Eileen Nash
San Francisco Bay Area, California
A portable mural is one created on canvas or paper that can be rolled up and travel wherever it needs to be taken. Murals tell a story using images and sometimes words. A mural is an effective and powerful tool of communication with conscious and unconscious impact. They are a statement to humanity’s need to express story with conscious and unconscious symbols. Murals capture a snapshot of an intention, an enquiry or a moment in time. Consider the first known murals, cave drawings dating back to 30,000 BC or Egyptian tomb depictions, Italian frescoes or lively contemporary street art seen around the world today.
A mural is a bridge to the community. The artists communicate with the people; meetings are held to discuss the issues. The result is a reflection – a mirror of that community. Susan Cervantes
To create this piece I led a group of 20 people gathered for a team building workshop for an oncology pharmaceutical company. The mural’s main image represents the theme of women with ovarian cancer and those partaking in global clinical trials for treatment. Using the Intentional Creativity process, internal thoughts and intentions from the group were able to shift, the mural becoming a place to explore healing and new possibilities through form.
Everyone contributed to ideas for symbols as part of the overarching theme. My only rule was to remind people to leave their inner critic at the door. I found that once one person started to engage, others followed. After rough sketches, placement on the mural was decided as a group. This mutable process brought forth and allowed the mural imagery to coalesce. The story in image began to take shape and participants then began painting in the symbols with color.
This collaborative process twined individual and shared strengths, talents and goals. Perceptions of separateness within the group began to fall away as symbols came into form. Seeing their shared vision take shape, images representing qualities they had to offer and wished to experience within the greater team, created not only new connections but a bridge to a new story.
Eileen Nash
Eileen’s vision is to guide people in consciously experiencing their authentic selves to embrace or actively transform their perceptions of their inner and outer realities. This is accomplished utilizing your mind combined with different mediums such as acrylic paints, watercolors and collage. Intentional Creativity engagement with Art changes us and how we perceive our world. Eileen’s Paintbrush Café is a virtual place where people come to encounter their inner treasure and place it into a creative container.
Eileen is based in the San Francisco Bay Area where she has lived since 1983. Always a creative, her artskills were developed and honed through Color of Woman training created by Shiloh Sophia McCloud in 2013. She is a certified Color of Woman Teacher and Intentional Creativity Coach. Eileen has a bachelors degree as a Registered Nurse, working many years at UCSF and has owned her own consulting business since 2000 providing Clinical Operations support in development of new drugs in the pharmaceutical industry.
To learn more about Eileen’s work with Intentional Creativity visit the Facebook page Paintbrushcafe or visit www.paintbrushcafe.com
