practice in the areas of psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, philosophy, global culture, architecture and art. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the National Endowment Senior Visual Arts Grant (USA), and Fellowships from The Tyrone Guthrie Center for the Arts (Ireland), The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio (Italy), and The Banff Center for the Arts (Canada). Hirsch has lectured, published, exhibited internationally and her work is found in private and public collections across the globe. She holds the position of Professor of Art at California State University, Dominguez Hills, (Los Angeles) and resides in Venice, California.

“Through Hirsch’s extraordinary perception we experience the world truly as a Moebius strip, continuous ever and always with itself …The intuitive scope, the imaginative reach, of this work is no less breathtaking, but it is absolutely crucial that we understand its message of oneness and its principle of interconnection so that we experience intimately how things fit together.” – Suzi Gablik, internationally renowned art critic & author of “How Modernism Failed: The Re-enchantment of Art: Conversations for the End of Time”