This museum is operated by the Intentional Creativity Foundation, a 501c3 founded in 2015. It is guided by the Board and the Intentional Creativity Guild consisting of over 400 teachers worldwide who are trained and certified in the Intentional Creativity Method. The method brings a focus on the philosophy, the how and why, as well as the impact and influence creating with mindfulness can, and does have, on our lives. While we believe creating is for everyone, our vision is to make creativity accessible and to educate about the importance of creativity in the development of the human being.
Our Co-Founder Shiloh Sophia McCloud has been working in the arts and education field since 1994. She teamed up with her partner in business and in life, Jonathan McCloud to combine online education, as well as travel and cuisine to the collection of offerings. Together the two founded Mothership Inc. in 2016 and the Intentional Creativity Foundation in 2017, a 501c3. MUSEA is the over-arching brand for their collective projects and communities.
What We Are All About
We are a living museum and community curating Intentional Creativity and conscious culture. The ethos for our work has been in existence since the first time an early human made a mark to tell a story on a cave wall. This was a communication through image that became a one-to-many story through which we learn about who we were as early humans. Archaeologically, we can also look for clues into who we are becoming.
Our focus on creativity and culture is summoned from the deepest heart within our community to serve the planet and all beings into the future. Our unique part is to steward the contemporary creative and symbolic arts as part of the story we are telling about who we are as a people at this time. Artists and writers have always been the storytellers of each epoch – shaping how the story is told, what parts, and in what way.
Why This Matters
We feel it is time to tell a new story. Yet that story is intricately woven with stories of artists of the past. Especially as it relates to Intentional Creativity. All creative acts are intentional one way or another. With the advent of industrialization we lost the capacity to impact each creation with care for sustainability, beauty or impact. In earlier times our limitation of travel, time, resources and production automatically impacted our capacity to mass produce. While we call what we have done, progress, the impact on the environment, climate, living cultures and creatures has been devastating.
A move towards greater intention creates consciousness because the one creating considers all aspects of their creation. When a creative chooses to bring an idea into form, a quantum collapse from concept to matter is realized. Matter, coalesced in form, is the result. However, as it unfolds, the considerations which happen automatically are inherent within the act of creation. Experience, process, context, function, resources, impact, timing, renewability, workforce, materials, longevity and aesthetics, to name a few. Without an artist even being aware of it, a myriad of choices are flowing through impacting the design. All of this is impacted by a form of intention. Someone could make a house, a bomb, a garden or a painting and all of these features of implementation during the creative process are considered to varying degrees.
What happens when the one creating chooses to be truly intentional, with an intent to uplift, to bless, to further, to nurture, to heal, to honor, to preserve? At the very level of particles, we know that the “matter” cannot NOT be impacted. When the creative is aware of this phenomenon, the capacity to implement this kind of focus/energy is able to be consciously amplified. For example, many ancient cultures participated in the making of various forms of talismans. Talisman comes from the Greek, Telo, meaning to consecrate. Whether that was in the form of a jewelry or a bowl, or a tool, the maker was in essence ‘consecrating’ the item with their mind, heart and body. Physicists agree that these objects de’ art contain a charge, registered by the field. And in the case of a museum, or often visited site, a certain painting, sculpture or physical location could be ‘charged up’ energetically in the field, impacting the environment and the visitors and the quality of both. All of the senses, from scent to sight register the experience, and especially if one is open and even attuned to it. Our work will seek to illuminate what the field of science is acknowledging, what culture has always known, that HOW we create something might matter more, or just as much, as WHAT gets created.
What We Do
We celebrate our membership of creatives through featuring their work and creating specialized interactive exhibits.
We provide education to our membership base of visitors through inviting them to engage with and learn about Intentional Creativity.
We have a desire to preserve the future of humanity by honoring and learning from the ancestors, and those living, who practice arts intentionally, throughout all history.
We believe that creativity is a basic human right and seek to provide access to that right to the general public through digital archives, available both for free and by subscription.
We illuminate and make the distinction that all beings are creative, having nothing to do with talent. Talent is in itself, the capacity to execute adeptly in one’s craft. However, creativity is distinct from being able to do something well, it is inherent in the act of creating.
Our research, with tens of thousands of those who have participated in Intentional Creativity, speaks multiple benefits: physical, mental, spiritual, increased resilience, trauma recovery, and illumination of conscious awareness and understanding.
We are currently seeking partnerships, internships and collaborations to continue our work into the future.
Why We Do It
Painting. Music. Language. Cuisine. Culture. Architecture. Poetry. Theater. Pottery. Drawing. Sculpting. Dance. All mediums, when made with a sacred intent, tell a story. A story of the artist, and the time they were living in, as well as what they wanted us to know about who we were as a people at that point in history.
The Intentional Creativity Foundation preserves and illuminates an enduring legacy in mindful art making. We provide education, research & community building, focused on creating with intention. Our field of practice and study, Intentional Creativity, is an emergent discipline combining creativity with mindfulness. Our project is piloted by the global Intentional Creativity Guild.
Creating with intentional symbolism to communicate and tell story is ancient and pervasive the world over. From the Red Hand Cave paintings of Aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Egyptian glyph and myths, Russian icons coded with story and symbol, Shaman drums painted with personal medicine, sacred theater in Ancient Greece, Black Madonna rituals like the Sous Terre in Chartres Cathedral, skin story tattoos of the Hawaiian Islands, Native American beadwork, baskets and garments, Taize Musical Worship from France, African dances for birth and death, to the modern movement of intuitive art being globally practiced – the references are truly ever-present and endless and in every culture in the world. The common red thread of telling stories across cultures weaves us together.
Our approach to this framework of studying and creating intentional art originated in the late part of the 1930’s and continues today as a discipline in the creative arts practiced by thousands of people per month, with a reach of over ten thousand people over the past ten years through online and in person gatherings. For the past 25 years, a focus group has been developing and studying innovative ways to bring intentional art making to life and to make it accessible to everyone – not just those who demonstrate skills in artistry. “We don’t think art is something just for those who are gifted or creative, but is a way for all beings to access their own stories, ideas, beliefs and healing pathways.” says, Shiloh Sophia, one of the Founders of the Intentional Creativity Foundation.
ENDURING INFLUENCE + CURATING CULTURE + GLOBAL MOVEMENT = INTENTIONAL CREATIVITY
Our lineage has been passed from hand to hand, and from artist to artist, for over 80 years until it reached a quantum point with the advent of online education. While our goal is global and growing, we have three offices: our headquarters in California, USA, and offices in Australia and Denmark.
Our California campus, MUSEA is in honor of our community, includes a classroom, museum featuring our teachers, a gallery, museum, micro-farm and gardens. We host events and trainings year around.
According to the United Nations:
“We stand firm in our commitment to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression, including artistic and creative expression. In addition to being an integral part of the protected human right to freedom of expression, artistic and creative expression is critical to the human spirit, the development of vibrant cultures, and the functioning of democratic societies. Artistic expression connects us all, transcending borders and barriers”. ~ This quote has come from a joint statement made by 57 State Members at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and delivered by Ambassador Janis Karklins, the Permanent Representative of Latvia to the United Nations on September 18, 2015.
Intentional Creativity is practiced in homes, hospitals, social work settings, foster care, cancer recovery, business environments, homeless shelters, classrooms and circles. It is also used in ceremonies like wakes, births, or weddings.
MUSEA is our collective public name for our many projects, both for profit through Mothership, Inc. and not for profit through the Intentional Creativity Foundation.
THE ARTIST FUND: HUMMINGBIRD AND RAVEN PROJECT
