Welcome to Swirl Soup | Creative Nourishment for All!

I wish to live in a world where everyone embraces and shares their natural curiosity & creativity to create greater meaning, ease, connection & joy! ***Let’s play NOW! *** Grab a pen and the back of that envelope.  It’s time to draw your self-portrait and  you only have 30 seconds…but first…you have to close your eyes.  

Something magical happens in those 30 seconds. 
It’s the Swirl Soup Recipe: You don’t need to be an artist or be good at art to be creative.  Everything you do is creative nourishment. 

Curiosity, creativity and play enhances our ability to understand ourselves and each other. Creative expression reduces stress, increases our immune response and fosters positive transformation & social healing.

swirl soup PlayShops:  Customized, dynamic arts-based, transformational learning and empowerment programs for all ages.  Participants engage their senses, creativity, communication, leadership and life skills while playing together…and meeting client objectives along the way. 

Clients include: University of California Santa Cruz, UCSC Extension Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Louden Nelson Community Teen Center, Bike Santa Cruz County , Delta Charter High School at Cabrillo College and Kaiwa Art & Play Space in Santa Cruz, CA.

Prior work experience: program development, management and administrative roles in educational organizations, nonprofits and corporations including: Children’s Television Workshop-Sesame Street, Central Park Historical Society’s Leadership Training Program for Teachers & Teaching Artists (150 NYC public schools), Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School, LeapFrog Educational Toys.com, University of California at Berkeley’s QB3 Institute and Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Speaker: Interactive presentations (guest lecturer@UCSC) on the power and benefits of fostering creativity & play to spark:  authentic communication (a.k.a public speaking), dynamic group interaction & connection, storytelling for social change, ideation & question formulation techniques, innovation, stress-reduction and more! 

I attended Syracuse University and hold certifications in communication, leadership development, positive psychology, and creative facilitation. Facilitation training highlights:  PYE Global: Partnership for Youth Empowerment; Center for Creativity Studies, BSU, NY; Creativity, Innovation & Change, Penn State University; Arts Council Santa Cruz; Tandy Beal & Co.; and the Santa Cruz County Office of Education. In 2015, I completed the National Center for Creative Aging’s Artist Training. I am a member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF, 2016-17). 

I believe in the transformative power of bringing community members together in circle. I am the Founder & Facilitator of the Santa Cruz Brainstorm Circle, a free women’s networking & brainstorming group established in 2011 and the Facilitator & Host for the Unhurried Conversations Santa Cruz Meet Up (the first in the U.S.!). I volunteer with Ride-A-Wave, Meals-on-Wheels, Louden Nelson Community Teen Center and Save-Our-Shores.

If you want to read my mind, check out The Ally Manifesto, my curiosity & creativity pledge.
Stay in AWE.

Thank YOU for visiting!

Ally,  Founder & Creative Facilitator

Swirl Soup & Swirl Soup Creative Expression PlayShops