I’m delighted to have added a new page to this website’s educational resources:
Contemplative Fellowships offered by the Hemera Foundation
Can art serve to help the world, and, if so, what does that require of the artist? It is our belief that there are certain practices for the artist that help address this question, such as contemplation, meditation, retreat, listening, and discipline. As a result, we are providing a context for artists to investigate those elements on their own and within community.
We believe that art has the capacity to genuinely help our world, to instill it with sanity, awareness, joy, and beauty. This does not mean that art has to look a certain way or achieve a standard aesthetic or tone, nor is it an endorsement of a “love and light” approach to art. It does mean that art needs to be tethered to truth, according to the logic of the process undertaken or the piece being created.
How does one cultivate this tether to truth? Our inspiration has been through slowing down, making friends with oneself through meditation and contemplation, spending the time to develop one’s craft, know one’s materials, and fine-tune the senses as tools for communication. Most of all, we are interested in supporting artists in genuinely finding their way.
– Text and graphic sourced from the Hemera Foundation website
The Hemera Contemplative Fellowship programs were created to make the unique benefits of contemplative practice in a retreat context more widely available. Find more information on this page:
fellowships for contemplative artists
the awakened eye 