Welcome to Watermark Arts

Watermark Arts brings together somatic awareness and artistic expression in the belief that both are essential aspects in creating a more humane and peaceful world.

The word somatic, from the Greek somatikos, implies a fullness of presence in the living, sensate, wholeness of bodily being. With awareness of the integrity of the body, comes a felt experience of the interconnection of all living things as part of a larger whole.

In our modern, technologically-advanced era, somatic explorers exist near the cultural edge, holding this way of wholeness in the face of a widespread and pervasive sense of fragmentation.

Artists, too, live at the edge of culture, working with revolutionary ideas and symbolic messages encoded in dance, poetry, stories, music and visual art. As culture creators throughout history, artists have brought about substantive, peaceful change in society.

These times call on us to become generators of the culture we wish to live in. Creative acts show up in all aspects of life — in art, in teaching, in community-building. Watermarks asks, What happens when these creative acts are informed by somatic awareness? Can we bring into being a world permeated by a sense of wholeness and interconnection?

Elaine Colandrea
Artistic Director

Enlight and Desert Waves #3, Photographs by Prue Jeffries