Eleanor Darley
Artist, Creative Facilitator and Transpersonal Art Counsellor
After first working on global music events and corporate project management I went on to train and work extensively in art therapies and traditional Mexican medicine. I now specialise working with plants as inspiration for art or creative solutions. At the basis of all my work is an understanding of ecology, animism, biomimicry and a connection to health.
ART & PLANTS & A MINDSET FOR A POSITIVE FUTURE
I like plants as my muse - plants and their environments, and the medicine or message they imbue. They bring me an aliveness and into a relationship that goes beyond intuition or instinct, one that forms and transforms my art work. From the encounter, I am left changed by their character, and usually restored in some way.
One of the greatest of wonders for me is to acknowledge the direct communication with nature around us. Sometimes, it’s the spirit of a place. Sometimes, it’s asking the river what is needed. Most often, it’s the plant forms and gestures and functions that become a huge source of information. This has informed my own art work and helped me design, create and facilitate a healthy practise of creativity, connection and self enquiry for others. I’ve found it also gives hope and motivation to shared impulses to create a positive future.
For the last 20 years I have facilitated transformative art programmes in the UK and in Mexico, and worked consulting internationally. I have also managed a contemporary art school here in the UK, The New School of Art. Freelance projects have focused on how art, ritual and story-telling can be used to increase a reverence for the land in order to bring people into relationship, and take care of the ecology and bio-diversity of a place.
My work merges experience of PR and global event management, idea and creative facilitation, and a deep immersion into the traditional Mexican philosophies of nature-based awareness.
This now extends to teaching, counselling and facilitating art and creativity workshops for groups, or one to one and setting in motion a school of botanical arts for nature-informed arts practise, and nature-based therapies.
In drawing plants, we can not only reconnect to nature but focus on the new inspirations that an in-depth observation and artistic process can invoke. Creating art and beauty and looking to nature really matters as we adjust our behaviour and thinking and personal balance. Our neurobiology needs it, to be well, to focus more, and to find the new solutions we all know are possible.
