ART AS A WAY OF KNOWING: A Summer Series of Creative and Spiritual Workshops
At McDougall United Church
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
As we grow older, it becomes increasingly important to find activities that keep us engaged, connected, curious, and open to new experiences. There is much research to suggests that creative activity can support healthy aging by promoting cognitive flexibility, emotional well-being, stress reduction, social connection, and lifelong learning. Engaging in creative practices encourages the brain to form new neural pathways, helping us remain adaptable, attentive, and mentally active throughout our lives.
While no activity can guarantee protection from dementia or cognitive decline, many indicators point to the value of learning new skills, exercising the imagination, maintaining social connections, and participating in meaningful activities. Creativity naturally brings all of these elements together. It invites us to remain curious, continue growing, and engage with life rather than retreating from it.
Creativity also offers something many people find themselves searching for during retirement and other major life transitions: a renewed sense of purpose. After decades spent building careers, raising families, caring for others, and meeting responsibilities, many people begin to ask deeper questions. Who am I beyond what I do? What gifts have I not yet explored? What parts of myself have been waiting patiently for attention?
This is where creativity becomes much more than a hobby.
As children, we create naturally. We draw, imagine, build, and explore without worrying whether what we make is good enough. We create because it is joyful. We create because we are curious. We create because it helps us make sense of the world around us.
As adults, life often teaches us to become productive rather than creative. We learn to solve problems, meet deadlines, care for others, and fulfill responsibilities. These are important skills, but somewhere along the way many of us stop drawing, stop imagining, and stop creating. We begin to believe that creativity belongs to artists, when in fact it belongs to everyone.
Yet creativity is not something we outgrow. It is not a luxury. It is a vital part of being human.
In the second half of life, we are offered a unique opportunity—not to become children again, but to become whole. To reignite our creative self that many of us have lost.
These workshops are designed especially for those who may not think of themselves as artists. In fact, they may be most valuable for people who feel intimidated by art, are convinced they are not creative, or have not picked up a pencil in years. If you find yourself saying, "I'm not artistic," you may be exactly the person these workshops were designed for.
The workshops are based on a simple idea: Art is a way of knowing.
Art helps us pay attention. It helps us notice what we are feeling, remember what matters, deepen our spiritual lives, and reconnect with wonder, imagination, and community. Art can become a form of meditation, a way of listening, and a way of discovering aspects of ourselves that words alone cannot always reach.
Through simple artistic activities, conversation, and creative exploration, we will explore memory, identity, spirituality, imagination, gratitude, loss, hope, and personal growth. Many of the activities draw inspiration from community-building exercises, contemplative practices, and art therapy approaches, creating opportunities for reflection and connection in a safe and welcoming environment.
The first four weeks are designed as "art lessons with training wheels on." These sessions are intentionally gentle, fun, playful, healing, and accessible to every skill level. No artistic experience is required. Through simple exercises and group activities, participants will have the opportunity to loosen up, overcome the fear of making art, and rediscover the joy of creating alongside others.
As the summer progresses, participants will be given increasing freedom to experiment with drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and personal expression. The emphasis throughout is not on artistic talent or producing beautiful objects. Rather, it is about paying attention, expressing what is within us, connecting with others, and participating in the creative nature of life itself.
The series will be facilitated by Rev. Danah Cox, who holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Divinity degree. Drawing upon years of experience in both the visual arts and spiritual formation, Danah hopes to guide participants throughout the journey, helping them to explore creativity as a pathway toward greater self-understanding, spiritual reflection, and personal growth.
You are welcome to attend a single session or join us for the entire series. Registration is greatly appreciated to help anticipate supplies needed, but not strictly required.
No artistic experience is necessary. Bring only your curiosity and a willingness to explore. After all, a pencil, a blank sheet of paper, and a little curiosity may be all that is needed to begin discovering something that has been waiting within you for years.
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.
At McDougall United Church
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
As we grow older, it becomes increasingly important to find activities that keep us engaged, connected, curious, and open to new experiences. There is much research to suggests that creative activity can support healthy aging by promoting cognitive flexibility, emotional well-being, stress reduction, social connection, and lifelong learning. Engaging in creative practices encourages the brain to form new neural pathways, helping us remain adaptable, attentive, and mentally active throughout our lives.
While no activity can guarantee protection from dementia or cognitive decline, many indicators point to the value of learning new skills, exercising the imagination, maintaining social connections, and participating in meaningful activities. Creativity naturally brings all of these elements together. It invites us to remain curious, continue growing, and engage with life rather than retreating from it.
Creativity also offers something many people find themselves searching for during retirement and other major life transitions: a renewed sense of purpose. After decades spent building careers, raising families, caring for others, and meeting responsibilities, many people begin to ask deeper questions. Who am I beyond what I do? What gifts have I not yet explored? What parts of myself have been waiting patiently for attention?
This is where creativity becomes much more than a hobby.
As children, we create naturally. We draw, imagine, build, and explore without worrying whether what we make is good enough. We create because it is joyful. We create because we are curious. We create because it helps us make sense of the world around us.
As adults, life often teaches us to become productive rather than creative. We learn to solve problems, meet deadlines, care for others, and fulfill responsibilities. These are important skills, but somewhere along the way many of us stop drawing, stop imagining, and stop creating. We begin to believe that creativity belongs to artists, when in fact it belongs to everyone.
Yet creativity is not something we outgrow. It is not a luxury. It is a vital part of being human.
In the second half of life, we are offered a unique opportunity—not to become children again, but to become whole. To reignite our creative self that many of us have lost.
These workshops are designed especially for those who may not think of themselves as artists. In fact, they may be most valuable for people who feel intimidated by art, are convinced they are not creative, or have not picked up a pencil in years. If you find yourself saying, "I'm not artistic," you may be exactly the person these workshops were designed for.
The workshops are based on a simple idea: Art is a way of knowing.
Art helps us pay attention. It helps us notice what we are feeling, remember what matters, deepen our spiritual lives, and reconnect with wonder, imagination, and community. Art can become a form of meditation, a way of listening, and a way of discovering aspects of ourselves that words alone cannot always reach.
Through simple artistic activities, conversation, and creative exploration, we will explore memory, identity, spirituality, imagination, gratitude, loss, hope, and personal growth. Many of the activities draw inspiration from community-building exercises, contemplative practices, and art therapy approaches, creating opportunities for reflection and connection in a safe and welcoming environment.
The first four weeks are designed as "art lessons with training wheels on." These sessions are intentionally gentle, fun, playful, healing, and accessible to every skill level. No artistic experience is required. Through simple exercises and group activities, participants will have the opportunity to loosen up, overcome the fear of making art, and rediscover the joy of creating alongside others.
As the summer progresses, participants will be given increasing freedom to experiment with drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and personal expression. The emphasis throughout is not on artistic talent or producing beautiful objects. Rather, it is about paying attention, expressing what is within us, connecting with others, and participating in the creative nature of life itself.
The series will be facilitated by Rev. Danah Cox, who holds both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Divinity degree. Drawing upon years of experience in both the visual arts and spiritual formation, Danah hopes to guide participants throughout the journey, helping them to explore creativity as a pathway toward greater self-understanding, spiritual reflection, and personal growth.
You are welcome to attend a single session or join us for the entire series. Registration is greatly appreciated to help anticipate supplies needed, but not strictly required.
No artistic experience is necessary. Bring only your curiosity and a willingness to explore. After all, a pencil, a blank sheet of paper, and a little curiosity may be all that is needed to begin discovering something that has been waiting within you for years.
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.