Digital Commons@NLU

"Wonderings in Watercolor: The Art of Living Intuitively"

Brandenburg Hall

This session is designed to help adult educators explore intuition and mindfulness. What is intuition? Why is it important that we be aware of this subconscious phenomenon in our daily lives? Participants will dialogue about these questions and create watercolor paintings to articulate personal experiences with this method of reasoning. Human brains are programmed to respond to certain political and social constructs for a majority of our lives. By practicing mindfulness, we can tap into our intuition in an attempt to think outside implicit biases. Focus, concentration and patience are the main components of being mindful. As adult educators, it is imperative to explore new ways of thinking and learning in order to help our students tackle complex issues. During this session, we will begin to unpack intuition and mindfulness will the goal of countering certain programmed responses. This workshop will begin by defining intuition and discussing its place in adult education. Next, we will dialogue about how social constructs impose dominant ideals that may conflict with personal beliefs or our moral compass. Each participant will create two paintings during this session. The images we develop will explore the dichotomy of implicit bias and intuitive nature. Using watercolor encourages more creative responses to difficult conversations. Dirkx writes, “In the presence of powerful emotions and feelings, we make the use of images to mediate and construct their meanings” (Dirkx, p. 2001). We will close with a gallery walk and dialogue regarding the images created. During the final analysis of our watercolor wonderings, it is imperative to look for similar experiences and discuss implications for personal practice in various fields of adult education.