Salon Sophia

Welcome to our very first broadcast! All five minutes of it. Join us for future conversations with creative folk. Visit our website and register for our weekly creative co-working online sessions. ------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Hello and welcome to Salon Sophia. A podcast brought to you by Sanctuary of the Arts. We’re having conversations about art, creativity, spirituality, faith, and religion. We’re interested in all the ways that creativity sparks soulful connections. My name is Monique Francis and I’ll be hosting these conversations. I’m the founder of Fully Woven, a crafty care collective and I’m also the community prioress with Sanctuary of the Arts or SotA as we’re fond of calling it. SotA is an emerging contemplative arts community seeking ways to provide a peaceful and gentle space to engage with art. Right now, we’re an online community and have big dreams for a physical space one day. There are three of us who are tending to SotA and this podcast and an online gallery are two of our initial projects. We also host weekly creative co-working sessions online and you’re welcome to join us. You’ll find the registration details on our website and I’ll leave those links in the show notes. While the vision of SotA predates 2020, our formation of an online contemplative arts community took root as the pandemic drastically altered our lives and how we gather together. We’re delighted to be exploring ways to build online communities and we’ve witnessed how Zoom sessions can be contemplative and foster relationships when done with that intention. And so, even as bricks-and-mortar venues start to open up again we’ll continue with an online presence because it brings geographical distances closer and supports accessibility. As all the ways of gathering in community are being redefined and restructured, we’re curious about finding peace and rest, creativity and art, and how it all relates to sanctuary and spirituality. You may ask, does it relate? We think it does and hope that you’ll come along as we ask these questions and many more. This is your invitation to contemplate how creativity shows up in your own life and how it contributes to soulful connections. As well as this podcast, we invite you to linger for a while at SotA’s website. We have a gallery and scriptorium where many of our podcast guests will be sharing their artwork and writings. We’re dreaming of future offerings that may include poetry readings, bedtime stories - doesn’t that sound good? - and creative workshops. We have many ideas and are committed to keeping a gentle pace as we tend and grow. New episodes of Salon Sophia will be released every two weeks and our first episode will be with Melanie Calabrigo, the gathering priest of St. Hildegard’s Sanctuary in Vancouver, BC and the woman who had a vision for SotA many years ago. You and I are here listening to this podcast right now because Melanie stayed true to that vision. She’s the first in a series of conversations with other creatives, artists, and makers from various streams of faithfulness. Most of our episodes will be about forty minutes, with none being longer than an hour, and there will be show notes for each episode as well as a few questions for you to contemplate on your own or with friends and family. Thank you very much for listening. It’s an honour to come into your space and introduce you to the guests that will be coming onto our show. We don’t take that for granted and very much look forward to these upcoming conversations about creativity and soulful connections.