e16: The Art of Mindfulness
~ Holiday Social ~ December 20th, 2023 ~
18:30-19:30 GMT (Europe) • 1:30-2:30 EST (North America, Eastern)
The festive season is upon us and we are excited to invite you to a very special Creative Minds Reading Club Holiday Social!
This month we are thrilled to have a special guest! Emma Hamshare, an Artist and Mindfulness Meditation teacher. She will guide us in an exciting drawing-based meditation session.
We will also discuss how art practices can help with emotion regulation, stress management, and flourishing. Research finds engaging in short sessions of creating art can help lower anxiety, decrease negative emotions, and increase overall well-being! We’d love to hear about your own creative experiences and if you’ve ever looked to the arts for support in daily life.
Join us for this engaging final session of 2023!
This meeting has passed, but we would love for you to join us next time!
This month there are no requested readings. However, we will be presenting an overview of the following papers if you’d like a deeper dive!
📄 Art-making, Anxiety, & Cortisol:
Sandmire, D. A., Gorham, S. R., Rankin, N. E., & Grimm, D. R. (2012). The influence of art making on anxiety: A pilot study. Art Therapy, 29(2), 68-73. DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2012.683748. Open-source PDF Link
Turturro, N., & Drake, J. E. (2022). Does coloring reduce anxiety? Comparing the psychological and psychophysiological benefits of coloring versus drawing. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 40(1), 3-20. 10.1177/0276237420923290. Open-source PDF Link
Kaimal, G., Ray, K., & Muniz, J. (2016). Reduction of cortisol levels and participants' responses following art making. Art therapy, 33(2), 74-80. DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2016.1166832. Open-source PDF Link
📄 Drawing & Emotion Regulation:
James, C., Drake, J. E., & Winner, E. (2018). Expression versus distraction: An investigation of contrasting emotion regulation strategies when drawing, writing, talking, and thinking. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 36(2), 162-179. DOI: 10.1177/0276237417718423.
Genuth, A., & Drake, J. E. (2021). The benefits of drawing to regulate sadness and anger: Distraction versus expression. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 15(1), 91. DOI: 10.1037/aca0000265. Open-source PDF Link
Smolarski, K., Leone, K., & Robbins, S. J. (2015). Reducing negative mood through drawing: Comparing venting, positive expression, and tracing. Art Therapy, 32(4), 197-201. Chicago. DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2015.1092697. Open-source PDF Link
📄 Benefits of Making vs Viewing Art:
Drake, J. E., Eizayaga, M., & Wawrzynski, S. (2024). Making Versus Viewing Art: Effects on Affect, Enjoyment, and Flow. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 42(1), 147-165. DOI: 10.1177/02762374231196387.
👋🏼 Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need pdfs of the articles.
More info about our guided arts-meditation teacher:
Emma Hamshare
Artist & Mindfulness Meditation Teacher
Hydra, Hand painted silk habotai, 2019
Addressing contemporary material and spatial challenges, Emma works at the intersection of often delineated disciplines. Her work investigates the position of the body in space through proprioception and interoception, often working in collaboration with engineers and scientists to create meaningful change, new knowledge, and technological innovation. Emma is also a leader in Mindfulness Meditation for health and wellbeing, having studied this at Imperial College.
Emma is an award winning designer and has previously run her own fashion design studio making pieces for editorial, installations, commissions and wholesale. She has directed many creative professional projects and since graduating from the Royal College of Art, specialised in e-textiles and textiles for physical computing. She has worked on innovative textiles and garments for Fairspace at Imperial College, to improve the health of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Emma lectures on the Fashion Design Development course at the London College of Fashion UAL, teaching future textile and fashion technologies. She is also co-chair of the education committee of Fashion Roundtable, representing the interests of creative academics to the organisation and in turn to parliament.
In the creation of large-scale art pieces, control is often relinquished and liquid colour is allowed to move freely across the silk to allow the work to find its own conclusions. Often working with intelligent materials and soft systems, Emma's personal work revolves around health in the context of an increasingly chaotic world, she translates colour into code, pattern into numbers and movement into sounds.
Learn more about Emma and her upcoming mindfulness retreat here: https://www.emmahamshare.com/mindfulness