Images from a day of communing with water, moss, and trees on the banks of the Halkomelem named K̓wal̓uxw Stalo, more recently know as Englishman River on Vancouver Island. The creations are photographed with river, moss and tree persons our art-caring was in communication with.  


Cascade – ….”something falling or rushing forth in profusion” –Dictionary

Artworking trans-forms the worlds hieroglyphs. You join in by mental-affective strings
attached to the sensible. This sensible and transensible knowledge is not cognitive. You
access it in-by joining in differenc/tiating, co-habit(u)ating.
— Bracha L. Ettinger

We have found ourselves frequently writing the word ‘cascade’ to describe the many external global crisis and internal shocks we are living each day. In contemplating the sociopolitical context of tragedies (especially coming out of the United States and the growth of authoritarian populism worldwide) we are noting how these shocks are leading people to look for more transensible meaningful experiences. SCM served us well in the isolation of COVID months and years, thanks to virtual technologies delivering the connections required internationally for building a creation-centred communitas. Today, a porous experience of art-care feels more pertinent than ever and we expect the movement of SCM to grow.

We offer here reflections on a trans-formative rushing forth of “co-habit(u)ating” goodness we have been met with these past many months as it gathers around Studio M*. We share here some of the cascadings of art-care.

In early February we launched the Artizein: Arts & Teaching Journal special issue on Ettingerian Matrixial Theory, the Arts and Education. Forefronting art-care, we co-produced a beautiful issue featuring Ettingerian Matrixial Theory within the field of education. To taste the evolving theory and practices of art-care through other authors’ voices we invite you to read all the articles, and in particular the beautiful articles of Valerie Giovanini, Misty Paterson, and Kate Wurtzel & Laura Lee McCartney.    

What if we had a nurturing economy centered on art-care? At the end of our 2024 fall season of online Spontaneous Creation-Making Happenings we invited folks to facilitate in the next season. The invitation was met with the spirit of a sacred art-care economy. A cascade of enthusiastic guest SCM facilitators rushed in. We offer, as SCM participants, gratitude to Annie Smith, Gregory Wendt, Misty Paterson and Valerie Giovanini, Laura Lee McCartney and Kate Wurtzel. The sessions led by Misty and Valerie focused on “invitation,” and Laura Lee and Kate prompted us into an expansive space of “matrixial time freedom.” Each SCM gathering is unique and invites us to nourish circles of care that reach beyond personal time and space. It seems that in beyond the beyond there is a thirst-quenching cascade of goodness everflowing to be tapped-into.

Taking a pause from facilitating prompted us to think about the importance of a “matrixial reset” as part of our foundational artworking in communitas and community-building in the world. This includes local as well as virtual communities. We were energized to propose a book chapter that has been accepted for an anthology on creation-centered vocabularies and ontologies. In this chapter we plan to explore and call forth an animistic curative that we recognize is present in the practice of Spontaneous Creation-Making. To collaboratively explore this, we will invite spontaneous creators to join us in the creation-centered research in three special SCM Happenings this fall (TBA). Such a research initiative by Studio M* is continuous with the spirit of engaging practices and forging theory anew. There is a healthy back-log of conversations from past art-care theory groups still to be analyzed, but like all things, these videos are waiting until the energy is right for more concentration on that end.

We are delighted to share that two passionate teachers have been completing the Art-Care certificate, and will be taking art-care practices more deeply into their communities. If you are interested in taking the art-care of SCM into your community we would love to hear from you.

In closing, we invite you to (re)visit the resources on the Gifting page and consider the thought of a sacred economy centred on art-care in your own life and circles of care.

References

Ettinger, B.L. (2015). And my heart wound-space. The Wild Pansy Press.

The Penguin Concise English Dictionary, (2002). Penguin Books, p. 127.

Leave a comment