Author Patricia Thomas and Visual Artists Rebecca Bowman to Offer Virtual Workshop
Where do ideas come from? What fascinates you? What are your creative fears?
PICTURED: Rebecca Bowman (LEFT) and Patricia Thomas
Published author Patricia Thomas and professional visual artist Rebecca Kinsinger Bowman will address these and other queries involving the creative process Oct. 28 in this fall's second program in the Quaker Lecture Series at Wilmington College.
The event, which is sponsored by the Office of Campus Ministry, is titled "Creative Quakers: A Conversation about Responding to Our Creative Impulses." It will be presented at 7 p.m. via Facebook Live on WC's main and Campus Ministry pages.
Thomas, a life-long Friend who grew up in the Ann Arbor (Mich.) Friends Meeting, has a Master of Ministry degree from the Earlham School of Religion and served as pastor to Chester Friends Meeting. She also was campus minister from 1993 to 1997 at Wilmington College, where she also taught as an adjunct faculty member. She serves as co-pastor at Fairview Friends Meeting.
Thomas is the author of the novel, I Was a Stranger, the first book in the Pastor and Professor Quaker Mystery Series. Her published writing also includes a week of daily meditations for Fruit of the Vine and an occasional article for Quaker Life magazine.
Bowman has been a professional artist for more than 35 years. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Miami University and has worked for several different companies as a graphic artist. She also has created a steady stream of commissions over the years. Currently she works part time for the city of Wilmington and maintains RAKB Studios (<https://rakbstudios.weebly.com/>), as well as her website for Legacy Jewelry (< https://legacyjewelry.wordpress.com/>) through which she sells jewelry made from paint chips that fall from Wilmington College's Rock.
In this workshop, the duo will consider and discuss additional queries, such as What do you like to spend time with? along with addressing the importance of support groups, the role self-discipline plays in the creative process and how one approaches different demands stemming from inspiration to commissions and deadline-driven work.
Also, they will identify items from their respective toolboxes and how they feel about criticism and editing — and, in Bowman's case, replacing lavender with turquoise.
In this workshop format, participants are encouraged to have a notebook/sketch book and/or paper and pencil/crayons handy in the event they wish to participate from the privacy of their own space in a "creative movement moment."
Creative Quakers was started 12 years ago by the pastor of Wilmington Friends Meeting when he called six Friends together to share photography, poetry, knitting, fiction writing, personal memoirs and visual arts. Three of the core members and three folks who have joined along the way continue to meet monthly. The group's creative expression now also includes song writing, journal writing and editing.
Bowman and Thomas first met at the initial Creative Quakers gathering and have developed a loving and supportive friendship that complements growth in their respective chosen fields as a visual artist and mystery writer.