Do you love surprises, too?

After a season of leading mindful art workshops, I keep thinking about how every workshop is full of (good!) surprises. Why does it happen?

My intention is to create the environment for people to be able to connect, take risks, and learn (I use experiential learning approaches to help with this), but how each person steps into it and what comes out is completely unique. And because each group is different, cool and unexpected things happen as people connect with each other along the way.

Of course it's not just the people but also the horses who influence what happens in my workshops. I help create an opportunity for people to slow down, open up, and look deeply. What emerges from the deep well of wisdom horses have to offer us is unique to the moment.

My way of looking at art really shifted when I came to understand it as a series of many choices. What makes our art ours is the choices we make. Later on in my workshops, when I ask workshop participants about the choices they made in their art, I'm always blown away. Every time it's such a surprise, so unique. It's so much more interesting to me than making choices for you! I often say "I don't want to help you to make art like me, I want to help you to make art like you."

This is something I’m always trying to do with myself, too: to make my own creative process something that continually surprises me. To guide myself into deeper risk taking by creating the container for new connections and experiments and choices.

I know there will be beautiful surprises at the in-person workshop coming up in November at Horse and Heart Ranch. I can't wait to see how we connect with this special herd and what lessons they have for us. Spaces are filling up quickly (only 9 left!) so reserve your spot today.​

$100.00 Mindful Art for Horse Lovers - November 14, 2026 In-person workshop at Horse & Heart Ranch • Soquel, California • 9-11 am Pacific time Are you drawn to horses? Deepen... Read more Register now!

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Gratitude for Sister Rosemary

In 2017, my partner and I attended a weeks-long art workshop series called "Art for the Spirit" led by Sister Rosemary Schmalz of the Sisters of Providence. We had collaborated with Rosemary over the years on projects related to social justice and climate change, and sometimes the conversation would turn to our personal art practices. Rosemary was quick to tell me she wasn't "good" at art, but that combining art and journaling was an important spiritual practice for her.

At the time I took Rosemary's workshop, I wanted to bring more personal expression and feeling into my work, rather than having it be simply "representational" or "illustrative" (as some folks called it). But I wasn't sure where to start.

Rosemary had us work with all kinds of different materials including coffee filters, cellophane, and salt. She also introduced me to bleeding tissue paper (the image above is one I made during this workshop). We looked for happy accidents by folding, tearing, printing, reversing. She invited the use of intuitive color. We worked with words and with feelings.

While I walked away from the workshop with some new media and activities, the most important thing I got was the experience of week after week, sitting down to art-making with an openness to play, to let go of the outcome, and to be surprised. This foundation was so important when I became chronically ill and I needed to shift my art practice dramatically.

S. Rosemary Schmalz, SP passed away last month at age 85. Today, I'm remembering her for her commitment to the Earth, to justice, and to sitting down and making messy, meaningful art.

Surprise! It's not a horse.

Sometimes I surprise myself and my friends by creating art that isn't about horses, ha ha! Here's one of my favorites that's still available. Browse around my online shop and you'll find others: deer, birds, a bovine friend or two, donkeys of course... Got a non-horse friend you'd like to see? Let me know!

Wishing you delightful surprises and beautiful messes,
Jeanne