Art & Mindfulness Workshops
All images above are student work
An invitation to slow the body, quiet the mind, and listen through making.
About the Art & Mindfulness Workshops:
This four-week workshop series invites participants into a restorative creative practice where art becomes a space for reflection and release. We will explore the relationship between art and mindfulness through the creation of abstract, mixed-media works. This course offers a welcoming space to explore our inner worlds through color, texture, gesture, and form through guided exercises. Using simple, accessible materials, you’ll experiment with collage, mark-making, layering techniques and intuitive art-making in a supportive environment. We will learn to visualize emotion, transform stress, and cultivate balance and joy through guided creative exercises. Each class begins with a grounding meditation to focus attention and open creative flow, followed by an art-making session and group reflection. No prior art experience is required and all artistic skill levels are welcome. For ages 18+.
Over the coming months, in-person workshops (Pittsburgh, PA) and live online sessions (via Zoom) will be offered. To express interest and receive updates about April and May 2026 dates and times, please fill out this interest form.
About the Facilitator:
My name is Sobia Ahmad and I'm an interdisciplinary artist with a background in public health. I hold an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art (Carnegie Mellon; 2024), a B.A. in Studio Art, and B.S. in Behavioral and Community Health (University of Maryland College Park; 2015, 2016). Drawing on years of experience as a community health worker and an artist, my practice bridges material experimentation, spiritual inquiry, and community engagement.
I worked with the Montgomery County government in Maryland as a Behavioral Health Program Coordinator for a few years. There, I developed mental health education toolkits and outreach programming for diverse Asian American communities while practicing as an interdisciplinary artist in the Washington, DC area. Art & Mindfulness workshops were first conceived as an offering for the communities that I served as a public health worker. Later, I adapted them for a wider audience.
Over the last eight years, I have led these process-based workshops at arts centers, universities, nonprofit organizations, and youth programs, including at MOCA Arlington, VA; University of Maryland College Park; Groton School, MA, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, Washington, DC; VisArts, MD, among others. Rooted in my studio practice of working with and alongside people, these workshops use art as a medium for dialogue and self-expression. Thoughtfully designed for those without any formal art training, these workshops have supported participants, both in person and online, since 2018, offering creative refuge during times of stress and uncertainty.
You can read more about me and my art practice here.