Greetings! In today’s Red Thread Letter, we are announcing an exciting evolution as we begin a new year and cycle of 2022.
After an intense two years focused on keeping the doors of Musea open during an unprecedented time in our world, we are excited to share our current focus for this year.
Drum Roll… The unfolding of MUSEA UNIVERSITY!
You are invited to collaborate with us and pioneer the next level education of Intentional Creativity as we move forward with our 100-year plan into the future. Can you imagine getting a degree in the Intentional Arts?
Are you called? Continue reading for opportunities to connect and study with us + an introduction and letter from Musea Co-Founders, Jonathan McCloud and Shiloh Sophia.
Musea University Introduction
by Provost Jonathan McCloud
From the desk of the Provost,
We are delighted to write to you today. Our intent is to share with you plans for the future. These are our plans for a formalization of our powerful content into a cohesive post-secondary educational offering. This plan has some nuance and order within which it has to happen in order for it to be fully accepted by the academic domain. This plan has been carefully woven since 2015 and we are very close to the fruition of the vision. This is exciting and a little nerve-wracking, as there are many layers of careful foundation that need to be installed before we have something to expand upon that is workable for years to come.
As you may know, Musea is a term that we use to describe the work of Intentional Creativity in its many forms. Musea means ‘multiple museums’ and we truly know that our Intentional Creativity graduates and students are ‘musea’ around the world.
The plan goes like this: (broad strokes here…) Musea has two primary vehicles for its work in the world. Firstly is the Museum. The Museum is a function and long-term project of the Intentional Creativity Foundation. At present, it is the container which our graduates enter once they complete their training and become ‘Guild’ if they choose. Think of them as Alumni. They benefit directly from the programming that the Museum offers and at present, the majority of the staff at the foundation are graduates of certificate courses. The Foundation is a fully vetted 501(c)3 Not for Profit entity.
However, we must keep distinctions between the Museum / Foundation, and the University. They are separate legal entities.
We are in the process of changing the educational model to the University form and it will take time and require process. This is the advent of Musea as a University and an “extension” of the same for the Museum. Thus, the University will have its own degree and certificate programs, and the Museum will have an ‘extension’ of the same as its vehicle to offer educational programming. Likely, daylong classes will end up in museum programming instead of the university, for example.
Formerly, nearly all educational programming and offerings came via a company called Mothership, Inc. This is owned by Shiloh and myself and is the evolution of our business form from Shiloh Sophia Studios.
Lastly, The University Extension program is our interim title for how we are working from a legal context. You will see that term in certain places, you can think of it as the bridge between where we are and where we are going. The Extension will be a container within which the Museum can offer classes that are transferable in academic credit to the University.
We intend to have all the relevant curriculum for Certifications in the past become transferable in the future for academic credit at the University including Color of Woman, Motherboard, Red Thread Guide, Ritual, and now Prisma and Maverick. Certification status will remain intact of course, and gaining academic credit will be optional for those who wish to study at the university. Each student who completes and desires will be eligible to receive academic credits towards a degree in the Intentional Arts. There will be requirements and fee structures as we move along and these will be clearly communicated.
There is much left to do in this effort, but let’s just say there is never a dull moment around the office these days! We truly look forward to greeting you in the “hallowed halls” of our Campus!
Jonathan A. McCloud, M.A.
President and Provost
Musea University
If you are interested in becoming a Certified Intentional Creativity Educator or have wondered what the difference is between the four trainings, we have created one page that provides a detailed overview of each Certification.
Explore Certification
Red Thread Letter
Musea University: Our 2022 Focus #870
Dear Ones,
This is going to be quite a journey. I anticipate Musea University being a ten-year project to really get rolling. But then it has been twenty years in a blink since we started offering education in Intentional Creativity. And we are only twenty years into our 100-year plan. Let’s do this!
Musea University is in process and we are going to need you with us every step of the way, whether that is through registering for pre-University curriculum, or being a member of the Museum, or just cheering us on, we are doing this for you, with you. And for us.
The truth is, we don’t have a trust or endowment or anything fancy financially to make this dream come true. We are going to be financing from within in real-time. We have hired an expert team to help us make each decision. But just think if we make this dream real? What a victory for all of us, and a good story indeed! It is so curious because we have to prove we can ‘graduate’ classes, and that we are financially promising. Ummm. Okay, let’s build the plane in the air. We know how to do that!
After the past two years, I am grateful we are still in business, thanks to the extreme prowess of our staff here at Musea and YOU. What we DO have is know-how, will-power, magical-thinking-deluxe version, paper-work-prowess, causative consciousness, and a pure desire to offer education to our community. Musea University will offer an education that is ROOTED in the capacity to respond to life with a relevant life-changing approach to the arts, the healing arts, the somatic sciences and curatorship. And yes, it will be more affordable than other schools – by far. We need to make education available to those who want it. We will continue to offer ‘financial aid’ from within even if we don’t get it from the institutions.
You may not have heard our education stories, but Jonathan and I both had planned to go to college and get our degrees. We both excelled in school. But in the end, we couldn’t because our family didn’t have the resources. Jonathan had studied for years to go into Medical School. His mom was a surgical nurse – and also be a professional musician – he even got accepted into the symphony. But it was not to be. He joined the military air force and was later retired after being shot down in a war zone.
As for me, I got all kinds of awards, money, and scholarships for a four-year school, Dominican University in the Bay Area. After my first year, I went to register for year two and discovered that the money offered to me in the first year was not going to transfer to the second year – and I couldn’t get financial aid for the worst reason, my step-father from eight years before was still claiming me on his deductions even though my mom and he divorced. So I went to community colleges for another two years and worked full time in retail. Then I went to a year of art school but couldn’t afford to stay and it took me ten years to pay that year off. In 1994 I quit and moved to the mountain where Sue Hoya Sellars began to teach me Intentional Creativity, living in a trailer on the hillside. It turns out, THAT was the education I really needed, and what I share with you all these years later.
In 2000 Sue Hoya Sellars, Caron McCloud and myself began teaching what we knew about painting, poetry and our version of intentional activism. It was a powerfully formative time for us as a family and as community gatherers.
If you wish to join us – the best way to do so at this time is to join us for our pre-university courses for 2022 starting right now. Maverick for those who want to paint with me each month as your practice, and Prisma for those who want to guide healing arts as a certified Intentional Creativity Practitioner.
Each course will be awarded units towards education. You see, we need to run courses with real students in order to make this happen – that is where you come in!
Thank you for believing in us, we believe in you and in all of us.
With love,
If you would like to celebrate the University with me, come over and comment in the Red Thread Cafe Classroom.
Getting my painting ON for Maverick!
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