River People Fest / River Roots Show Case & Workshops at UNCP: The River Roots Arts Guild hosted its 2nd Annual Arts Showcase at the Givens Performing Arts Center on the campus of UNCP from Friday April 25 thru Sat. April 26. The event coincided and culminated with The 4th Annual River People Music and Culture Fest on the 26th, a night of American Indian music with performers Tyler Cole, Shane Baker, The Ulali Project and Star Nayea. Click below for River People YouTube recordings:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDD5111BA30B50D02
As part of this exceptional weekend experience, the guild also offered art workshops free to the public at the Chavis Center Annex Building next door to Givens. This was an exciting opportunity for me to conduct my workshop entitled: “Picturing Your Potential- From Seed to Flowering Tree.”
This is one of my “Art of Transformation Creativity Workshops.” It’s a hands-on collage activity that focuses on self-knowing…it’s designed to help individuals visualize and clarify their goals in their private or professional lives. I will be offering this “education of the imagination” in the future at similar events and for corporations and other organizations seeking leadership development and enrichment through the arts.
Imagining our dreams and goals is the first step towards making them happen. Education of the imagination can happen by expanding our thought processes through the free association of ideas, allowing for non-structure to exist within a defined frame-work. Within this balanced paradigm, mistakes become opportunities, altering definitions of success and perfection. The creative process stresses relationships as opposed to facts. It deals with complexity and ambiguity and enhances our ability to consider differing view points. Because of this, art involvement can enhance growth and skills through creative problem solving in our personal, as well as professional lives.
“What a wonderful experience! I had been struggling with which way to go on a number of things both personal and professional, as my plate was overflowing. Your workshop helped me to focus through pictures and art what had become challenging for me with thought and words. That was interesting and ironic for me since I work in the field of words. Your creativity workshop brought to life for me, in a very real and concrete experience, the words of Edward do Bono -‘Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way’. During the workshop and especially after, I became clear and more inspired to do things that really mattered to me and to do them in a way that satisfied me as a human being. Your work made my work more productive and focused. The outcome for me has been an increased quality in my work and in my life. Thank you for your unique but necessary work in shifting us from thinking brain to the creative brain, and from there reimagining what is possible for the thinking brain. To paraphrase Einstein, ‘You can’t solve a problem on the same level it was created’. Thank you for giving me the vantage point of another level and from there the ability to see and solve.”
Kim Pevia, Owner and Founder K.A.P., Inner Prizes Knowledge. Application. Practice of the human dynamic; Training/Coaching/Workshops/Keynotes designed for personal/professional/leadership/economic/community development.
President, Pembroke Area Chamber of Commerce, President of the Board, Southeastern Family Violence CenterBoard Member, Robeson County Arts CouncilPlanning Board, Town of Red Springs Co., Founder Robeson Chapter Women AdvaNCe Community Advocate for Creative Economy through Arts, Local Food and Tourism
“Alyssa Hinton is much more than an artist. She is a spiritual guide and her guidance through her workshops provides opportunities for participants to deeply experience their own beauty and express their beauty through care and creativity. Whenever I have an experience in which I sense that “time stood still”, I know that I have entered sacred space. I experience this with Alyssa’s guidance and her workshops are powerfully transformative and life sustaining.”
Rev. Mac Legerton, Pembroke, NC
