Painting for Peace of Mind

This workshop will guide participants through painting a small grove of aspen trees with acrylic paint, starting with a colorful background following through to the final touches of either leaves or snow. Your creation will be uniquely yours, and the feeling of peace is one you can carry with you, allowing you to draw from it in moments of stress and disruption. 

Join us from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 20, 2025, for Painting for Peace of Mind. Cost is a suggested donation of $25 to cover costs of the workshop, and you are encouraged to bring a tasty treat to share with the group. 

MEET YOUR GUIDE:

Ava Henrickson is a journalist, writer, and blogger based in the Denver, CO area.  In addition, she’s dabbled in the local art scene; she has entered 4 juried art exhibits and recently curated a photography exhibition entitled “Echoes of Earth: A Mother and Son’s Parallel Perspectives, honoring her late son who died by suicide in 2020. It showed at Lakewood Arts Council art gallery in May 2025. 

She began her writing career in TV news in Rapid City, S.D., where she worked her way from television news production to producer and reporter. Ava was an assignment editor for a second television station before starting her newspaper career at the Rapid City Journal. There she wrote stories for the Features department where she had over 50 bylines, covering everything from winter storms, cribbage clubs, and garden walks to sustainable living and upcycling.

She recently started freelance writing for the Boulder Weekly’s On Drugs beat, in addition to her full time job as a trial assistant at the Colorado Supreme Court, Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. 

Ava is also currently taking steps towards starting two businesses… and somehow still finds time for her favorite pastime: spending time with her family and friends. 

Ava is a survivor of domestic violence; her partner put a gun in her face and threatened to pull the trigger when they were a young couple with a newborn baby. 

She also is surviving the immeasurable loss of her 23 year old son 5 years ago, exploring ways to grieve and heal that work for her, finding spirituality, and learning so much about herself in the process, too. 

Painting is something she took up during a time of grief, and today she wants to offer a peace offering of sorts… more like a few moments of peace, if only while painting… it’s painting for peace of mind and this is Ava… 

Host or Publisher Lucia DiVieste Severtson