Stuck in a creative rut or just need a moment to reflect on your life? This interactive Zoom workshop, presented by artist-educator Rachel Simmons, explores the connections between creativity, self-reflection and mindfulness through the visual journal, a unique fusion of creative writing and art. You’ll learn how to use techniques like erasure poetry, guided memory & sensory writing and mixed media collage in your journal practice.
The goal of this program is to develop a sense of creative renewal and connection with others. This workshop is suitable for everyone regardless of previous experience with writing or art.
About Your Program Presenter
Rachel Simmons is an artist-educator who teaches foundations, printmaking and book arts at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Her diverse practice is informed by the tensions between globalization, ecotourism, activism, climate change & sustainability. In Rachel’s socially engaged art projects, she invites community participants to think critically and creatively about our complex relationship with nature.
Current collaborative projects include the environmental graphic narrative Future Bear with historian Julian Chambliss, and The Aesthetics of Scale (Iceland), with geographer Lee Lines. She has traveled to Antarctica, Iceland, Namibia, the Galapagos Islands and many of the US National Parks to research environmental issues pertaining to these projects. During and after her travels, she engages in an active practice of reflection through visual journals and altered books.
Rachel’s books are currently available through Vamp and Tramp Booksellers and can also be found in special collections at Lawrence University, Baylor University, The University of Central Florida, DePaul University, UCLA, Miami University and several private collections. Her work has been exhibited regionally, nationally, internationally at venues such as The Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Washington, D.C., and the Deiglan Gallery in Akureyi, Iceland.
Her current work, The Language of Watching explores the particularities of our human relationship with birds through artist books and prints, and invites community participants to become collaborators. Rachel was the 2009 recipient of the Service-Learning Faculty Award for the State of Florida from Florida Campus Compact.
