Mindful creativity
Express Your Truth
Visual Storytelling · Art of Connection · Artistic Activism
Amparo Pareja
Empathic Healer
Artist - Writer - Photographer
Mental Health Advocate
Life-long Seeker of Inner Wisdom
Diverse Creativity
A variety of platforms used by individuals all around the world to express their authentic voices through the power of creativity
Websites +
Ted Talks
A selection of artists, writers, creative activists, and global online centers that advocate creativity as a healing tool to connect and enact collective change
Relevant Coursework
Interdisciplinary Student at Naropa University
Using mindful creativity to integrate various contemplative, healing modalities in my work as a healer, artistic creator, and advocate for giving underrepresented voices a place to be heard and transformed.
My vision
Mindful creativity has guided me throughout my life to listen to my inner wisdom and discover my true, authentic voice. It has provided me new, out-of-the-norm ways to heal the health of my body, mind, and spirit, as well as gateways for enacting more accessible and equitable changes in social, cultural, and ecological healing. In other words, the power of creativity is more than just performative; it is transformative when applied mindfully. My passion is to bring awareness and accessibility to this. It is about providing a global platform where diverse individuals can experience this for themselves, especially those neglected and struggling daily to connect and express creatively. It is an inclusive space for people of all backgrounds to have their voices heard, share their stories and artistic work, relate with our interconnectedness, and benefit from diverse healing modalities rooted in mindful creativity. I am extremely motivated and passionate to be a co-creator and guiding light for enacting this vision. I want to help alleviate the suffering of others because only by understanding each other’s truth are we going to be able to begin healing as a collective.
My Top 5 Core Values
My Creative Photography
Which platform works for your self-expression?
Painting
Abigail Villaquirán
My paintings hang heavy and hide no previous sketches or tests. Whatever I want to say I say it directly from brush to gessoed canvas.Nature is a repeated subject matter in the canvases that hang in my studio and if I chose something else such as a hang portrait or a seated pose, I paint it with a similar organic style. My landscapes are often dramatic and ethereal. I enjoy playing with natural shapes and creating color puzzles as well as rendering homage to mountains and volcanoes that I grew up around. In the mix of my work, I find myself painting hands and take great joy from treating them as I would an intimate portrait. Hands have great character; they may be the focal point in any work and lead a viewer’s eyes; they are as expressive as facial features if represented with the detail they warrant.I have found great joy in unlearning old habits including my fine arts techniques and relearning the techniques and materials that work for me. I take great joy in experimenting with mediums and textures and fabric. I have used markers as well as thread, acrylic and clay on canvas yet when painting something more punctual, my hands reach for oils.My paintings come from the pleasure of seeing, of recognizing the world around me and inside my head and translating it to the canvas. I wish not to remain loyal to a subject but to my process and hone my craft. It is in the process and the flow of painting that the true noise happens.Although I paint for myself, I almost never keep my work. Once it is finished I am no longer interested in it. It is not mine anymore.
Writing
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Photography
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Mandalas
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Dance
COMING SOON!
Explore These
Inspirational Sources!
Center for
artistic activism
“Cultural creativity and artistic expression are often already in the possession of those who are most marginalized from formal spheres of power.”
Need guidance, inspiration, or community collaboration in your artistic endeavor to successfully bring about change towards greater equality? The Center for Artistic Activism, or C4AA, is a nonprofit center advocating and assisting in a global mission to redesign the practices of art and activism through the application of creativity and cultural identity. It started out as a deep recognition of the struggles many artists face in expressing their vision and enacting social, political, ecological, and overall global change. Today, C4AA offers the application of creativity, art, and culture alongside training, free research findings, and organization for improving the work of artistic activists. The training itself is rooted in a more philosophical approach to provide people with the space to creatively design techniques that work for them. This allows for greater freedom not only in the practice, but also in the inclusivity of even the most marginalized individuals. Traditionally lacking representation and agency, these members of the community can now have greater opportunity and be better equipped for enacting effective, community-led change. Check out C4AA’s main website for more information on the mission, types of training programs, and diverse ways of using creativity to actualize effective activism.
PhotoVoice
“Everyone should have the opportunity
to represent themselves and tell their story.”
Interested in participating in creative, ethical photography for social change? PhotoVoice is a UK-based collaborative platform for photographers seeking out-of-the-norm methods to capture national and global realities of unjust development, public and mental health, and education. It places a grand emphasis on creativity and community participation to connect more profoundly and create more of a sustainable, collective change through interactive projects. This helps photographers share the raw reality of many, especially those who stories have been underrepresented or even neglected. They essentially provide a safe space to give a voice to the voiceless.PhotoVoice also offers creative photographers the tools, training, and consult needed for effecting social change successfully. It guides and teaches them to create ethical, compassionate, and transformative art as photographs – a realistic platform in which the truth that cannot be altered. For those who cannot collaborate in person, PhotoVoice Connect allows for online participatory photography in all regions of the world. This sister site has access to online courses, yearly events, and potential venue hiring. Check out both of these platforms to learn more, participate, and even reflect on the reasons and emotions behind your own work as a creative photographer for social change. I have also included links to some completed, PhotoVoice projects that used mindful creativity to bring about greater awareness and assistance to local and global communities in need.
PhotoVoice Project designed as a call to creative action for allowing First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) students to express their own needs, perceptions and aspirations for overall health and well-being.
Creativity for healing
Body-Mind-spirit
“I finally figured out that the link between art and mental health is connection. We connect through creativity.”
Kate Moore introduces herself as a creative writer, artist, and storyteller. For most of her life, she did not know how to express herself and struggled with imbalances in her physical, mental, and spiritual health. In this Ted Talk, Kate speaks of how she overcame panic attacks, fears, and depression through understanding the connection that creativity offers. When she lacked a voice, she turned to painting, writing books, and creating drama plays, rather than escapism. These artistic platforms offered her the space to heal and relate more intimately with herself and others.Kate aspires to offer a new dimension to creativity as a way to experience life, to remind others how beautiful and interesting life can be. It can be a space where one can channel their energy and create something positive and impactful out of it. Her passion for creativity is connection-based and therefore she shares how creativity requires vulnerability and compassion. She brings awareness to its accessibility and untetheredness. If interested in understanding more about the connection that creative art can offer, check out Kate Moore’s Ted Talk, as well a 2017 creative piece she wrote on mental health in the Irish Times.
Creativity for social change
“The change I aspired to do was directly dependent
from my capacity to be creative.”
Adama Sanneh identifies as an “African, European, Italian, Gambian, Senegalese, blue collar, Muslim Catholic, black and white man.” He is the founder of Moleskine Foundation, a non-profit organization with the mission to inspire youth to change themselves and the world through greater access of creative, transformative tools. Growing up, he experienced both the role of the oppressed and the privileged, seeking ways to reconcile this contradiction effectively. He discovered creativity as a tool for bringing about change in his own life and in society – via "creative critical thinking, doing, and learning."Adama shares how creativity offers not just artistic expression, but essentially the hope, skills, and freedom necessary for reconnecting to ourselves and others. He redesigned creativity in a very encouraging, accessible way – as a path of directing our awareness inwardly to discover our true, authentic voice. He offers four foundational values one needs to communicate and connect with creativity – self-awareness, interconnection, love, and courage. Essentially, creativity that strives for social change calls for empathy. Check out Adama Sanneh’s TedTalk, in addition to his organization Moleskine Foundation, to learn more about using creativity as transformative language, beyond its superficial representation, in order to change the world.
Interdisciplinary Artistic Activists
Relevant Coursework
Social Justice & Antiracism
Gateway to Design Thinking
Buddhist Journey of Transformation
Herbal Medicine
Yoga I + II
Psychology of Mindfulness Meditation
Hakomi Somatics
Art Media
Dream Psychology
Relevant Experiences
Freelance Photographer (Sept. 2017-Present)
Photo Projects with Getty Images (2018-2020)
Marketing at Mercury Inc. (2018)
Intern + practitioner at Maharishi Institute (2017)
Riverside Symphony Photographer (Sept. 2016-2017)
Amber DiPietra
Artist · Poet · Bodyworker · Creative Coach
Growing up with "autoimmune disease, lung disease, eye disease and partial blindness, short stature, bone deformity and degeneration, depression and anxiety, and chronic pain," her passion is using poetry and sexological work to advocate for radical body acceptance for all.In 2014, DiPietra was part of the Naropa University “Writing, Thinking, Being” conference panel, presenting among others the topic: "Writing and Performing [Dis]embodied States of Being: The Poetics of Disability, Movement, Grief, and Sensuality."
Disability Through the Lens of Poetry
DiPietra's 2011 anthologized work in Beauty is a Verb:
The New Poetics of Disability
Alessandra Campoli
Artist · Photographer · Performer · Researcher · Teacher
Alessandra Campoli offers creative work by intersecting her background of art history with psychology of art and visual cultures (PhD). When she is not lecturing in the UK, she spends her time creating "installations, photography, new media, and performance" that address sustainbility, social and climate justice, and ways to redesign interdisciplinary collaboration and creative practices.
"Is the connection between myth and collective and cultural memory used in contemporary art practice? How do art and myth intersect today?"
Art, Myth and Memory: An Investigation into the Relationship Between Ancient Myths, Collective and Cultural Memory and the Visual Arts