Hello.
We are Kirsten D'Andrea Hollander
& Scot Hollander, Creative Guides.
For over 30-years we have coached Mark-Making and Journaling practices as a means to explore POTENTIAL. We guide you to activate your Creative Spark and trust your Creative Wisdom. Come make your marks!
After teaching a myriad of art-forms including drawing, painting, printmaking, storytelling, filmmaking, performance art, sculpture, and art installation we keep coming back to mark-making and journaling as a exquisite spark for ALL creative forms. Connective Mark-Making & Journaling connect us to the deep creative wisdom that is innately within each of us because we are the micro of the macro—the Stars, the Water and the Earth. That's about 13-billion years of wisdom available to support our creativity. We only need to make space for it in our lives. We can do this even on the busiest of days—one moment at a time.
Story Behind Our School
We, Kirsten & Scot met at an Art & Design College in 1985. We continued to make artwork after graduating but continually struggled to reconcile with the creativity naturally pouring through us against the back-drop of what the Art World would validate. But then in 1996, while I, Kirsten was a graduate student studying filmmaking, I discovered the research of Dr. Candace Pert (1946-2013). In the 1980's Dr. Pert, an internationally recognized pharmacologist became a significant contributor to the emergence of Mind-Body Medicine. Her over 250 published scientific articles focused on peptides, their receptors and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. What I was so excited about was that her findings proved that we are AWARE throughout our entire body, not just in our cerebral brain. Our amazing bodies are multitudinous feedback loops ingesting and digesting their own intelligence and sentience via intercellular communication.
So that's a lot. What does that mean for Creative School for Integration? It means we can see, hear, listen, taste, touch and sense sense sense and sense some more with our entire body aka mind-body aka body & soul. For example when we connect to the Creative HEART Space for inspiration we are connecting with the physical organ, its neural capabilities and its frequency of unconditional love. No separation — the interconnectedness of spirit and matter. This gives so much permission to embrace that there are multitudes of ways to receive information, digest, learn and respond. Creative School for Integration is a great resource to LEARN how YOU uniquely LEARN.
Back to Dr. Pert—when I discovered her research I began to ask myself: what if I could care for my body and be in collaboration with my body while making creative work? I had been practicing yoga outside of my art studio for years and began to explore what if yoga and art-making did not have to be separate from each other? In 2004, after nearly eight years of exploring yogic stretching and breathing in tandem with drawing, painting, sculpting, performance art and filmmaking, Yoga Drawing was born.
Following are photos of exploring Yoga Drawing with my undergraduate Art & Design Students in 2008. (Kirsten—center/orange t-shirt)
Preparing for Yoga & Mark-Making AND Resting with the Creative Marks Made (2008)
Yoga Drawing investigates the kinesthetic, observational and metaphorical structures of mark-making and stream of consciousness journaling with large sheets of paper, approximately 6'x4' feet on the floor. I shared the workshop with my college and graduate students and at yoga studios and art centers in the Baltimore area. I had no idea at the time that this was a foundation for a creative school that would be born 20 years later.
By 2020 Yoga Drawing also evolved into Drawing on the Breath, an observational and spontaneous drawing and painting practice devoted to releasing coded bias without self-judgment. It focuses on responding to ART and FILM while deconstructing over-culture on a cellular level. I have also shared this practice with my college and graduate students, at Baltimore studios and during "Covid Lockdown" workshops on Zoom.
Following are photos of exploring Connective Mark-Making & Journaling with my Graduate Filmmaking Students and Colleagues in 2021.
Exploring ideas for a new semester of filmmaking (2021)
While I was thriving via these practices and working on my documentary-films, Scot, my husband and creative partner began to notice he hungered for more in his own creative process and also wanted to offer more to his private art students. Scot simply began working with the yogic breathing, stretching and journaling before going into his art studio. After trying this out for 40-days he declared that he would never approach a creative process again without first stretching and breathing. Scot now shares these practices with his students and together we have co-founded the Creative School for Integration.
We are currently an online community meeting on Zoom and planning for in-person opportunities. We explore the integration of NATURE, COMPASSION and TRUST as a creative spark for ANY desired expression or medium, including journaling and creative writing.
It all begins with how the breath activates the innate wisdom of the entire body and in-turn, how Connective Mark-making and Journaling give voice to the nameless mystery of our human experiences.
EVERYONE HAS CREATIVE WISDOM. We just need to make space for the spark and re-learn how to trust where it takes us.
Kirsten's Bio
Kirsten, she/her
A creative woman of Calabrian, Abruzzese, Roscommonian, Alsatian and Ashkenazim lineages and beyond, Kirsten D'Andrea Hollander’s mediums are breath-work, guided meditation, drawing, painting, filmmaking and collaborating with tree & plant allies. As a college professor for over 30 years some of her experiences include integrating yoga into her drawing classes and directing the MFA Filmmaking program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
Kirsten received her BFA in Painting from MICA in 1988. While attending the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1987, she was blessed to study with Agnes Martin, a renowned abstract painter whose work exudes a deep inner silence and Joseph Campbell the comparative mythologist. Kirsten later turned to documentary filmmaking after earning an MFA in Imaging and Digital Arts from University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in 1997. Simultaneously, after experiencing a spontaneous kundalini awakening, she joined the School for Woman Healers led by Sheila Foster. As an apprentice there for over a decade, she found her passion for bearing witness, meditation and holding the tension of the opposites.
While teaching college, Kirsten witnessed its profound educational contributions as well as its shortcomings regarding integrated curriculum and financial support for students from underserved circumstances. After filming short documentaries to support innovative curriculum in Baltimore's public schools, Kirsten was called to explore how the camcorder could be a collaborative tool to bear witness. In 2008 she launched the ‘Wings Video Skills Program for Girls’ which resulted in the ‘Anatomy of Wings’ documentary fourteen years later. Kirsten co-directed this film with youth mentor and author Nikea Redmond. The young women who appear in the film were also cinematographers amid growing-up on screen from their middle school days into their twenties. The film screened with Slamdance in 2021, won best feature-length documentary awards across the US and has screened internationally.
‘Anatomy of Wings’ was not Kirsten’s first feature length film. In 2010, her then work-in-progress, ‘Us, Naked: Trixie & Monkey’ was selected for an Independent Filmmaker Project Fellowship (now known as The Gotham). This award winning film about the rigors of the artist’s journey premiered with DOC NYC in 2014 and is currently in international distribution.
Kirsten is currently working on a new feature documentary, 'Come Rest Here' about artist Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith who the night before her ALS diagnosis dreamt of a goddess made entirely of flowers—suddenly Lindsay found herself on a remarkable journey of how to be in a body.
Scot's Bio
Scot He/Him
A skilled painter-printmaker of Polish and Romanian Jewish lineages, Scot Hollander earned his BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1987. As an undergraduate, Scot was mentored by abstract painter and mystic, Simon Gouverneur who also taught him how to meditate. Scot was doubly blessed to be mentored by Dr. Richard Kalter, MICA’s philosopher-in-residence who taught him about liminal space.
As a private art instructor Scot has a rich history in teaching printmaking, drawing, painting, color theory and paper-making. An accomplished welder and fabricator, Scot has also added steel sculptures to his portfolio. His work has been seen across the US and in private collections.
In 2008, Scot joined his wife Kirsten on the production of ‘Us, Naked: Trixie & Monkey’, an award winning documentary about devotion to the creative process. A cinematographer was born. At the 2010 Independent Filmmaker Project Labs in New York City (now known as The Gotham) Scot represented this documentary as the film’s co-producer. The Labs select only ten nonfiction feature projects annually and Scot’s participation contributed to the success and worldwide distribution of this film. From 2008-2020, he was also a contributing producer on the award winning, coming-of-age documentary ‘Anatomy of Wings’.
Scot has a deep passion for nature, meditation, sacred ceremony, community, creativity and sharing with ALL. Now in 2024, Scot is honored to be co-founding the Creative School for Integration with his wife Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander. Scot has an innate ability to help people access what they long to create. His motto is “if you set an creative rule for yourself – break it.”