Who is Renting your Head Space?

May 25, 2023: When Together We Bake requested an art class with Sharmila Karamchandani, we knew we’d have a winner! Sharmila’s art projects are always equal parts fun, insightful, and inspiring, and it has been several years since she had done a Heard project with them. And, it was even more magical that we had dared to hope!

Leading with the prompt “Who is renting your headspace?” Sharmila asked the 20 participants to think about the negative voices and positive voices inside our heads. How do we know if it is our voice, a cultural voice, a parental voice or the voice of peer pressure? How do we know what’s ours and what has been imposed on us?

Sharmila shared later (edited): “What an amazing expressive art session we had this morning!! [T]he participants dived deeper into their headspace and whatever no longer serves them good they were supposed to do a scan and throw all the bad renters out to make room for the good renters.

I applaud this group for their honesty, vulnerability and bravery when they shared what they had drawn. There were lot of triggers, a lot of tears were shed, some found that they were not alone who were facing similar trauma. There were some very personal stuff discussed. What I loved was the group was so nurturing and loving to each other. They really build each other up.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

May 12, 2023:  If you don’t follow our visual artist Sharmila Karamchandani on Facebook, you should! Aside from being a generous, beautiful human being, she writes the best Facebook posts about her work with us! They are so insightful and detailed that we admit to cut/pasting/minor-edit them here. Her Mother’s Day project with the Casa Chirilagua kids, done over the last two Fridays, was no exception and one of the sweetest posts out there:

“A very happy Mother’s Day to all mother angels around us. Our mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, teachers and friends who mother us. We made special wall art to honor our mothers. Kids created wall art with angels drawn on them to give to their moms. To begin with I showed them inspiration of two angels gifted to me by my sweet angel sister Marga Fripp who makes these wonderful angels. The kids were excited to see the collaged and painted angels made by her and made their own versions. Last but not the least endless gratitude and ever flowing love to my sweet Angel mom Anjana Khushlani.” A few of the 20+ super cute pics of the kids and their angel cards (the last one is for his departed doggie):