SUPPORT TEAM 2022
Annette Wagner, Leslie Nolan, Mary Ann Matthys, Milagros Suriano-Rivera, Trish O' Malley
Annette Wagner
[email protected]
Point Person for: Ann Berljafa, Chanel Hacker, Cindy L Messer, Gina Milinovich, Janelle Bergeson, Julie Goldsbury, Kara Young, Marlo Narro, Melinda Walters, Michele Celello, Monique Byres, Robin Wiggs, Teri Freesmeyer, Victoria Wright
These days I’m a working artist and hi-tech refugee with 21 patents to my name. I began painting with Shiloh in 2008 while in a Womens’ Spirituality masters program. When she announced the very first training for Intentional Creativity in 2010, I signed up immediately and became one of the first certified IC Teachers.
IC impacts everything in my life. My daughter, Eleanor, has been raised in the cocoon of IC and Cosmic Cowgirls. She often comes in my studio and we discuss what’s on my easel. My partner, Cass, and I wear red thread on our wrists and have done so since our first date. I used IC and deep inquiry to paint my way to health during a serious illness. I love IC painting because it gives me a sacred space to explore myth and metaphor and dive into mystery to see who and what comes into form on my canvas.
I’ve been part of the Color of Woman trainings as an art doctor and teacher since 2013, supporting students through the painting process. My intention when teaching is to meet you where you are. I love teaching IC workshops especially those focusing on learning to create Earth Prayers; I’ve taught it online, on the beach, and in the desert.
Sue Hoya Sellars got me started on sumi-e ink painting when I studied with her. I developed my Earth Prayers practice from her lessons with me. Earth Prayers is my piece of the red thread – deepening our connection to the earth as a form of healing for the earth and ourselves through a process of asking, listening, painting and writing.
Annette Wagner www.annettewagnerart.com
Leslie Nolan
[email protected]
Point Person for: Anna Throm, Annie Huthnance, Beth Kline-Pedersen, Cristin Whiting, Julie Seibert, Karen Thompson, Loretta Pickford, Maasa Craig, Melissa Lawson, Nina Jaeger, Risa Borsykowsky, Robin Dyer, Terri Russ
I found IC the day after my father’s death. It became a grieving and healing journey for me, that took me past a place of sadness into a pathway which altered the shape of my life, my work and my paintings for the last ten years. My paintings transcend time and place and my longing for Spirit is answered through this work.
Becoming a mom at 50 years old, this process has helped me navigate my emotions and changes in more than several life events while juggling being a mid-century mamma and switching careers!
I love deep 1-on-1 coaching for adults who are creatives and entrepreneurs. I have taught children including my goddaughter, whom I started at 3 and currently am teaching again privately at 13: she is doing an Ama-Zing piece!
I've been supporting Color of Woman since 2013 and have been called a ‘sherpa’ because I know how to draw the creativity out of someone. Stuck? I am great at knowing exactly what to do next, (if your painting has not informed you yet.) I love exploring the transformational energy within the story of the images that are created with IC, and understand the basic premise of it’s natural healing capacity.
Mary Ann Matthys
[email protected]
Point Person for: Aimee Tomczak, Ann-Margaret Morrissey, Anne DeVares-Clay, Christal Bindrich, Christy Marek, Cindy Soper, Debbie Darrin, Lee Pope, Mia Altieri, Nina Wolther
I began painting with Shiloh Sophia in 2012 and remember when she spoke at the United Nations in 2013. That moment captured my attention in a deep way. Clearly, Shiloh Sophia was making a difference, helping women, changing the world.
In late 2013, I decided to become a Color of Woman Teacher. I graduated from Color of Woman in 2014 after an incredible journey around the Alchemical Compass. During that journey, as sephirot kept appearing in my paintings, Leslie Nolan encouraged me to seek out Caron McCloud, this incredible woman who carried the teachings of the Kabbalah and Tree of Life Wisdom, who also happens to be Shiloh’s mom. I found Caron in Red Madonna, along with Shiloh Sophia and Havi Mandell and joined soon after. Through the years, Red Madonna became my spiritual home, a place to explore my spiritual journey within a sisterhood of women who ask the tough questions and find the feminine within the spiritual journey.
I have had the pleasure of working as a HearthTender, Teacher and this year stepping into Leadership of the Red Madonna Team along with Havi Mandell. And I joined the Color of Woman Support team in 2020.
Intentional Creativity is like breathing to me. It flows through all of my life. I find Intentional Creativity to be a wonderful way to approach the fullness of life and process everything that comes along. A recent painting called Math and the Mystic reflects my deep love of science, math and the quantum realm while acknowledging the mystical, spiritual part of me who walks between worlds.
As a Registered Nurse who spent her career birthing babies, caring for women and children and observing the effects of trauma on lives, I recognize the value of Intentional Creativity in transmuting the long lasting effects of trauma in the psyche and body.
My current work in the world is to be a way-shower for those who are awakening and give them the information that will empower them as their awareness is illuminated. My work in this moment in time is to help individuals cultivate love, hope, peace, compassion, and resilience through Intentional Creativity. I do this with my Blessing Book Process© and through my work in Red Madonna. I love facilitating Retreats that combine spirituality and Intentional Creativity. My work also includes years of working with children and teens using Intentional Creativity in Summer Intensives, Red Cross Hurricane Shelters, and churches.
Spirituality has always been a deep part of my work. I invite people to explore their own spirituality in whatever form it presents while keeping love at the center. Intentional Creativity provides a vibrant container for exploration of life’s journey and one’s spiritual path.
A deep part of my work in the world is to pass this work on to future generations. So often in modern culture we lose the stories of our Mothers and Grandmothers which makes it impossible to pass the stories on. I value the work Shiloh is doing in honoring our Intentional Creativity Lineage and working to pass this process on to future generations. For me, this is a personal piece as I am passing this work on to my granddaughter, Chloe who is ten and has been painting and engaging in Intentional Creativity practices since she was two.
This work is important, life-giving and oh so fun!
Mary Ann
Milagros Suriano-Rivera
[email protected]
Point Person for: Anna Saether, Barbara Wellborn, Deniese Woolfolk, Enitzaida Rodriguez, Janiese Wesley, Liz Chamberlain, Marva Collins, Michelle Bernard, Monica Pryor, Myrna Martin, Sissie Lola-Woodward, Skyla Stapelmann, Sumaiyah Yates, Susan Voss
I discovered Intentional Creativity in 2012 while looking for a creative way to cope with a toxic relationship. That is when I found Shiloh Sophia and the Red Thread Community! Since then I have been using IC as a spiritual practice as a journey to self realization and identification.
What I am most drawn to, being a loner most of my life, is the community and sisterhood. I did not realize that women could be so supportive and accepting! Although I was in the military, worked for women’s religious organization, and had been surrounded by strong women most of my life, I never really truly understood the power of CHOOSING to be in connection. For me the most powerful benefit of IC is in the WITINESSING. To choose to be seen and seeing others with a heart of compassion and self reflection where and when it resonates.
I graduated from Color of Woman in 2019 and joined the Musea Staff in 2020. In addition to Color of Woman 2022, I also support the Musea BIWOC group, exploring my identity and ancestral connections as a Latina Woman of Color through creativity.
As a mixed media artist I love to paint both using the 13 step IC process as well as loose abstract painting styles. I also create paper jewelry incorporating metacognitive practice and meditate on inquiry, prayer and intention while creating beads, or designing my statement pieces. Most recently I have been using the 13 step method while create paper clay sculptures as a way to develop personal talismans that hold medicine for both the creator and beloved. Creativity has always sustained me but I am now empowered to be "healed enough" to create from my heart without fear knowing that when I witnesses another I am expressing the ultimate expression of self-love.
trish oā€™malley
[email protected]
Point Person for: Annie Melzer, Aquara Soma, Carolyn Siegel, Catherine Solomons, Constance Chapman, Diana Signe Kline, Gwen Umphrey, Helen Freeman, Helen Spedding, Kathleen J. Durant, Krystal Dyan, Laurie Martinez, Lisa Martin Naimi, Sophie Markiefka
I have cultivated a lifelong practice of leaning into the difficult places, speaking sometimes challenging truths and staying present in discomfort, including working with people through death.. In 2017, after the devastation of the Tubb’s fire in Northern California I offered an IC process for a public grief ritual attended by many who were still in the shock and pain of extreme loss.. The triptych oak tree co-created by more than sixty people hangs at the center of our home.
I know the power of Intentional Creativity as a way to rediscover the wholeness we all carry beneath the scars of trauma.. I support with steadiness, compassion, integrity and responsiveness.
Coming into the community of creative cowgirls traversing the cosmos together about fifteen years ago, I studied painting and life with Sue and Shiloh and have nurtured friendships that endure time, space, life and perhaps even death.
I have taught and guided students, often in the center of my small kitchen, for years, cultivating ongoing groups of people willing and able to use creativity as a tool for transformation and soul work.. There are tears, laughter and deeply sacred moments of trust and communion that may include delicious food as well as tools of creativity at the hearth of her home.. I loved one of those students so much, I chose to marry him in an epic wedding at the magical home of my longtime teaching collaborator, IC teacher and artist, Elizabeth Gibbons! The day was full with Red Thread circle, three bands, priestesses galore, and Members of the Intentional Creativity community mingling with all of the threads of our shared lives.
A deep connection with the natural world and love of tending the earth and years of spiritual practice are embedded in my work.. I tend the tomatoes and butterfly chrysalis with the same intentionality as all of my life and creations.
I paint, offer guidance in IC and soul work, make potions and nourishment, and tend the pollinator and food forest with my husband Yohan.
