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Beyond Adult Colouring Books: Art Therapy is a process
No More Nice Girls: Mask Making and Menopause
Retreat Leader Xstine Cook
Retreat Leader: Chrystene Ells
Beyond Adult Colouring Books: Art Therapy is a process
Beyond Adult Colouring Books: Art Therapy is a process
So Perfectly Your Mother's Daughter, art therapy image by Chrystene Ells, mixed media on wood, 2024
Forget Nice. Forget Neat.
Art therapy isn’t about being “artsy” or making something pretty.
It’s not about coloring inside the lines.
This is art from the Underworld, not for the fridge.
Dream Image: Horned Crow - art therapy client, acrylic on paper
Breakthrough, art therapy image by Chrystene Ells, ink on paper, 2014
Art therapy is a process.
A way in.
It’s about building relationship with the parts of yourself
that may not speak in words.
While Women in the Woods co-leader Chrystene Ells is a licensed art therapist, this isn’t official art therapy.
But we’re walking the same trail—inviting the subconscious forward through image and mask,
story and myth,
sharing and solitude.
Rooms of I - Runes of Eye - art therapy client, acrylic on paper
For millennia, art has helped humans make sense of the shapeshifting world inside us.
For millennia, art has helped humans make sense of the shapeshifting world inside us.
It names the unnamed, reveals the unseen, speaks with what we’ve buried or forgotten.
It names the unnamed, reveals the unseen, speaks with what we’ve buried or forgotten.
“The psychic terrain is predictably uncertain,
“The psychic terrain is predictably uncertain,
and art is our best tool for charting the course.”
and art is our best tool for charting the course.”
— Shaun McNiff, Art Heals
— Shaun McNiff, Art Heals
The Mandala Question, art therapy image by Chrystene Ells, ink on paper, 2023
Women in the Woods is a retreat, not formal art therapy, but it’s grounded in therapeutic techniques and ethics.
Confidentiality, kindness, and clear boundaries create the safety to go deep.
We’ll work with materials as simple as charcoal
or as unexpected as sticks and stones.
We’ll make masks, because masks are ancient tools of transformation.
We’ll let images rise from the deep and meet them with curiosity.
We’re not making art for galleries.
We’re making art to have a conversation with ourselves.
Let the Healing Begin - art therapy client, pastel on paper
art therapy mask: paper plate, tape, paint, 2024
“...masks, costumes, dance, music, visual arts, and theater have been used... to contact the background ghosts, tensions, and healing forces in the atmosphere.”
“...masks, costumes, dance, music, visual arts, and theater have been used... to contact the background ghosts, tensions, and healing forces in the atmosphere.”
— Amy Mindell, Worldwork and the Politics of “Dreaming”
— Amy Mindell, Worldwork and the Politics of “Dreaming”
It may be relaxing. It may be joyful. But it’s more than that.
This isn’t just about making art.
It’s about letting art make something new of you.
Women in the Woods Retreat 2025
Am I a Dragon Or What? - art therapy client, pastel on paper
Chrystene Ells is a registered art therapist (CATA #13241135).
Women in the Woods draws from her decades of experience helping others attend to what art reveals.
Chrystene Ells is a registered art therapist (CATA #13241135).
Women in the Woods draws from her decades of experience helping others attend to what art reveals.
No More Nice Girls: Mask Making & Menopause
No More Nice Girls: Mask Making & Menopause
Is your story feeling like a bit of a wild ride?
F*ck Everything! by Chrystene Ells, acrylic on canvas, 2020
F*ck Everything! by Chrystene Ells, acrylic on canvas, 2020
“Isn’t it radical to consider there’s a moment in life when you can look at what you’ve done and not done,
your mistakes and acts of foolishness, and say ‘screw it’ and forgive yourself?
Menopause is that moment.”
— from Wise Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wirlitzer
Unfinished Dream by Chrystene Ells, acrylic on canvas, 2020
Unfinished Dream by Chrystene Ells, acrylic on canvas, 2020
Whether you’re on the threshold of perimenopause,
in the midst of “The Change,”
or settling into post-menopause,
it’s all part of a time of crossing —
a passage where parts of us seem to dissolve.
Who the Hell am I Now by Chrystene Ells,
ink on wood, 2023
Waking Up 50 by Chrystene Ells,
gouache on paper, 2015
Waking Up 50 by Chrystene Ells,
gouache on paper, 2015
The ways our outer roles can change with aging, shifting hormones, and the evolving shape of our lives can leave us wondering:
Who am I now? Where am I headed?
Grief, relief, rage, gratitude, a sense of freedom — all of it can surface, sometimes all at once.
Grief, relief, rage, gratitude, a sense of freedom — all of it can surface, sometimes all at once.
What is emerging? What is being shed?
What is emerging? What is being shed?
And how might we welcome this “second spring” with curiosity?
And how might we welcome this “second spring” with curiosity?
At Women in the Woods Retreat, we gather to explore this threshold
through creative practice — eco-mask-making, art-as-therapy, journaling, myth telling, guided visualizations and shared conversation — in a beautiful wooded setting.
Join us. Bring your questions, your stories, your creativity. Bring your beautiful, evolving self.
Join us. Bring your questions, your stories, your creativity. Bring your beautiful, evolving self.
Women in the Woods Retreat 2025
Bear Woman by Chrystene Ells, acrylic on canvas, 2025
Bear Woman by Chrystene Ells, acrylic on canvas, 2025
Xstine Cook
Xstine Cook
Xstine Cook (she/her) is a Calgary-based mask maker, filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist, and cultural activist who uses storytelling to ignite connection, curiosity, and change.
Working through puppetry, mask, animation, and performance, she brings unconventional narratives to life and invites wonder and reflection.
Xstine’s ancestors are visitors to Turtle Island, hailing from various European ports including the British Isles starting in the 1700’s. After falling in love with masks in high school, and touring Alberta with Interlude Mime Theatre where she met Chrystene Ells, Xstine trained at Dell’Arte School in California for three years, and designed masks for shows including Journey of Ten Moons, which toured for over ten years.
She sought out international and Canadian master mask makers Ida Bagus Anom, I Made Rupa, Tony Pelligrino, Donato Sartori, and Victor Reece to learn mask carving and leather mask making . Xstine has spent over 35 years creating genre-defying, socially engaged work. Her masks and puppets act as portals—bridging ecological, personal, and cultural themes with wildness, humor, and heart.
Xstine’s personal art practice is increasingly devoted to mending our relationship with the Earth. Through non-permanent eco-art and bush mask making, she explores new ways of relating to the Earth with reverence and responsiveness.
For the month of September in 2023, she was artist-in-residence at Calgary’s CSpace Eau Claire Neighbourhood Hub, where she created five new masks made from reclaimed consumer materials, mounted a site-specific exhibition, and hosted public mask-making workshops.
Xstine was awarded the Arts Award by the City of Calgary, and the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, and the Innovative Business Practices Award by the Rozsa Foundation, and she was a Regional Winner of CBC’s Poetry Slam Competition. She has made animated films for Sesame Street, and HBO MAX, with her work streams on Crave and CBC Gem. Her films have won multiple awards over the past two decades, including a Golden Sheaf Award, the Devon Bolton Memorial Award, and multiple best animation awards.
At the heart of Xstine’s work is a call to healing
At the heart of Xstine’s work is a call to healing
- of self, community, and planet -
- of self, community, and planet -
through art that is alive, ephemeral, and deeply human.
through art that is alive, ephemeral, and deeply human.
Women in the Woods Retreat 2025
Xstine's photo credits:
Chrystene Ells
Chrystene Ells
Chrystene Ells (she/her) grew up on a cattle ranch in rural Alberta before moving to San Francisco in 1986, where she spent two decades as a special effects artist fabricating creatures, models, and puppets for The Nightmare Before Christmas and numerous films, commercials, and theatre productions.
A film and stage director, performer, and puppeteer, Chrystene co-founded r.a.t. co., a theatre ensemble for at-risk youth, and Bindlestiff Studio, a black box theatre that remains a vibrant Filipino American performing arts centre nearly 40 years later.
Since relocating to Saskatchewan in 2006, Chrystene has continued her artistic and directing work, collaborating closely with Deaf Crows Collective, an organization empowering Deaf and hard of hearing young artists through theatre, film, and art projects.
These experiences have deeply shaped her belief in the healing power of story, image, and embodied creativity.
Chrystene is an interdisciplinary artist and certified art therapist (CATA #13241135). Her artistic and therapeutic practices are rooted in the inner world of dreams, symbols, images, and myth — and how these internal landscapes guide us in the everyday, outer world.
She is especially intrigued by how creativity and collaboration with nature can lay down a footpath between these realms, allowing inner nature to offer guidance in times of transition, grief, and growth.
In parallel with her studio practice, Chrystene’s Jungian-informed art therapy supports individuals navigating aging, loss, spiritual crisis, and the thresholds of dying and death.
She facilitates intimate group programs such as Dreams and Archetypes Through Art Therapy, which bring together imagination, symbol, artmaking, and community care.
Chrystene holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and has received awards for artistic innovation and leadership, including the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal and the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Award.
She is currently painting a portrait series featuring 24 prairie artists, directing an all-Deaf adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and training to be a Death Doula.
Chrystene continues to find inspiration in community, ritual, nature, and the slow, handmade practices of art.
Chrystene continues to find inspiration in community, ritual, nature, and the slow, handmade practices of art.
Women in the Woods Retreat 2025
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