How I Came to Intentional Creativity

South African Intentional Earth Painting in Progress 2019

I was first introduced to the concept of intentional creativity while spending time with the Zulu Sangomas of South Africa in 2019.  As part of a healing process, we were invited to create art from found objects that held meaning for us, such as leaves, sticks, rocks, flowers, and feathers. Each object held the energy of what we wanted to clear, and as we intentionally added it to our earth “canvas”, we implored the Ancestors to clear whatever was ready to be healed.

I had created my piece down in a dry riverbed, knowing that when the rains came, my intentions would be swept down the river and released.  Though it seemed like a simple concept, it was a powerful reminder of our ability to release and heal those things that no longer serve our best and highest good.

Sangoma Makhosi Cedric explained how any art done with intention can be used to heal our soul at the deepest level. As an artist, I realized that I had been doing this unintentionally, by allowing information to come to me while in a flow state, but the idea of really setting my intentions while working on a piece was a totally new and captivating concept.

In 2021, while we were deep in the trenches of Covid, I participated in a few different online art offerings to occupy my time and keep anxiety under control. I came across a few different women artists who had red threads tied around their wrists and large paintings of women’s faces proudly displayed behind them. After the third experience, I finally understood that I was being led along this red thread to discover who was behind these paintings.  This is when I discovered Shiloh Sophia’s Intentional Creativity.  I was so enthralled that I jumped in with both feet, not quite knowing what I was getting myself into.  I quickly came to realize that with a very busy healing practice and a teenager still at home, I could not devote the level of time needed to do the coursework the way I wanted. For a time, this work would need to be shelved.

As the next few years passed, I kept being called back to this work.  My Ancestors were insistent that I keep doing paintings using the techniques I had started to learn.  They weren’t giving up and kept pulling on the red thread to lead me back. In March of 2025, I received an email explaining that the Color of Woman Teacher Training course that I had begun in 2021 was being taught for the last time.  It was now or never.  I struggled with making a commitment until a friend who had done one of my half-day courses told me she still had the painting hanging in her studio as a reminder of the healing she had received that day.  After that comment, there was nothing else to consider. I answered the call of the red thread, picked up my brushes, and committed myself to the whole healing process for myself and for those who are called to heal along with me. 

Welcome to the journey!

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