Reducing Overwhelm: A Workshop at the Art Museum

Reducing Overwhelm: A Perspective Workshop at the Art Museum
Date & Time: Saturday, January 18, 2026 @ 10:30 AM
Workshop Price: $85 per person
Group & Team Rates: Contact me for details
Museum Admission: Not included (free for members)
Location: Seattle Art Museum + nearby coffee shop
Total Time: Four+ hours (includes a 30-minute coffee break and a Zoom follow-up)
Group Size: Small
Registration: Advance registration required
This small-group workshop is designed to slow things down and shift perspective. The museum setting creates distance from daily routines and offers a mental and visual pause.
We use art as a tool for thinking differently. Instead of analyzing art history, we pay attention to your reactions. What draws you in. What repels you. What feels calm, heavy, or unresolved. These responses can offer useful insight into pressure, priorities, and meaning.
What we do

• Move through the museum using simple observation prompts
• Examples include finding:
• A piece that stops you in your tracks
• A piece that feels like organized chaos
• Use the art as a shared reference point to talk about what resonated and why

A real example
In a previous workshop, one participant connected deeply with a dark abstract piece that reflected what “too much” felt like in her mind. In the next room, she found a colorful work made of beads connected by birds. Her insight was seeing how her thoughts could be busy and complex while still held together by grounding elements. She left with a lighter, more generous view of her own mind.
Follow-up
The workshop includes a one-hour Zoom conversation two weeks later to talk through what stayed with you and what shifted after some distance.
Facilitator
I’m Ryan. I’ve worked in the arts for over 20 years and also work as a business coach and mentor. I see the same patterns show up again and again: pressure, perfectionism, and creeping overwhelm. This workshop comes directly from that experience and from observing how art helps people understand their own thinking more clearly.
To keep the group small and intentional, all participants are asked to register in advance.