Rest in Color: Creativity Retreat for Care Partners

Join us for Rest in Color: Creativity Retreat for Care Partners, a nurturing and restorative intuitive painting workshop designed especially for partners who are caregiving for loved ones with physical and mental challenges. This unique experience offers a gentle space for creative self-care, reflection, and emotional release through the healing power of art.

You don’t need any prior painting experience — just a willingness to explore. Using color, texture, and spontaneous expression, you'll be guided to explore the meditative painting process and reconnect with yourself, release emotional tension, and find calm in the midst of caregiving.

This workshop is more than just an art class; it's a quiet invitation to sense, to breathe, and to let your inner voice speak through paint. In a supportive and understanding environment, participants will have space to:

• Express complex emotions without words
• Reclaim a sense of self beyond the role of caregiver
• Experience joy, playfulness, and presence
• Connect with others who understand the journey

Come as you are — tired, tender, frustrated, hopeful, or heavy-hearted. Let the painting process hold what words cannot.

No painting experience needed. All materials provided.

WHEN: Saturday, August 23rd 10am-5pm (break for lunch from 1- 2:30pm)

WHERE: The Center for Creative Exploration

Intuitive Painting Studio

300 Chenery Street, San Francisco, CA, 94131

FEE: Cost: $150 (all materials included). Please register and pay by Friday, August 8th.

About us

Established in 1999, the painting studio is a lively place filled with light, color, and the warmth of a community sharing a space in which to explore the creative process. The Center for Creative Exploration is a nonprofit organization that values freedom of expression with brush in hand and beyond. We are committed to creating a sense of community in our painting studio where people feel comfortable to be themselves in whatever way they choose. We are committed to providing an affirming, welcoming, and accessible studio for all people through co-creation and open communication.

We offer weekly adult classes, community classes, workshops, retreats and kids/family classes. Check out our upcoming events here!

🖌️ For additional information on intuitive painting and our studio, please visit our website or email [email protected]. Follow us on Instagram & Facebook to join our social media community!

Our teachers

Maria Freebairn-Smith is a teacher and Family Program Coordinator at the Center for Creative Exploration. She has been painting and teaching the intuitive painting process for over 30 years. She participated in the first teacher training for The Painting Experience, facilitated by Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley. Along with Barbara Kaufman and others, Maria was one of CCE’s original founders. She also helped to establish the nonprofit Drawbridge: An Arts Program for Homeless Children, and The Open Circle Cooperative Preschool, both in San Francisco.

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Along with her process painting training, Maria holds a degree in Psychology from Barnard College, Columbia University, and has a graduate Certificate in Restorative Justice Practices. Other advanced trainings include Waldorf Early Childhood Education, Middendorf Breath experience, and Motion Improvisational Theater.

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When Maria began raising a family, she moved to Sonoma County. Focusing on education for children in her new community, she founded The Creative Parenting Center and helped establish Sunridge, a Waldorf-methods charter school. Returning to the CCE painting community, Maria brings a lifetime commitment to body, breath, and inquiry practices that ground her teaching in a broad transpersonal perspective.

Host or Publisher The Center for Creative Exploration