SOMAfest ARTS GALLERY

SOMAfest¹² celebrates Fluid Being in 2018!

Our online Artist Gallery exhibits expression of somatic artistry through

PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO, PAINTING, MUSIC, and POETRY

We Are Movement, We Are Natures' Body . . .

Jamie McHugh

Nature Being Art

My intention is to present nature being art, not nature as figurative landscape but as contemporary contemplative abstract painting.”
- Jamie

I have been a photographer of nature’s body for 35 years. Somatic Expression classes are designed to reveal life evolving within the human body. Similarly, my photographs capture life unfolding outside of your own skin. I am intrigued by the creativity of biology, and how we can aesthetically explore our inner and outer nature.

"Photographing nature is a similar process to somatically exploring the body: focusing attention, feeling inner movement, exploring different angles and discovering something new. Both body and nature are complex, intelligent landscapes that require time and patience to understand. I unplug my modern brain, and slow down into body and earth time - somatic tools soften the boundary between my body and the environment, bringing me more fully into the present moment. And by connecting to my surroundings viscerally, I have a sense of returning - to my roots as a primal being on a mysterious and magnificent planet." Jamie McHugh http://www.SomaticExpression.com/

This intimate exchange between place, moment and being is the essence of the images. See my art at www.NatureBeingArt.org

A series of graphite on paper drawings made just before and after Emilie Conrad's passing in 2014. Created on the floor with Continuum Movement, each drawing is 108 x 50." http://cherylwalkerart.com/

Inspired by fluid movement and organic form, Cheryl Walker’s drawing centered practice is informed by Continuum Movement, automatic drawing, and intuitive mark making. Her interdisciplinary work is the material result of an ephemeral exploration of the connection between all life forms. Walker has created live visual effects in collaborative performance at REDCAT and MOCA, with Emilie Conrad in SOMAFest, with Rachel Rosenthal’s TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theater Ensemble, and performed with Simone Forti, and others. Walker has been actively exhibiting her work nationally for three decades and her work is held in private collections internationally. Her work has been featured in ArtScene, Artweek, Artillery, THE Magazine, LA Times, Glendale News-Press, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Albuquerque Journal, and Pensacola News Journal, Fox News, and CBS News. With an MFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach, she currently teaches at Long Beach City College and Santa Monica Emeritus College.

Cheryl

Walker

David A. Gilbert

Flow & Wellness

For years my inquiry into wellness took me down many paths and I share what I find to be most beneficial ~ content relating to body, mind, spirit, flow, fitness, creativity, joy and play. You can read more about flow and see explorations and posts for some ways to inquire, explore, discover and play. These and more will be covered in depth in future content and courses. I share articles, explorations, links and other resources relating to 12 qualities of FLOW. My inquiry these days is how to live within a place of deep listening, receptivity and being where creativity and flow arise naturally and express in all facets of my life.

Art I enjoy making art and images used for

prints & artful products. I draw,

paint and create images

using photos of my

paintings, people,

animals, nature

and urban landscapes.

I created a calendar

called Nature’s Embrace

where 12 Qualities of

FLOW arrived during

the process for me to

share. I update the calendar each month so a new 12 month calendar is always available. www.DavidAGilbert.com

Margit Galanter

Margit is a movement investigator and dance poet living in Oakland, California. Her inquiries range from performance, teaching, and her private practice, to larger-scale cultural events. Over the past several years, she has focused her inquiries in performance to Cave Forms and in the development of the nourishing practice of Caving. She has been genuinely buoyed by the brilliance and generosity of her co-cave constellation. Margit’s unique perspective helps people access the potencies of movement — through Chinese energetics, the Feldenkrais Method, and the movement arts. She is dedicated to the prisms of cultural inquiry, conversation, perceptual vibrancy, nature-culture, and nourishing life.
Cave Forms: https://caveforms.wordpress.com Art: www.margitg.wordpress.com

Practice: www.physicalintelligence.org

Cave Forms Constellations is a video collaboration between Margit Galanter, Erika Mijlin, and the Cave Coast Collective, an example of the imagery of the Cave Forms Vivid Archive. This particular video expresses the beautiful footage and underlying concepts that emerged through the outdoor collective experiment that is one branch of the Cave Forms mosaic. Its imagery demonstrates the power of the natural environment conjoining with creative practice, somatic inquiry, and collective imagination. Videography by Chani Bockwinkel and Avery Hudson (9 mins)

Barbara Sarkin

Barbara is based in Los Angeles and has been an athlete her whole life and has engaged in the practice of yoga, and Continuum for ten years with both Emilie Conrad and Teri Carter.

Her expression of movement and "beingness" is expressed in painting through water color and acrylics. Influenced by Continuum's fluid innovation, and walks in nature with her beloved dog Sarah, Barbara experiences nature through the body and through bio-creativity.

As I

drop into

wade through

listen

the pulse of life

guides me

awakening my cells

sensing

experiencing

open space

within

my heart’s movement

shifts in relationship

renewing

my connection to

and with the universe

Ruth Roberts

Ruth is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist and completed studies with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Amy Matthews and the late Emilie Conrad. Ruth brings her wisdom from years of being in a professional practice of massage, shiatsu, cranial-sacral therapy and psychotherapy. Her approach is to help the individual slow down through gentle guided inquiry, attune to their physical sensations, noticing breath and movement in its restrictions and flow. Ruth’s healing experience supports the individual as they uncover and unwind their multilayered holding patterns of body-mind-spirit, cultivating their ability to be, self-discover, self-heal, and self-actualize. She has also explored and delights in the unique path and practices of a number spiritual traditions and embraces the undergirding oneness of all beings. Ruth’s spiritual calling has been recognized through her CIMM ordination. Ruth expresses her passion/inspiration through written and visual arts. They are a direct reflection of her contemplation and its revelations as she reconnects with the mystery and source of life. “Who I think I am today changes with the arrival of new information, introspection and awakening to essence.”

To view more visit: www.ofhorseiam.co m

Carolyn Ellis

Carolyn Ellis is an interdisciplinary educator and artist. She develops workshops, teaches ongoing classes, and creates live performances. In each of these contexts, her work focuses on how the creative process can be a vehicle for personal growth. As a teaching artist, Carolyn has taught interdisciplinary workshops throughout the U.S. and abroad, with organizations and schools such as the Santa Fe Opera, United World College, and Tokyo Tabula Rasa. Her performance work focuses on bridging deep personal processes with movement and object theatre. She holds a BA in Embodied Art and Ritual from NYU’s Gallatin School. She also received a certificate from L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq where she studied devised theatre, improvisation, and sculpture.

These Rhythmic Seasons

3 minute Video

1

Art of Water II
0

Art of Water I

GAIA KNOWS

HER WISDOM IS ENDLESS
SHE FLOWS—
LAVA
RIVER, OCEAN, HONEY, HUMANITY
ENDLESSLY
GAIA KNOWS
THE DROUGHT IS ENDING IN
CALIFORNIA
GAIA KNOWS
THE VOLCANIC ORANGE
IN THE 2017 FEBRUARY SKY BALANCED TWO LUNAR ECLIPSES
.
GAIA CALLS
SONG OF WHALE, DOLPHIN, MARSH WREN, WHIPPERWHIL,
MEADOWLARK, RED BREASTED ROBIN, AVOCET, TERN, EGRET.

GAIA CALLS…
ENDEARINGLY, ENTREATINGLY, LONGINGLY
ENDLESSLY

GAIA CALLS…
ENDANGERED

GAIA KNOWS
HER GLORY IN GREEN
GREEN ALLTRHOUGH ALL AROUND
GAIA KNOWS…
HER STRENGTH
GAIA KNOWS…
HERABILTIY
IT ABIDES, ALLEVIATES,
ATTENDS.

Evone Lespier Wexler

Evone is an artist of many mediums:
Published Poet, Somatic storyteller, and collage artist. She has performed at Somafest LA twice, and has been invited as a storyteller to camps, parks, and private gatherings. Continuum Movement has been a momentous sustaining force in her life, and she is on the Continuum Movement Teacher track. On the BIg Island of Hawaii, she learned the Sound Techniques she uses, in addition to Continuum Movement. in her private practice.

GOH KUROSAWA

Embodied Percussive Guitarist

BICULTURAL MUSIC SAMURAI , Goh, resides in Los Angeles and travels the world from Japan. Goh is a 'tap/slap' guitarist armed with his original songs of acoustic rock jazz, electrifying soundscapes, and stunning arrangements of familiar global melodies.

The beautiful Pacific Northwest brought Goh inspiration in 2015, where he was touring Seattle as a part of his spring beast world tour and made a stop at the ocean with a friend to discover that it was called Puget Sound. "It was surprising that I never recognized this before. I was completely fascinated that the ocean was called sound. It was gentleness... blue, quiet, and sound. That is how this song and album came together, a dedication to Puget Sound of the Pacific Ocean. http://www.composelife.com/

Check out Goh's piece, Blue Quiet Sound!

SOURCE grew out of four years of on-site performances by INSITU, exploring the essential and peculiar ways water animates a world. I danced and researched at one site in Six Mile Creek, the water source of Ithaca, NY, for years in order to dwell with the ecology, form and processes of the water and it's inhabitants. My goal is to create images of humans responding to and being part of larger living and evolving systems, using sensuality and humor to explore what it means to be in community with the Earth.

Cynthia Stevens

Cynthia slips into streams, swamps and forests with her dance group, Insitu, specializing in environmental and site-specific performance and media. Over the past 35 years her work has been presented in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand and has been recognized through numerous grants and fellowships. She is a certified Somatic Movement Educator of Body Mind Centering ®, holds a BS in Natural Resources/wildlife ecology and offers her work as activism interconnecting the body, community and environment.

MORE TO COME !

JOIN US IN BIO-CREATIVITY!