CCU Teachers
Shiloh Sophia McCloud is a visionary artist author and teacher as well as a revolutionary entrepreneur and publisher. As a leader in the intentional creativity movement Shiloh champions the importance of self expression for every person and lives her philosophy that all art forms are tools for individual, social and spiritual transformation.
Shiloh has owned galleries for over twelve years, and made over two million dollars in the sales of her art. Her original paintings are internationally collected and her product line is represented at galleries and fine shops throughout the United States. In addition to an extensive line of original sacred art and prints, Shiloh has published over seven books as well as creativity journals, visionary cards and offerings of her writings. Thousands of women have deepened in their creative practice through Shiloh’s illustrated Color of Woman journals and by participating in her revolutionary creativity workshops and mentorships.
Shiloh is the founder of Cosmic Cowgirls, a member run woman and girl owned university and publishing house, actively manifesting her lifelong mission to inspire a creativity movement and provide a platform for voices for transformation to be expressed and shared, promoting a vision of wellness, compassion and empowerment for women and girls. Cosmic Cowgirls teaches class on campus as well as online in classes ranging from visionary business, to painting as sacred practice, to mermaid tea parties, to summer camps for girls. The emphasis of Shiloh’s teachings reside in creativity as a healing tool, the activation of right brain left brain, the cultivation of self honor, self expression, and the work of exploring identity.
Shiloh, also called the Art Doctor and Minister of Sacred arts and has dedicated the past sixteen years of her life to the study and practice of art as a spiritual discipline. Shiloh lives in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma County. What you might like to know about her is that she loves red cowgirl boots and to have long conversations over a cup of tea. That she is passionate about people learning to think for themselves and is a revolutionary at heart!
Mary MacDonald gives new meaning to the word versatile. For the past 30 years she has boldly gone forth in the not for profit, artistic, educational and for profit worlds where she has used her extraordinary relationship building skills to achieve success for her clients in marketing, fundraising, public relations, communications, training and development, and writing.
Mary is passionate about innovative education and business through the lens of a feminine paradigm that incorporates creativity, story telling and conversation. As a Consultant for the past five years in Canada and the United States, Mary is an expert at supporting individuals and organizations in achieving your goals in a way that is uniquely you. Mary is also a member/owner of the Cosmic Cowgirls tribe where she gleefully applauds the reverent and the irreverent existing side by side. She is proud to count herself among the revolutionaries creating opportunities for women and girls to transform their lives through publishing healing journals and transformational teaching at Cosmic Cowgirls University.
Cosmic Cowgirl University ”GrandMentor” SUE HOYA SELLARS. Sue Hoya Sellars was born in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where she was mentored while in her early teens by renowned sculptor, Lenore Thomas Straus, and studied biological illustrating with Jan Roemhild. She attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. and the San Francisco Art Institute under the instruction with Wayne Tiebaugh. At age nineteen, she became the youngest person to hold the position of head illustrator for the George Vanderbilt Foundation at Stanford University. She studied anatomy at the San Francisco School of Physicians and Surgeons while illustrating with Dr. Forbes and biological engineer, Hugh Hinchcliff, and had private anatomy studies with Dr. Deborah Karish. She was an illustrator for Janet Bollow and Associates for three decades, illustrating college text books covering Anthropology, Biology, Geology, Psychology, and Sociology. She attended the School of Electronic Art in San Francisco. Sue opened Gaia Wood studio, now Blue Heron Studio, producing illustrations and Object D’art in porcelain and stone ware. Her work was handled by a number of galleries throughout the country, and has been showing with Color of Woman/Wisdom House Gallery since 1999. Sue defines her inspiration in terms of questions. She says: After illustrating biological structures for over 45 years, my questions shifted from “What does life do in these structures, to how did life get into these structures?”, and “Who is this consciousness that lives in here? Who is it that is even doing this wondering?”
Elizabeth Gibbons is a visionary artist, poet, teacher and world traveler. At various times in her life she has lived in Italy, Mexico, Brazil and England as well as traveling to Portugal, Scotland, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, Holland, Haiti, Morocco, the Seychelles, Peru and Greece. Elizabeth graduated cum laude, from Vassar College in 1979. At Vassar she majored in psychology as well as studying art history, philosophy and religion. She went on to earn a Master’s Degree in psychiatric social work. Her experience with the psychiatric model left her feeling disillusioned and discouraged with it’s potential to heal and in response to this she embarked upon her own journey of discovery that launched her career in art. She studied traditional faux finishing with English master, Leonard Pardon and after moving to San Francisco, she began her own business. As she worked in many of the beautiful homes of San Francisco, she also continued her art education, studying gilding, trompe l’oeil, color theory and apprenticing with world-renowned artist and set designer, Tony Duquette. In 2002 she met Shiloh Sophia McCloud at her gallery in Sonoma and this was the beginning of a great friendship and an ongoing collaboration between two revolutionary women, both dedicated to empowering women through creativity and to ending violence and abuse against women.
Elizabeth has been exhibiting her art since 2002 at Shiloh’s galleries and at Artpeople Gallery and Artworks SF in San Francisco. She has also participated in Open Studios for the last four years. Her art depicts a spiritual journey, the telling of a story that contacts us at the level of the soul. As we view layers and layers of prayer, hope, paradox and spirit woven between particles of paint, bead, glitter and rhinestone we are inspired to embark upon our own journey. In her own words she says, “ As an artist I am both creator and alchemist. I begin with the lead of my everyday existence and transform it into the gold of spiritual enlightenment through the process of creating my art. Art is how I make sense of it all, how I illumine my life. Like the Symbolists of the late 19th century, I mine mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul. My focus is on the magical, the mystical and the mysterious.”
Elizabeth began teaching several years ago with the Cosmic Cowgirls University. As a teacher, she encourages us to explore materials that animate our sense of wonder, joy and play. By playing with the sparkle of jewels, beads & glitter the divine spark of imagination that lives within each of us is illuminated and we wake up to our own SOUL-SHINE, the essence of who we truly are. Elizabeth has woven together the many threads of experience, education, wisdom, intuition, humor, wit, enchantment, healing and original thinking and she serves up this spiritually delectable feast of treats for our senses as a “revolutionary language of transformation” that she calls Glitteracy. By empowering women to “glow from the inside out” through creative self-expression, she guides them on their own journey of self- discovery and healing.
Elizabeth has also created a spectacularly beautiful, jewel-encrusted world full of magical, mythical art at her home, The Palace of the Soul, in San Francisco. The Palace is one of the “satellite” sites of the Cosmic Cowgirls University and Elizabeth teaches both workshops and one-on-one Art Adventures at the “Divine School of Glitteracy.” When she is not cooking up sparkling, delectable Art Adventures for her CC tribe, Elizabeth can often be found in her studio, which she has fondly christened the “playground of the divine”. There she may be dancing with paint and might just be laughing with head thrown back in UTMOST ABANDON, as she burns her TO-DO lists.
Elizabeth, a.k.a the Bejewelled Baroness and Glitter W.A.S.P. is also an “Art Critic” who champions women artists by featuring them in her column, “What’s the Buzz from Glitter W.A.S.P.?” in the Cosmic Cowgirl magazine. She considers it her own personal mission to spread sparkle around the world by celebrating the delightful, shimmering beauty that women offer to the world through their gorgeous, artistic creations.
It is her visionary dream to help women’s art to become more visible and celebrated in the museums of the world and she will one day curate a show dedicated to the Sacred Feminine.
www.enchantedeye.net
www.glitteracy.com
Known in the straight-faced world as Jenafer Owen, Jenafer Joy began her Art Career with dualing backgrounds in Alchemical Acupuncture & Chaos Transformation (otherwise known as Accounting). She is now convinced that Artista is the “A” career she was always looking for.
Jena has created & taught Inspired Inquiry courses on accessing your creative spirit since 2003. She believes passionately in individual genius, in the innate wisdom of the body, and in the transformative power of mythic context. Jenafer Joy is delighted to have joined the Cosmic Cowgirl Dream team in 2009 and as the Director of the Cosmic Cowgirls University in 2010.
Away from the Cosmic Starbases, when she isn’t covered from head to toe in paint, strumming guitar, or filling the cookie jar for those she loves, Jena is currently enjoying completing her most recent Inspired Inquiry workbooks: “Faces of the Moon” and “Riding the Cycle of Creation.” Jenafer Joy lives and teaches in Mendocino County.