Drawing on the Senses (DOTS) is my teaching, writing, and mentorship practice. It is a practice that draws on our senses in order to engage with that mysterious aliveness we call creativity. is the pedagogical practice for what I call ecologies of creativity. Rather than conceptualize creativity as a possession, attribute, process or tool, I approach creativity as the aliveness of our complex interconnection with the world, an interconnection built into our biology through our senses, those portals through which we take in, feel, and interpret the world. We sense and are sensed, and in that reciprocal dance is a creative, perceptual aliveness that shapes our experiential and interpretive relationships. And perception is different for everyone. We each have our own unique sensing bodies that we have learned to inhabit differently, through our individual experiences and cultural contexts. Consciously engaging with our senses allows us to become more aware of how we take in our world and how that affects the way we perceive, interpret, and make meaning of it. As we develop the capacity to witness our own experiences of sense perception, we gain awareness of the sense perception of others, including the more-than-human world, and those who we may not have previously perceived of as sensate. And this awareness, in turn, opens us towards recognizing our capacities to engage with the ecologies of creativity that animate us.

DOTS uses drawing and other reflective and somatic practices to connect with ecologies of creativity. People sometimes have an anxiety reaction to the idea of drawing (internal critic: I’m not good at that) but everyone draws in childhood. Drawing was part of how we thought, played, learned our bodies and drew ourselves into relation with the world. I use somatic approaches to drawing to help connect people with that kind of free and open exploratory drawing. Somatic drawing is a coming back into feeling. When we draw somatically, we notice the presence of our perceptions in our bodies, how they shape the way we move, think and feel. It is a practice of integrating our intelligent bodies into our conscious awareness so that our creative practice may be informed by the many modes of embodied intelligence we each carry, an intelligence that is not contained by our minds and bodies but formed and experienced by the incoming and outgoing exchange of sensing and being sensed by the world. That is the kind of drawing that we do in my classes and workshops. For some, this leads to a deep dive into the making and nature of drawing. For others, it is a tool, just like movement or journaling can be a tool, to engage with ecologies of creativity.

DOTS takes the form of teaching, writing, mentorship, and participatory events. Here are some of the ways that you can work with me:

Creative Mentorship

The energetic spirit of mentorship work is co-creation. It is about learning, together, to hear what your creative self wants to say and do and to find ways to support that. My role is to hold space for you to do this exploration, giving you exercises, guidance, and feedback as we move through different stages of your process. This is, of course, a dynamic, responsive process of learning, listening and responding. I will be adapting as I learn what is most resonant for you in this moment, as we both learn how to tune into the intuitions that are guiding both you and me. In our sessions together, we will discuss the assignments, use the time to work on projects and set you up for the weeks ahead. Creative mentorship is available as one on one live sessions or as a downloadable package for self directed exploration.

Classes and Workshops

I offer online and in-person group classes and workshops. See examples of some past classes and workshops here. Subscribe to my substack (it’s free to subscribe) to receive notices about upcoming classes and workshops. Or, if you run an organization or are planning an event and would like to talk to me about offering a workshop, contact me at drawingonthesenses@gmail.com

Guest Workshops

I am available for guest lectures and workshops. I offer experiential ways of exploring sense-based learning and creative expression. I am happy to talk with you about your specific educational focus. You can contact me at drawingonthesenses@gmail.com

Theology Professor Dr. Beatrice Marovich invited me to create a series of experiential workshops and co-lead discussions for her spring course Coming To Your Senses, May 2021, on the sensory dimensions of religious thought and practice at Hanover College:

So grateful to have had the opportunity to co-teach a course with Krista! This was a draining and depressing year for teaching and the May term intensive, at Hanover, is already a challenge. And I was dreading it more than ever this year. But I was also really interested in the classes that Krista had been teaching since the world went online, exploring embodiment and sense perception, through virtual drawing workshops. We started thinking about what it might look like to teach a collaborative course situated in the places where my work in philosophy and theology intersects with her art work, drawing on the senses. Our interests meet, especially, in the more than human dimensions of our experiences.

So that's where we took the students this term. We had them get outside, to draw the more than human worlds that are held within their shadows. And we thought with David Abram about who and what we become when we think seriously about our shadow as a dimension of who we are. We had them rethink the textural languages that stones speak, drawing in conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer's grammar of animacy. And many other things.

I loved this opportunity to see how students made sense of this material outside of the written word, which is more typically how we ask students to make sense of their meaning in my field. The whole experience brought a little bit of joy back to teaching, for me, which felt so incredibly good.

If you're ever working with students on ideas that challenge them to think in new ways about what bodies are, where bodies are, how bodies are, and what happens when we start to draw from our non-visual sense experiences, I would totally recommend bringing Krista in for a guest workshop! Students in our class were so surprised to see how these drawing practices helped them understand the material, deeply, in ways that talking and writing just could not. —Dr. Beatrice Marovich

WHO IS DOTS FOR?

I work with a wide variety of people including:

  • people in transitional moments in life exploring the role of creative thinking as a force for change in their lives

  • people who “feel creative” and are looking for more direction and ways to engage their creativity

  • creatives of various kinds looking for direction and support in their practice and projects

  • educators looking to incorporate embodied approaches to learning into their teaching materials and approach

    And

    People who want to learn to draw, who want to explore their senses, who want to be sensitized, who are sensitive, who want to open up the shape of their own perception, who want to connect with their creative energy, who want to feel their bodies in a different way, who want to be guided by their intuition, who have ideas, who don’t have ideas, who don’t believe that ideas are something to have, who want to talk to trees, who do talk to trees, who believe objects are alive, who want to feel themselves connected to the worlds inside and outside their animal bodies, who want to express all of these things with marks and shadows and light and forms of expression yet to be discovered.


HOW TO WORK WITH ME

There are many ways for you to access this material.

ABOUT ME

photo: Krista teaching a Drawing on Plants workshop with a painting by Erin Treacy on the wall behind her

My disciplinary home is in the visual arts. Like many artists, I have held many different jobs in the arts. I have taught children and adults in and outside of institutions, individually and in groups. I have directed an art residency, created a sales and marketing division for an art handling company, worked as a studio assistant, an art blogger, critic, and curator. I have juried admissions, organized public critiques and open studio events. Alongside this mosaic of art jobs, I have maintained a studio practice that includes drawing/works on paper, fiber sculpture, sound art, and interactive installations made by myself, in collaboration with one or two other artists, or with a large production team. Research for this work has put me in conversation with artists, musicians, academics, scientists, somatic researchers and practitioners, thinkers, movers and makers of all kinds, human and more-than-human. My art-making and DOTS practices continue develop and change as I do.

*While I believe that healing, growth, learning, and development happens through many modalities and forms of engagement, it should be noted that I am not a licensed therapist nor do I purport to engage in the practice of therapy.

TESTIMONIALS

Peter Mallozzi, “Shelter of Stars” zodiac drawings.

“Krista is the real deal. With the lesson space she creates, and with her intuitive guidance, I pushed myself to the edge. It’s uncomfortable at first, but being there long enough leads to the discovery that there is no edge. The ideas we have uncovered, the mysteries we have courted, and the wilderness I am pushed to explore within myself have infected all areas of my life.”

—Peter Mallozzi, Astrologer, Brooklyn, NY - Individual Mentorship

“The “Gut Lights” creative mentorshop workshop was given to me as a gift. It opened up my (at the time) very small and uninspired world, I had been going through the motions and processing pandemic life- so shifting my focus to a creative outlet was very rewarding. 

Krista created a judgement-free space that felt deeply open and connected despite being in a remote, zoom-based class. I received so much from the experience and would highly recommend it to anyone. “Gut Lights” offered a supportive and inquisitive environment that inspired me tap back into a creative process and learn new ways to incorporate artistic moments into my daily life.” 

—Grayson Schmidt, Bartender, Abolitionist, Doula, Brooklyn, NY - Gut Lights

“The gut lights course was literally life changing for me - allowed me a portal into creativity that has opened up so many avenues of expression and finally getting out of my own way to be and create as I was meant to!” —Michelle Farnsworth, Author, Coach, Advocate, Washington D.C. - Gut Lights

“Krista creates a supportive platform that encourages more freedom in one’s mindset and work. She radiates a knowingness. Her empathetic approach is radical in its supportive, light-filled way.”

—Jennifer Jaffe, Artist, Model, Aesthetician, New York, NY - Drawing on the Senses and Gut Lights

“Krista’s approach is more than just instruction, it’s a way of igniting all the senses so that drawing becomes a whole body experience. Each class is an exploration so that seeing becomes not just observation, but a real way to feel the presence of the world in and around me. Her teaching style is warm and insightful, guiding without directing, and her classes are fun, stimulating and enjoyable. Working with Krista has helped me tap into my creativity more deeply than ever before.”

—Sander Williams, Architect, Brooklyn, NY - Drawing on the Senses

“Krista is a great art teacher helping me learn about areas of myself that I didn’t know existed. Calling her an art teacher is a understatement of high magnitude."

—Paul Grotas, Attorney, Brooklyn, NY - Private Classes

“I don't think of it as a drawing class. To me it's more an ongoing art exploration with special attention paid to body, portraiture and live subjects generally. Yes, pencils may be used... or not! You might instead choose pens, or water colors, or printed material, or objects found while walking around that day, put all together on a single page, or cut and rearranged, or collaged, or handled in any way that makes an overall personal, creative point.

A drawing class is a 'how to'. This class is an interior 'where to', with the destination motivated by poetic and philosophic texts and the direction guided by design principles. This place you go/create, you can people it as you wish with faces, bodies, real, unreal, in tones, colors, lines, scribbles, splotches of spices...”

—Mark DiBattista, Mathematician, Queens, NY - Drawing on the Senses

“Krista’s class has been a major turning point in a huge, lifelong journey. It rearranged the constellations and turned me from a training wheel to a tractor trailer, from a flipped coin into a slot machine.”

—Aeric Meredith-Goujon, Photographer/Musician/Coach, Brooklyn, NY - Drawing on the Senses