Exploring Symbols: A Mini-Summer Camp for Adults!
Community arts exploration and symbols workshop by Jennifer Fendya, artist in residence at
The Center for the Arts of Homer (C4-AIR: Artist in Residence Program)
REGISTER BELOW
Tuesday – July 28 – 6-8pm
Thursday – July 30 – 6-8pm
Tuesday – August 4 – 6-8pm
Thursday – August 6 – 6-8pm
August 7th, 4-7pm – Presentation of works
It’s officially Summer, 2026. You’ve woken up from a vivid dream that combines the familiar and the unknown in a way that intrigues and unsettles you. You’ve looked at or listened to a work of art and felt an emotional stirring inside, compelling yet hard to put into words. There’s that certain color, rhythm, landscape, flavor, sound or imaginal longing that has the power to change your mood. You’re drawn to a particular plant, animal, other Earth element or a fictional character whose appearance and habits are alluring, frightening, and perhaps comical. Perhaps your creative well has run dry, your imaginal field has gone fallow, and your inspirational muse has left the building.
No matter your creative condition, or medium, Jennifer is ready to explore with you.
This workshop series is a 4-session, small group, experiential deep dive into the power of symbols: how they show up on the world’s stage and for each of us individually, and how we resonate with them. The workshop is offered to adults located anywhere on the creative spectrum looking for a time-limited and non-pressured communal space to connect with, reflect on, and give expression to the role of the symbolic inner and outer life, together.
About the workshop series
• Participants are encouraged to attend all sessions, as there is a sequential component to the workshop that will culminate in a group presentation of works and reflections on the process, Friday, August 7th, 4-7, in conjunction with the Rock Garden exhibition opening
• A limited variety of art-making supplies are provided – feel free to bring your own favorites
• Each session will include a brief teaching component based in Jungian psychology, with
examples of makers using symbolism in their work, and studio time for art-making activity
that can be continued during solo time in between sessions
• Some art reference materials will be on hand, and participants will be introduced to the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism, and learn about the resources that are available.
• On 7/30 Ralph Turturro will be speaking to the symbolism class.
• On 8/1 Jennifer will guide an optional public
nature walk, to visit local marsh ecosystems that have been – and continue to be – the subject of Jennifer’s symbolic explorations.
About the Artist
Jennifer Fendya, PhD, is an ecopsychologist, depth-oriented psychotherapist, certified nature and forest therapy guide, and Sandplay practitioner from Buffalo, NY whose clinical, creative, and climate-related work is informed by the lifelong explorations of Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung.
Jung understood symbols as the best possible expression of intuitive ideas that cannot yet be formulated in any other way, providing extensive and valuable research into psyche as generatrix of diverse manifestations of the imagination through time. During her residency, Jennifer will be working on multiple fiber-arts projects depicting the marsh ecosystem through the visual and symbolic language of Eastern Orthodox icons.
A longtime student of Nalanda Miksang (Tibetan for “good eye”) contemplative photography, Jennifer has taught Miksang at Buffalo’s Jung Center and the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts (CEPA) and she participated in a 2022 pilot project for photographic storytelling at Orion Magazine’s annual Summer Writing workshop at Omega Institute. Her visual art, altars, photography, and writing/poetry have been on exhibition at Buffalo’s C.G. Jung Center (2012-2014), Starlight Studio and Gallery (2013-2015), CEPA Gallery (2014), El Museo (2010-2020), and WNY Book Arts Center (2022-present) and can be found in private collections and online at ARAS.org (2017) and getsparked.org (2016-2024). Jennifer’s interest in the impacts of human activity on Earth’s complex ecosystems is inspired by Ukrainian-Canadian industrial/landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky, German painter/sculptor Anselm Keifer, and Japanese interdisciplinary performance artist Eiko Otake. Photographs and narratives from Otake’s multi-year project with William Johnston, A body in Fukushima, were pivotal in Jennifer’s decision to become a forest therapy guide.