Dream Dancer Designs
click on highlighted links to my projects below
Robin
This is me, Robin Modlin. I feel that I am at a very special creative time in my life. Professionally, I have had various educational experiences including a masters degree in East/West Psychology, a year training as an interfaith hospital chaplain at Packard and Stanford Hospitals and have become a SoulCollage® facilitator. I have explored spiritual traditions, had deep experiences with Buddhism, and been particularly interested in the deep feminine and how women grow and age. My personal family life offered me training in chronic illness as my eldest daughter has cystic fibrosis. I am very aware of the complicated needs of a family in crisis and the stresses of life threatening disease. We have also experienced the miraculous gift of transplant which saved my daughter's life. Using creativity to express my inner discoveries and for personal respite opens and heals me. And now I want to create more, share more and open more.....
Dream Dancer Designs is the name I gave to my creative expressions many years ago. It comes from my belief that life is like a dream filled with symbols, metaphors, mysteries and rarely anything solid, except for concrete..... We can choose to dance in this dreamlike life and when we do, we engage, grow and find meaning even in the most difficult of times. And that is what has happened to me as I have faced my challenges, accepted my miracles, lived my life and now enter a new period as a woman owning her own world.
Dream Dancer Designs is the name I gave to my creative expressions many years ago. It comes from my belief that life is like a dream filled with symbols, metaphors, mysteries and rarely anything solid, except for concrete..... We can choose to dance in this dreamlike life and when we do, we engage, grow and find meaning even in the most difficult of times. And that is what has happened to me as I have faced my challenges, accepted my miracles, lived my life and now enter a new period as a woman owning her own world.
Creating...
I have always looked for some way to be creative. In the early 1990's I started quilting and created QUILTED BUDDHAS. As happens to some quilters I dabbled in mosaics and fell in love with this medium and its greater dimensionality. I started with covering pots and then moved to learning about and creating CONCRETE SCULPTURE AND MOSAICS.I have created a few life size pieces like this one pictured of me and "Light as a Feather" now living at Indian Rock Vineyard, Murphys, CA. I am still exploring and enjoying working with these materials even though I find the concrete "hard" and unforgiving. The rawness, simplicity and lasting quality speaks to me.
I also enjoy sharing the love of mosaics and the techniques I have learned through an occasional class offering. More recently I worked with a family to create MEMORY URNS for their loved one's ashes. This sensitive and very personal project can be very meaningful and offer healing and some closure to a grieving family. I hope to be able to do more of this.
If you want more information about exhibiting my creations, taking a class, purchasing a piece of art or the making of memory urns please contact me for more information.
I also enjoy sharing the love of mosaics and the techniques I have learned through an occasional class offering. More recently I worked with a family to create MEMORY URNS for their loved one's ashes. This sensitive and very personal project can be very meaningful and offer healing and some closure to a grieving family. I hope to be able to do more of this.
If you want more information about exhibiting my creations, taking a class, purchasing a piece of art or the making of memory urns please contact me for more information.
Expressing...
I also love to write. I have a deep need to express what goes on inside of me. My dear mother was a closet writer and great lover of words. She left behind a treasury of poems and the tethered memories of her past only to be seen when she was no longer here to discuss them. I am always my mother's daughter but with a new twist. I want to share my words and I want to listen to yours, now.
I wrote a blog about being a mother waiting for lungs to come and save my daughter, MIRACLE ON ORDER, and another when we went to South Africa to watch her compete in the amazing World Transplant Games, SOUTH AFRICA, A DAUGHTER'S DREAM COMES TRUE. So now I wish to begin a new blog, called simply, ROBIN'S WRITINGS. A writer needs to write when she is called. There is great personal satisfaction watching the words fall onto the page, listening to the sounding echo as the feelings and pictures form. If anyone reads the words that is a plus. If anyone connects to the thoughts that is amazing and truly a plus, plus. This satisfaction must be true even for closet writers like my mother or she would never have left her writings everywhere to be found, in books, in baskets, in chests, in drawers. Upon that discovery and my organizing and researching of her musings I came to know my mother in a way I had always wished. Thank you mom. In honor of you and your allowing of me, us, to enter your world I have you forever close. In this photo I am sitting in a library garden on a bench dedicated to my mother, Elayne.
I wrote a blog about being a mother waiting for lungs to come and save my daughter, MIRACLE ON ORDER, and another when we went to South Africa to watch her compete in the amazing World Transplant Games, SOUTH AFRICA, A DAUGHTER'S DREAM COMES TRUE. So now I wish to begin a new blog, called simply, ROBIN'S WRITINGS. A writer needs to write when she is called. There is great personal satisfaction watching the words fall onto the page, listening to the sounding echo as the feelings and pictures form. If anyone reads the words that is a plus. If anyone connects to the thoughts that is amazing and truly a plus, plus. This satisfaction must be true even for closet writers like my mother or she would never have left her writings everywhere to be found, in books, in baskets, in chests, in drawers. Upon that discovery and my organizing and researching of her musings I came to know my mother in a way I had always wished. Thank you mom. In honor of you and your allowing of me, us, to enter your world I have you forever close. In this photo I am sitting in a library garden on a bench dedicated to my mother, Elayne.
CONNECTING...
Another important aspect of my creative endeavors is promoting community, participatory art. Here I am working on a COMMUNITY TOTEM POLE that I inspired. I have designed and implemented numerous FLAG PROJECTS that lead me to winning a First Place Award for Participatory Arts through the Society for Arts In Healthcare. The process on creating an exhibit of a community based project promotes friendship, new understanding, healing and growth for all who take part. While fighting my daughter's cystic fibrosis I lead a group of CF moms to make CF COURAGE DOLLS.
I became a SOULCOLLAGE® facilitator so that I could have a creative, powerful and accessible tool to connect with others for healing and personal development. The beauty of SoulCollage® is that everyone can create something very meaningful and visually fantastic while it offers new understanding who who you are. I enjoy facilitating SoulCollage® in my vineyard studio as well as at other venues. Currently I am offering it at a SF Bay Area hospice.
I became a SOULCOLLAGE® facilitator so that I could have a creative, powerful and accessible tool to connect with others for healing and personal development. The beauty of SoulCollage® is that everyone can create something very meaningful and visually fantastic while it offers new understanding who who you are. I enjoy facilitating SoulCollage® in my vineyard studio as well as at other venues. Currently I am offering it at a SF Bay Area hospice.
