After more than 10 years as an expressive arts facilitator at the Healing Garden, Karen Arsenault is retiring from her active workshop practice.

Join us at our Gratitude Open House to express thanks for all the programs, workshops and retreats Karen has facilitated both virtually and in person over the years.   She will be deeply missed by everyone for her kindness, talent and the extra mile she has gone to make sure all her programs were accessible and inclusive regardless of any prior “art experience”.  Karen’s programs have been educational, joyful and reflective,  having come from a deep understanding herself of what clients are going through.  Despite Karen’s desire to focus her creative energies closer to home, she does not plan to become a stranger to The Garden and looks forward to participating in future programs and events.

We will have a small project that clients can work on that day or they can simply come in to say “Hi”.  Can’t make it in person?  Email Chris with any well wishes for Karen.

About Karen Arsenault:

Karen has been a Healing Garden client since 2006, when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. During her initial diagnosis and treatment, she participated in several programs offered at The Garden. After a metastatic cancer diagnosis in 2011, Karen found the creative process especially beneficial in navigating the fear and uncertainty of her cancer journey.

Karen developed a passion for watercolors and experienced the benefits of what she eventually called ‘Creative Mindfulness.’ She decided she wanted to share her experience with other clients going through cancer diagnosis and treatment. What started with some simple mandala workshops grew into a series of programs focused on Fostering Wellbeing Through Creative Mindfulness and incorporated watercolor painting, mixed media arts, meditative circle drawings, expressions of gratitude and the power of affirmations, as well as helping clients establish their own creative mindfulness practice at home.

Karen has also donated her art in several forms to The Healing Garden and feels especially honored to have contributed to the Floral Leadership Giving Society program by designing the wall layout and doing the original artwork for the flowers representing each of the five levels of giving.

A favorite quote of Karen’s “We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed. – Maya Angelou