Victorian style Tree of Life and Family Tree Silhouettes

Thursday was the last class in the recent Transformational Arts Practice series. We had lots of fun making transformational art including self-portraits and guardian angels, fears and inner monsters collages, totem protective animals, and for the last one we made either a tree of life or a family tree. To see more amazing silhouette work, visit Hugh D'Andrade's website. Very inspirational. Here's a peek.

I'll be starting a new series of four classes exploring different ideas, materials, and techniques starting Friday September 3 10-12AM at University Art in Sacramento. If you know anyone in the Sacramento area who might be interested in learning how to access their creativity as a tool for transformation or to just have more joy in their lives, please have them contact me at miraguy AT gmail.com.

Janet included herself as a child in hers. She had never made art or taken an art class before this and did brilliantly. She is going to collage family photos into the black circles and add leaves which will really make it come alive.

Karen decided to do a kind of story tree about the drama that was going on in one of her trees where there were constant animal fights and goings on. She was fascinated by octopii from the totem animals project and decided to integrate one into her tree as a kind of spirit mirroring the roots. We were running out of time so she went abstract with her foliage which makes it even wilder.

I had always thought of my family tree as being really stumpy because of the Holocaust, but I see the ways that we have regenerated those branches. I only included those nearest and dearest because of time and size constraints. I made the trunk really solid to represent those that came before and the strength of my ancestry even tho I don't know who they were ( I wrote about this in Honoring our Ancestors when I made a family tree of spirit/inspirational and blood ancestors). The squirrels represent play and the hummingbirds small miracles. Pomegranites represent fertility and are often associated with Jewish lore. I love this way of intuitive art making, allowing symbols to emerge and then clarifying through a process of questioning - e.g. why did I make such a thick trunk and what might it represent? etc.