"Play Seriously! Using Play Power to Spark Creative Collaborations"

Workshop at the Hot Schools Summer Institute July 2012, Hartford, CT

Participants in this workshop were presented with a “play-based” approach to collaboration in art making and learning,  which culminated in a collaborative wall drawing based on my “material” play method, which utilizes large scale, colorful and tactile craft materials to reduce inhibitions and stimulate creativity and collaboration.

It is my heartfelt belief that we are all storytellers with the capacity for play, and through play...self discovery!  Serious play is a potent force for development of problem-solving skills and creativity vital to our children's success in this emerging knowledge and innovation economy. 

My play-based collaboration method celebrates the unique voice of the individual and the integration and choreography of this voice into the collaborative whole.  This process begins with open-ended play as the foundation for problem solving within established limits towards the creation of a unifying whole. 

Serious play brings together the divergent thinking of the left-brain with the convergent thinking of the right brain to strengthen and develop the creativity “muscle”.