The Painting Experience teachers and support staff are here to facilitate your journey into a creative process as individual as you are.
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Stewart Cubley
Founder and Director
Annie Rousseau
Senior Facilitator and Trainer
Aziza Balle
Senior Facilitator and Trainer
Matt Belay
Senior Facilitator
Molly Siddoway King
Facilitator
Lydia Marshall
Facilitator
Sheena Uritz
Administrative Coordinator
Zainab Zoeb
Social Media Manager
Stewart Cubley, Founder and Director
For over four decades, Stewart Cubley has pioneered a way of integrative and creative living through the practice of process painting. His method is one of respectful questioning, inviting you to extend yourself into new areas of thought and feeling. Stewart has the ability to meet you where you are and to ask the right question at the right time. He is a down-to-earth teacher whose personal interactions allow you to see yourself differently in ways that can be life changing. Stewart travels throughout the world, teaching his unique approach to thousands of people at personal growth centers such as the Esalen Institute and the Omega Institute. He has brought his work to multinational corporations, programs in prisons and countless other public forums. Stewart is the co-author of Life, Paint & Passion, Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression (Tarcher/Putnam). He and his wife, Shae Irving, live in Fairfax, California and part of the year on their homestead near Denali Park, Alaska.
Annie Rousseau, Senior Facilitator & Trainer
My purpose and my passion are to empower authentic expression in individuals by inviting them to explore, inquire, and listen deeply through creative expression and the power of witnessing.
I am an Expressive Arts Educator and Consultant, Certified Hakomi Counselor and Teacher, and a Senior Facilitator and Trainer with The Painting Experience. I have over 30 years’ experience as a facilitator and trainer. I have 4 years’ experience as a Bereavement Counsellor with my local Hospice Society where I developed art-based workshops for grieving clients and for training volunteers. I also have training in creative business planning.
I have raised a family of four daughters and now enjoy being a part of their lives and my 5 grandchildren. I live in the Comox Valley in British Columbia. I love being able to hike, snowshoe, swim, and kayak in my area seasonally. I love to dance, do yoga, and play a djembe drum and travel whenever possible.
Aziza Balle, Senior Facilitator (website)
I was first introduced to process painting in 2007 and since then it has been an indispensable part of my life. As an elementary and high school counselor I understood the therapeutic value of offering kids art materials for expression and centering. And with process painting I came to more deeply appreciate and value the experience of creating.
Process painting is a great teacher: I’m offered a gazillion opportunities to align with a dimension of myself that is not the critical one, the judge or controlling one, the one who wants and wants and wants. Instead, I learn to move and flow with the “is-ness” of my being, embracing my own energy. I have come to welcome and embrace the unknown both in and out of the studio.
This method of self-exploration enriches many aspects of my life and I delight in sharing it with others. As an facilitator with the Painting Experience, I facilitate process painting classes and workshops as well as our Process Circles. I am a mentor with our Practicum students.These tasks allow me a phenomenal opportunity to engage with process painters and up and coming facilitators in meaningful and imaginative ways that richly enhance my facilitation experiences.
Matt Belay, Senior Facilitator
Raised on a farm in southwestern Virginia, Matt developed many skills and practical understandings at an early age. During and after university at Virgina Tech, he traveled extensively throughout the world for both work and personal study, widening his perspective of art, culture and diversity. While pursuing his degree in landscape architecture at Virginia Tech, he supported and organized many art programs and creative workshops in his community and beyond. These workshops included many of the Mountain Lake Workshops in which groups collaborated with artist such as M.C. Richards and Merce Cunningham. For a number of years, Matt worked as operations manager for Hui Ho’olana retreat center in Molokai, Hawaii, which is where he first connected with The Painting Experience. Matt now lives in his hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia, where he does all manner of construction projects on his own rural property and in the surrounding community. His primary interest is in continuing to live in a community setting and supporting his own and others’ personal growth by facilitating The Painting Experience locally and throughout the world.
Molly Siddoway King, Facilitator (website)
I arrived at process painting via a circuitous route as an elementary school teacher, outward bound instructor and course director, yoga teacher and recently retired psychotherapist. I attended my first Painting Experience workshop in 2006 and kept coming back. When not process painting, I enjoy writing, reading, drawing, practicing yoga, meditating and being out in the natural world. I am particularly interested in the kinship between process painting, introspection and mindfulness practice. These three practices share similar priorities of focused attention, watching our thoughts and the ways in which we get in our own way. For each of us, the experience of process painting is unique. For me, the practice of quiet, deep listening is profound. Add to that an intention to take time to create every day, and the doors of possibility are thrown wide open. Process painting enlivens me and overflows joyously through sharing it with others.
Lydia Marshall, Facilitator (website)
I have a B.A. in studio arts and a M.A. in architecture. I discovered The Painting Experience in 2007 after decades of practicing residential architecture. I was transported by its immediacy, delighted by the opportunity to play freely, and deeply moved by its power to engage the inner life. I believe that process painting is an antidote for rigidity and an opportunity to nourish our creative spirit. Through my life’s work I’ve learned that no one is devoid of creative impulse, but we are often shy or afraid to give our desires life and form. As a facilitator, I am honored to be present with others as they discover their inner images, energies, and stories — and I bring a deep love and respect for the artist that lives in each of us.
Sheena Uritz, Administrative Coordinator
Sheena grew up immersed in the arts and has a deep connection to the creative process as a healing, contemplative and spiritual path. She holds a B.A. in Liberal Studies from Portland State University and a graduate degree from Prescott College in Counseling/Psychology with an emphasis in Expressive Art Therapy. Her professional path has ranged from work in nonprofit management to mental health counseling. Sheena was inspired by her husband, who is a cancer survivor, to work for many years in support of cancer patients and their families. She also has a passion for supporting organizations that promote self-expression and well-being. Sheena lives in Southern Oregon and loves spending time with her family, especially her young son. She values time spent in nature and with her animals as well as dancing, writing, practicing yoga, meditation and painting.
Zainab Zoeb, Social Media Manager (website)
Zainab is a process painter and teacher of process-oriented learning. She is a design graduate of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. The evolution of her work has been a journey inwards with the realization that a deeper thread connects us all with one universal language: a creative source that is not defined by credentials, professional name, or skill. Zainab lives in Karachi, Pakistan.
