On Facilitating Ritual

My work as both artist and facilitator has taught me that learning spaces can become quiet rituals of care. While teaching Drawing 101 and Drawing 102, facilitating drawing at Alternatives Creation Studio, and now offering a workshop alongside my exhibition, I’ve witnessed how simple, repeated gestures; sharpening pencils, returning to a line, pausing, beginning again - create space for presence, trust, and expression.

This understanding helped shape the show Ritual Held. In the studio, drawing becomes a daily practice of patience and attention. In workshops, these same rhythms unfold collectively; hands moving, marks forming, confidence growing through doing rather than explanation.

As part of the exhibition, I’ll be facilitating a drawing workshop on February 19 at 5:30 PM, extending the ideas of ritual and care from the gallery walls into shared making. The exhibition also includes a participatory installation inviting visitors to contribute written or drawn intentions, desires, or remembered rituals to a growing field of tied strings and knots.

Facilitation and studio practice are no longer separate for me. Both are ways of holding space. Both are rituals. Both remind me that art is not only something we make, but something we practice together.