3-Mar-10
At a time when many people are experiencing the loss of everything they most identify with, Jerry's experience living creatively in "the void" offers inspiration , hope and new possibility.

In this conversation we will discuss:
• Why Jerry destroyed a large body of art, gave everything he owned away and lived this way for over 15 years
• Death as an important metaphor for life
• Renewal of an artist
• Explore Jerry's unusual "beings"
• The message in Jerry's book The Inspired Heart
• Life-altering lessons learned during a ten-year sojourn
• Jerry's 40-foot stupa built with his own hands on his property in Washington

Jerry Wennstrom is an artist, author of The Inspired Heart: An Artist's Journey of Transformation (book and audiobook) and subject of Parabola and Sentient Publications documentary videos, "In the Hands of Alchemy” and "Studio Dialogue."

In the late 1970s, Jerry Wennstrom was a rising star in the New York art world when he realized that his life as an artist had become too small a container to hold the larger, inspired creation he intuited was coming through. It was at this point that he let go of his identity as an artist and set out to discover the rock-bottom truth of his life. He destroyed his large body of art, gave away all of his possessions, and spent the next 15 years living in the moment, on basically nothing, surrendered to unconditional trust and the creative inspiration of his heart.

Transformed, he re-emerged into the world as a more complete human being and artist. His entire new body of art is rooted in innocence and spontaneity and they have taken the form of unique, interactive, life-size, interactive sculptures made largely of carved cedar and found objects that are multi layered and reveal inner workings and hidden surprises.

Learn more at: http://www.handsofalchemy.com.