“Somatic practices are intensely personal to each individual. Developing a felt relationship with our embodied experiences helps us know our edges—and possibly shift them—while staying in integrity with body and Self, and without subjecting ourselves to suffering. Above all, embodiment practices can teach us how to be present for ourselves and community, and to develop internal stability in an unstable world.”
about work
Liz Maynard studied English, Art History, and studio practice in college, and pursued a MA in Humanities at the University of Chicago (2007), and a PhD in Art History at McGill University (2014). Her research interests have always revolved around “the body,” and all the nuance such a term might encompass.
Graduate school offered both rigorous education and an intimate challenging experience on the importance of attending to the whole embodied self while “working.” To deal with the physical and spiritual wounds of school, she deepened her somatic practices, including seated meditation, mindful movement, and craniosacral work. If work is love made visible, somatic practices have enriched all the different ways of being with people, central to her work as a writer, educator, and bodyworker.
Liz currently teaches art history and theory classes at the Rhode Island School of Design, and Rhode Island College, and is also the managerial editor of the online journal Providence Arts & Letters, of Providence College Galleries. Her current research explores the intersections of dance and visual art in midcentury America. Her writing, teaching, and somatic practices all continue to center the fundamental question of how compassionate, embodied presence can enrich our experiences with ourselves and each other.
In her free time, Liz loves to read, surf, hike, and take RISD continuing education art courses.