At McDougall United Church (July 10 - August 28)
Fridays | 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM
At Red Deer Lake United Church
Saturdays | 11:30 AM – 2 PM - Click here to sign up for Red Deer Lake Sessions
You can sign up for ALL 8 Sessions or Individually
Research suggests that creative activities can support healthy aging, cognitive flexibility, emotional well-being, lifelong learning, and meaningful social connection. Creativity encourages us to remain curious, engaged, and open to new experiences throughout our lives.
Yet many of us lose touch with our creative side as we grow older.
As children, we draw, imagine, build, and explore without worrying whether what we make is good enough. Somewhere along the way, many of us stop creating.
In the second half of life, we are offered a unique opportunity—not to become children again, but to become whole.
Join us for a series of gentle, welcoming workshops designed to awaken imagination, encourage reflection, build community, and explore art as a pathway to personal growth. No artistic experience is necessary—just curiosity and a willingness to explore.
The series is facilitated by Rev. Danah Cox, who holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Divinity degree, bringing together a lifelong interest in creativity, spirituality, and personal growth. Rather than teaching art in a traditional sense, Danah hopes to serve as a guide, helping participants discover their own creative voice and explore Art as a way of Knowing.
Food & Fellowship
Each workshop begins with thirty minutes of conversation and a simple meal. The meal will be available throughout the session, but the formal learning and activity part will begin at the top of the hour.
The meal will typically consist of assorted croissant sandwiches, potato salad, water, coffee and cookies.
The food is intentionally simple— but enough to ensure no one has to choose between participating and eating. Participants with strict or special dietary requirements are welcome to bring their own meal.
WEEK 1 - July 10/11: Permission to Create
This opening workshop is designed for the most hesitant and inexperienced artist among us.
If you've ever said, "I'm not creative," "I can't draw," or "Art isn't for me," this is where to begin.
Through playful exercises, group activities, and simple creative prompts, we'll explore the barriers that often prevent adults from creating. There will be no pressure to produce anything beautiful or impressive.
The goal is simple:
To rediscover play.
To reconnect with curiosity.
To give yourself permission to begin.
If you only attend one workshop all summer, this might be the one.
WEEK 2 - July 17/18: Walking the Labyrinth: Art as Prayer
This week explores creativity as a contemplative practice.
Participants will be invited to walk the labyrinth or use hand-held wooden labyrinths for a quieter experience. Following the walk, participants will create personal mandalas using color, pattern, and symbol.
Mandalas can become visual prayers, reflections on a life season, expressions of gratitude, or simply a moment of peaceful focus.
This workshop is lightly structured and ideal for those seeking stillness, reflection, and renewal.
WEEK 3 - July 24/25: Memory Garden
Our memories help shape who we are.
Through collage, imagery, storytelling, and creative reflection, participants will create visual tributes to meaningful people, places, experiences, and moments in their lives.
You might create something inspired by a loved one, a favorite place, a cherished childhood memory, a spiritual experience, or a passage of scripture that has guided you.
Together we will explore gratitude, remembrance, and the stories that continue to shape us.
WEEK 4 - July 31 / August 1: Seeing with New Eyes
Photography, Attention & Wonder
Photography teaches us to slow down and notice.
Participants will explore selected outdoor locations and learn how images can help us pay attention to beauty, impermanence, memory, and place.
At Red Deer Lake, we will photograph the church gardens and memory garden.
At McDougall, we will explore a local Calgary location, documenting spaces, structures, and stories that may soon disappear.
No photography experience is required. Phones are welcome.
The focus is not technical perfection but learning to see.
WEEK 5 - August 7/8: Many Pieces, One Story
Community Mural & Collaborative Art
This is where we begin moving more intentionally into image-making.
Participants will contribute paint, marks, shapes, and symbols to a large shared artwork. Working together, we will create something no individual could create alone.
Afterward, the artwork will be digitally refined and transformed into commemorative stickers for everyone to take home.
This workshop explores belonging, collaboration, and the question:
"What happens when many small contributions become something larger?
WEEK 6 - August 14/15: Behind the Mask
What do others see?
What remains hidden?
Participants will create personal masks that explore both the public self and the private self.
The outside may represent the roles we play, while the inside may reveal hopes, fears, questions, dreams, and truths that are often left unspoken.
This workshop invites honesty, self-reflection, and compassionate conversation in a supportive environment.
WEEK 7 - August 21/22: Shaping Meaning
Clay, Carving & Sacred Objects
This workshop introduces three-dimensional creativity.
Participants may choose to work with clay, carve a small plaster block, create a symbolic vessel, build a simple sculpture, or paint meaningful imagery on stone.
Prompts will explore themes such as:
Sacred containers
Trees of life
Pilgrimage and journey
What we carry
What we leave behind
This session invites participants to think with their hands and discover how meaning can emerge through making.
WEEK 8 - August 28/29: Finishing Touches & Celebration
Our final gathering provides an opportunity to complete unfinished projects, revisit favorite activities, and share reflections from the summer.
Participants will be able to continue work on previous projects with guidance and support.
Together we will celebrate what has been created, what has been discovered, and the community that has formed along the way.
This final session is less about finishing artwork and more about recognizing the creative journey we have taken together.
Because sometimes the most important thing we create is not an object at all.
Sometimes it is a new way of seeing ourselves.