Do-Be-do
On returning to the U.K I had retrained as a photographer however during this time I also contacted the renowned Canadian Jungian Analyst Marion Woodman who's books I had read and highly respected. This connection lead me to undertake a brand new intensive training on the Marion Woodman Foundation Leadership training program which eventually evolved into the European BodySoul Rhythms Leadership Training Program. Over a decade of training in Jungian analysis, dreamwork and arts took place which I attended in the UK, Switzerland and Canada. As an artist this left me with a question, what to do with this training which was primarily for Jungian therapists.
Eventually I joined forces with Sue Congram of the Space Between, business coach, who had also completed the same training. Together we designed a business development coaching program called do-be-do. The aims were to offer creative coaching for business primarily for women. Our primary creative tools were mark-making, art, mask, movement and narrative.
do-Be-do offered fully funded business development courses for over 90 women in South devon. During this time we gained accreditation from the Institute of Leadership and Management UK. do-Be-do became the first members of this organisation to offer leadership and management courses using creativity in the UK. We also worked with large businesses such as Glaxo Smith Kline and Sima.
The processes I brought in were based around Betty Edwards book "Drawing on the Artist Within." Betty suggestedlooking for 'direct perception, a different kind of seeing'... as a key to creativity'. She found such a language already in use
the language of drawing, in a way not totally dissimilar to the way we record our thoughts and idea in words.
Drawings, like words, have meaning- often beyond the power of words to express, but nonetheless invaluable
in making the chaos of our sensory impressions comprehensible.
Betty found that
the language of visual, perceptual thought... when integrated with the language of verbal, analytic thought, can
provide the ingredients essential not only for true creativity- that is new or novel ideas, insights, inventions, or discoveries that have social value- but also for useful creative solutions to the problems of everyday life.
This process of creating which Betty called 'analog' drawings, enabled participants to create self reflexive drawings leading to internal and shared dialogues. This enabled participants to engage with their lives in a creative, productive and empowering way. We went on to use this as a basis for mask and movement work. This enabled everyone to embody new ways of understanding their personal and inter-personal dynamics alongside an appreciation for the role of the larger archetypal, powerful and mysterious energies.
Following this program I also took leadership roles on the European Body Soul group for several years. in liaison with the international Marion Woodman Foundation.
We are currently, in 2019, in the process of creating a sharing space on the Marion Woodman Foundation website. This will be a space to explore and discuss mark-making, drawing, painting and creative practice and processes in the service of creative self expression and therapeutic self-development. This will enable an international dialogue and potentially an international exhibition .
Link here Marion Woodman Foundation
Link here Body Soul Europe