Call & Response No.4

Call and Response is a live, in-person, two-hour interactive event, where everybody gets to make their mark on a community painting, in response to live music.

It’s all about the process, not the product.

We’ll be creating in response to the music of a musician playing in the room. This is the reason for the name: Call & Response is a jazz term that describes the nature of improvisation in jazz music. It's also the nature of communication, where one person says or does something and another responds. We will be responding to each other's marks on the canvas.

You don't need any art experience. Creativity is innately human - and every body can draw. Brenda will be your guide all the way.

Before any drawing or painting happens, Brenda will take everyone through her signature nervous system check-in, a simple way to bring awareness to your body and breath before we start, and to measure the physical health benefits of art-making on your body in real time. It sets the tone for everything that follows: this is creativity as care, a way of tending to your own nervous system, not a performance.

You'll be invited to participate in a short, spontaneous drawing activity, with no specific outcome needed, as you take a line for a walk in many different ways.

And then everyone will be able to add their marks to a large canvas, calling and responding to other people’s marks and colours.

What you'll take away is the feeling of it: joy, connection, and the quiet magic of making something together that none of us could have made alone. It will only exist because you made your mark there too.

This is also playful, creative time for adults. A chance to step away from adult demands, to reset and connect with other adults in a meaningful way. (No kids under 15 here, because too often adults are quick to make their kids do creative things, without giving themselves the same opportunity.)

You'll leave feeling inspired, with a felt sense of why creativity matters for your well-being and physical and mental health, and hopefully the urge to keep making marks, and sharing the process with you loved ones, long after you go home.

Brenda has witnessed people being moved to tears by the experience of being allowed to create freely without the expectation of a 'perfect product', whether they call themselves 'artists' or not.

Maybe you'll go home and paint, redecorate or play your old piano? Or maybe you'll remember how 'doodling' helped you to relax when you were a child.

ORGANISER INFORMATION

Facilitated by Brenda Loukes-Johnson, artist and founder of InFlow Project and a TEDx speaker on the power of drawing. Known for interactive art events that reconnect people to their innate creativity, Brenda has produced live painting events with support from the City of Bellevue, the Bel-Red Arts District, and Shunpike, with work shown by Ryan James Fine Art in Seattle and Kirkland, WA. She has hosted in person drawing events for communities in South Africa and Washington. This is the third Call & Response event awarded a grant from City of Bellevue Arts Program in Washington State.

This event is for adults (age 15+) to explore their sometimes forgotten innate creative impulses. Adults rarely give themselves permission to play. We're quick to sign our kids (and sometimes even our ageing parents) up for creative things, and slow to offer ourselves the same opportunities. This is your invitation to step away from the demands of the day and reconnect, with your own creativity, and see what magic can happen when a group of people create something together.

Crossroads Community Center
16000 NE 10th St
Bellevue, Washington
King
98008
US

• Has wheelchair-accessible car park
• Has wheelchair-accessible entrance