New York Expressive Arts writing
WRITING ABOUT THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS
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MARKUS ALEXANDER • SUSANA ARMBRUSTER • YVONNE LUCIA • STEVE PODRY • JUDITH PREST • DENIE WHALEN • REBEKAH WINDMILLER

Featured writer: Denie Whalen
Denie Whalen, MA, CAGS is a graduate of Glass Lake Studio and the post graduate program in Expressive Arts Therapy at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. She is a mother, grandmother and gardener. Currently she serves as director for the New York Expressive Arts Program in Albany, N.Y. and provides ‘artreach’ to underserved populations in her community. To contact Denie, click here.

An Interview with Denie

When and how did you get into EXA?
The arts showed up early in my life, in the form of writing stories, talking and singing to my horses, reading everything from The Bobbsey Twins (early) to the complete works of Eugene O’Neil (later), all ways of staying engaged in my life, digging in the dirt for meaning. Formally, exa training came after ‘marriage and the baby carriage’ and 20 years of working in the medical model as an occupational therapist. And just as the frustration of working within a very goal-oriented milieu was heating up for me, exa opened playful and imaginative new perspectives and gave me a name for living life within metaphors. A storefront flyer introduced me to Glass Lake Studio in Albany and after an introductory workshop at the studio, I began a course of study with Markus Alexander, traveled to Switzerland for three years of summer Master’s work, sat in as Markus vetted his exa coaching program and then found myself ready to step up to a leadership position as Markus moved on to his own territory ahead. I returned for CAGS study and since graduating have been facilitating the program at New York Expressive Arts.

What drives you to do this work?
It’s like approaching a garden and picking up on a kind of sensory attraction. First I see the open-faced flowers of the clematis. I come closer. Then the aroma of the roses calls and I continue. Soon I hear the gate close softly behind me and I am in the garden, free to meander and marvel at the beauty I experience there. There’s nothing quite like time in the garden. The title of my master’s thesis was ‘The Old Seed’ and gardening/growing metaphors feel very natural to express how I enjoy the process of this work and reconcile my longing for stability within the endless cycles of change.
Here’s a collage that says something about that.

In what capacity do you use EXA? work? personal? therapy, education, consulting?
First I make a conscious intention to apply exa principles and practice to my everyday life. I try to say yes; I walk around a situation, the way I turn my paintings upside down and sideways to see them from all the different perspectives. Growing up as an only child and probably having a solitary nature, I am both challenged and thrilled by the community aspects of this work. I continue to learn about my capacity for being in community and finding my way to contribute to it. Writing has always been a natural way of expressing myself, getting clear about what is going on in my life and around me, working things through, all of that. So I try and write everyday and read poetry. When I started studying exa, I was introduced to free-form, body-centered painting and now is it a great joy to be in the paint, especially in the company of others, especially my little granddaughter’s, natural artists if ever there was.

I am working hard to continue the work that Markus started here in Albany, finding my unique way of bringing the work into the world through shaping a training program that responds to changing needs and circumstances, by reaching out to underserved populations and by keeping a research perspective at the heart of the work, always.

What was it like to learn how to work intermodal?
Like so much of this work, the intermodal method feels natural and reminds me of working on a healthy interdisciplinary team; in arts-based language it would be like being in an orchestra, a choir, an ensemble, a dance troupe. When it works the experience feels rich and complete, all things said and done. The process unfolds like a Japanese book of folded pages, What I think it takes for the process to work is flexibility and open-heartedness in the participants and a skillful sensitivity and courage on the part of the facilitator to either stay out of the way or to intervene. to effect a good fit of art modality and a transfer at the “right” time. So that understanding of intermodal method and transfer is what I started with. What I am learning about and exploring through work in the studio is that relationship is at the heart of the matter. So much depends on the emerging and shifting interplay between/among persons who are doing the work together, whether it is a learning relationship, a helping relationship, an accompaniying relationship. Most of my work is with groups and I am finding that intermodal transfer can feel more organic to me in a 1 on 1 situation. In groups the transfer can feel a bit like a one size fits all so then perhaps it is about finding the universal within the particular.

What is your personal philosophy about EXA?

is it work?
is it play?
what is it?

no rules, only limitations opening to possibilities
no goal, only intention to explore

is it a calling?
when it comes.
does it leave a card?

yes, in my gut, in my heart,
in every cell of my body

it pleads
it seduces
it invites me in for tea

stay and rest a while, here and now
enjoy what is unfolding in front of my eyes
as I envision what could be

everything depends on those who continue
and not at all on using capital letters

If you were to give future EXA students advice what would it be?
Don’t try this at home alone. This work will change your life in ways you cannot imagine and the community of other like-minded and ensouled persons is essential to a successful journey through this territory. If you are ready to “step forth with courage” and do the work and play required to discover your beauty and the beauty of others, to explore the serious questions of life in a light-hearted way, then expressive arts is for you. Welcome aboard.