2018 Festival


The theme of the 2018 Festival was “The Hole Project: Mining Portals of Vulnerability”. This multi-disciplinary art experience encompassed inquiries into literal and metaphoric holes in our somatic bodies and our psychic selves through installations, artistic creations, workshops and panel discussions.

For over 15 years we have discovered that art can truly heal people in ways unlike anything else. Our goal is to reach out to communities across the country, collaborating with local artists and healing organizations to help demonstrate to communities how artists can help open channels to revealing our most authentic selves though our Art Heals© workshops.

We have also teamed with some select artists to share works and demonstrate how art has been a healing process to them. Please click on the name of any of our featured artists below for more information:

R. BremnerGary Michael CollinsDon DeMauroDavid FischweicherVaughan GreyJeanette Hardie*Miriam HendelNeena Massey*Lindsay Metcalf*Richard Jeffrey Newman*Dennis NauertJohn C. Ollom*Jim SableLisa Samalin* and Marlene Tholl

* Artists presenting workshops

Guests had an opportunity to meet these amazing artists at our Opening Reception Fundraiser on November 10th from 6 to 8 PM which featured a wine and cheese reception hosted by our favorite host, Ms. Daisey Lopez, a performance art work by Neena Massey, a short movement art work by John Ollom, entitled Composition #2, the showing of the award winning short film Pierced Heart  and music by DJ Boni D.

Our Festival Pass gave access to the Opening Reception Fundraiser, workshops, discussions and presentations. In addition to the gallery being open to all visitors on weekdays, we will held special workshops, panel discussions and classes at the following times:

  1. Sunday, November 11th – Woman’s Voices Workshop  1:30 – 4:00 PM featuring the Woman’s Healing Circle
    • Create your own art with Lisa Samalin – Join our extraordinary installation artist, Lisa Samalin as she explains her creative process and helps each participant create their own personal diorama. Please bring a photograph of yourself from any age infancy to the present that you can cut out. If possible bring a photo that shows your whole body but if not we can work with whatever you bring..
    • Panel discussions and presentations with Lindsay Metcalf, Jeanette Hardie, Neena Massey, and Lisa Samalin on art creation and healing.
    • Performance Art by Neena Massey. Neena will perform her piece “Cervix: The Sacred Gateway of Birth and Transformation”
    • A performance by Jeanette Hardie and Shirley Hardie of Composition #2  – movement art created by John Ollom.
    • The Workshop will close with a Woman’s Healing Circle where stories can be shared in a safe place and healing can be fostered. This last section is only for female identified individuals.
  2. Sunday, November 11th  The Hole Project Documentary 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM  Vaughan Grey will lead a discussion and presentation of his documentary film on “The Hole Project” held at Totem Yoga and Art in Phoenix, Arizona in April, 2018. This film examines the uses of art and how it affects people. The film helps document part of the process that our Art Heals© workshops use to show art expression as a way to help others connect and leave shame behind as they explore movement and art inquiry.
  3. Monday, November 12th – Internal Landscapes© Workshop  6:30 – 8:30 PM led by John Ollom MFA, author of the book Internal Landscapes. John will discuss why “The Hole Project” was the theme of this year’s Ollom Art Festival. In addition to this short artist talk, John will demonstrate his methodology of Internal Landscapes© which he has been teaching in workshops across the USA. We will start with simple drawing and writing and then explore simple movement expression to encourage your most authentic self to come forth. Please dress comfortably so you can move.
  4. Tuesday, November 13th – Naked Drawing + Naked Movement 6:30 – 9:30 PM
    Start your evening with some nude figure drawing (everyone is nude) led by Shungaboy. As men sit in the outside circle sketching, John Ollom will then lead a simple movement exercise for men to make movement sculptures with each others nude bodies. We will then explore more complex shapes and movement experimentation in the center of the circle.
  5. Wednesday, November 14th – Writing About What You’re Afraid to Write About 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM with Richard Jeffrey Newman
    Why write about something you fear? To name it and, in naming it, to gain control over it. To learn how not to be afraid. Or, perhaps, to learn how to live with fear. Why try to make poetry from your fear, to make it beautiful with words? Not the straightforward loveliness of surfaces, but the beauty that puts us in touch with the full depth of what it means to be human, that does not force us to choose between it and ugliness, but rather allows us to experience both beauty and ugliness as they always already exist within us, and in the world around us. Why? Because while a poem may pronounce judgment on what we fear, it does not judge us for fearing it. Poetry is not politics, and it is not therapy, but finding the words that will make your fear beautiful is an act of hope and, therefore, of a kind of healing. In this workshop, we will explore strategies for bringing that hope and that healing into our lives and our work, whether as poets and writers, or as people who simply want to find ways of saying what they haven’t, till now, been able to say.

And if you want to see more about our company here.

Ollom Art is a division of the not-for-profit 501 (c)3 corporation, Prismatic Productions, Inc., which was formed in 2003 to advance public interest in and understanding of issues of diversity; to educate, instruct and present to the public diverse art forms through performance, educational classes, symposiums, lectures, festivals, and similar activities; and, to provide artists of diverse backgrounds and forms with a forum to expose their works to the public.

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