Liberate Your Inner Artist
At the Art Monastery, we guide heart-centered creatives to dissolve blocks, merge art with spiritual practice, and cultivate a joyful, fearless expression that feels authentically yours.
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Are you an Artmonk?
Do your fingers itch to create?
Do you suspect your art-making could be a spiritual practice — sacred, even — but you don’t want to get all up on your high horse about it?
Do you dream that your work could be of service in some way? To proliferate joy, connection, and insight?
Welcome.
You’re an Artmonk and you’ve found your people.
Your Path to Creative Awakening
Artist Unleashed Bundle
A bundle of resources designed to help you dissolve creative blocks, deepen your art practice, and connect with your inner muse. Yours for free!
30-Day Challenge
Join a global community of creative makers for the Art Monastery's most popular course. You'll find the support & tools to express yourself everyday, building a creative habit that lasts longterm!
Awakening Creativity Program
A transformative program that supports women & non-binary folx to overcome creative blocks, unleash flow, and make the art you were born to make.
Meet Suiko McCall: Artist, Teacher, Visionary
Suiko Betsy McCall is the heart behind the Art Monastery. As an artist, teacher, and former monk, Suiko merges creativity and spiritual practice to help others reconnect with their authentic voice.
Her approach blends the discipline of monastic life with the freedom of artistic exploration, empowering creatives to see their art as sacred and their lives as works of art.
O now you come in a rut,
in rank and black desire,
to beat the brush, to lash
the wind with your long hair.
Ha! I am afraid,
exceedingly afraid.
—Linda Hogan
Can’t shake the gloaming of samsara
some days
about the time caffeine peaks
& the world careens off another carbon cliff
my middle heart heads for the exit
all that orphan wants is out
Unsatisfactoriness viewed dispassionately
is probably impossible
but good people give themselves to it
breathing in dense smoke from crematorium ghats
exhaling streaming clouds of good in luminous micrograms
all in the heart-mind-body
The scenography from the documentary shows
but it does not tell
how we got here
ditto
the origin stories
though spooled in reverse
All told it’s left to you to imagine
what the navel of world looks like
on first entering through birth
I picture it sometimes in the afternoon
when I’ve already given up
& am willing to sign off on anything:
A caregiver
utterly surrounds me
like a grass mountain desert forest
wedded to sky river space ocean
it is an inclusive warm melody
consciousness of one thing
connected to all things
flowering, still, flowing
an infinity dazzlingly simple
In such moments
there is no above
below or all-around
only senses stirred
ever quite gently
outward in welcome.
(lightning, thunder)
Stay inspired with our Moonletters
Receive original poems and paintings around each New and Full Moon, designed to inspire your creative journey and deepen your connection to art, intuition, and rhythms of the earth.
Curious to explore past Moonletters? Browse the Archive and soak up the inspiration.
What Artmonks Are Saying
Our programs have transformed the lives of countless creatives. Hear directly from our Artmonks about their journey.
"The Artmonk Challenge did for me exactly what I had hoped it would -- helped me establish a daily art practice. I cannot tell you how grateful I am! I have a ridiculously hard time establishing routines of any sort, definitely my biggest challenge. But making a small goal (art 5-10 minutes every day), and having the accountability of that 100 Day Challenge, worked for me."
"Thank you for your work in creating this entrance into art. I am 74 and have never had any art instruction. Whatever the quality of my art may or may not be, I feel like I’m coming home."
"Very creative and deeply spiritual organization. The folks who run it are devoted to it and live their lives in accordance with it."
“I’ve been taking Suiko’s retreats and programs since 2016. Suiko’s natural grace, ease, and wisdom have always nurtured me. My desire to connect with art, meditation, and such like minded people is essential to my well being.”
"Suiko has the incredibly rare ability to translate the creative process into usable, understandable pieces of information. I don’t even know how that’s actually possible — but she does it."
"Suiko offers substantial value through the playfulness she brings to everything she does and says, as well as her love of art and creative thinking... She is non-traditional and that is EXTREMELY appealing because it gives me (and others) room to play and explore myself (thoughts, feelings, ideas, desires) freely without fear of scolding."