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Kyoun Sokuzan
Creative Mindfulness: A Slow Art Event
Saturday, Jan 18, 2025
10:00 am — 4:00 pm
Join GRAM for a day of wellness as we explore “Slow Art” practices with activities throughout the museum. “Slow Art” emphasizes the practice of taking our time to look at art longer to truly see the details, form opinions, and experience emotions.
All activities are included with Museum admission. Registration is not required.
For more information, contact Director of Learning and Creativity Kristen Hoeker at 616.831.2930 or khoeker@artmuseumgr.org
Slow Art Activities
10 am — 4 pm
GRAM Docents will highlight various works of art and have guests take part in the “See, Think, Wonder” activity. Sketchbooks will also be available to pick up for guests who wish to sketch works of art in the galleries.
10 am — 4 pm
Pick an artwork that speaks to you and express your feelings about the artwork in your original poem. Guests will be given a notecard, pencil, and worksheet to guide them through an 11-word poetry composition.
11 am — 3 pm
Let your creativity run wild in GRAM Studio and make an art project to take home.
10:30 — 10:55 am, 11:30 — 11:55 am, 1 — 1:25 pm, 3 — 3:25 pm
Practice new ways of looking at art during this mini-meditation activity in GRAM’s galleries. The facilitator will guide guests through a meditation activity to slowly experience one work of art by seeing details, forming stories, and experiencing emotions the art brings out.
11 — 11:25 am, 12 — 12:25 pm, 3:30 — 3:55 pm
See what you see. Don’t see what you think. Train your awareness to de-prioritize the thinking, conceptualization and judging activity of the mental process which is motivated by hope and fear. Kyoun Sokuzan will guide participants through an exercise to see artwork more in-depth.
2 — 2:45 pm
Learn more about Kyoun Sokuzan and the practice of Opening the Eye Mind ™ during this presentation in the auditorium.
About Kyoun Sokuzan
Kyoun Sokuzan, founding Abbott and teacher of Sokukoji Buddhist Temple Monastery, is a lifelong Dharma practitioner. He was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche as well as Kobun Chino Roshi, and teaches from a unique hybrid of both Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. He teaches, as he says, not out of what he was taught, but out of what he sees.
He also brings a lifelong study and passion for art making. On this slow art day, he will be teaching a special technique that he’s developed since the 1960s, when he was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is called Opening the Eye Mind ™. This process can awaken the visual consciousness which resides way beyond the prison of the conceptual mind.
Learn more about this practice at the Opening the Eye Mind ™ Gallery Activity or the Opening the Eye Mind ™ Presentation.