HEY, do you mind?
Image: exercises from Stephanie Medford’s mindful drawing workshop
Last week, Stephanie Medford visited the Works to Work (W2W) team to give an artist talk on her work Drawn In, to be featured on our main site at Capital Plaza this year. She presented a very honest picture of her experience as an emerging artist up until this point, taking extra care not to gloss over hardships but instead reflect upon what she had learned from them. In this, she offered insight on burnout, art as business versus art as practice, practical ways to approach applying for artist residencies, and more. A topic that underlined her talk is mindfulness. About this time last year, feeling overwhelmed in the bustle of my final term at Grant MacEwan University coming to a close, I first met Stephanie after signing up for one of her mindful drawing workshops. Through individual and group exercises, she calmly facilitated workshop attendees to slow down, breathe, and notice.
Now seated in front of a group of W2W interns, Stephanie related
mindfulness to the performative work she will be sharing at the festival. She described the term, as well as the act of shaving wood and drawing (two key elements of her upcoming performance), as both self-soothing and challenging. Granting opportunity to sit with uncomfortable aspects of yourself or your experience, practicing mindfulness can aid in developing deeper self-awareness and acknowledging the moment that you find yourself in.
While it is a practice that can be honed through art-making or other creative pursuits, its benefits can extend even further. Prime opportunity to put this into practice presents itself daily at The Works office. Being a part of the production team, it can be difficult to know what you will be tasked with on any given day: From installing computers in the offices to installing artwork at various downtown locations; painting doors to building plinths; driving cube trucks to lifting steel
sculptures, it is likely that you will at some point be confronted with work that you have not done before and maybe are unsure about how to proceed. In moments such as these, and the times when plans seemed concrete yet change anyway, adaptability and willingness to learn is key.
Mindfulness can help to facilitate this. In my experience, I have found that taking a deep breath, acknowledging how I am feeling, and safely proceeding with the uncomfortable task has served me in accomplishing things, with The Works and otherwise, that I simply would not have imagined possible. Thanks to Stephanie for the reminder to slow down and be present, in moments soothing, uncomfortable, and all in between. If you are interested in learning more
about her work, practice, and experiences with mindfulness, visit her website http://www.stephmedford.com/
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About the Author: Taiessa Lund is a Grant MacEwan alumni and current BFA student at the University of Alberta with prospects for graduate studies in art therapy. She is a multi-discipline artist, primarily working in drawing and printmaking. Through focusing on widely familiar objects and experiences, her practice centralizes around the ordinary. She seeks to reframe the mundane, spinning fragmented narratives to explore layers of dreaming, memory, nostalgia, and self-awareness. Taiessa has received awards regarding her academic standing, artistic sensibilities and community engagement, and her work can be found in collections belonging to the John L. Harr Library and MacEwan University.