A free daytime gathering that invites participants to slow down, reflect, and connect with Philadelphia’s rich jazz legacy through creative practice.
Led by Joy Best of Revive Art Journaling, this guided session blends expressive art, mindfulness, and music history. Participants will be invited into a gentle journaling process using paper-based art, prompts, and reflection exercises designed to support emotional awareness, creative expression, and community connection.
Throughout the session, attendees will listen to a curated historical journey through Philadelphia’s jazz lineage — highlighting influential recordings, artists, and movements from past, present, and emerging generations. By pairing reflective art-making with deep listening, the program creates space for participants to consider how music shapes personal memory, collective identity, and the cultural life of the city.
This program is open to jazz lovers, artists, cultural workers, and community members alike. It also serves as an opportunity for participants to experience the CultureWorks space in an informal, welcoming setting — highlighting how shared creative environments can support both artistic exploration and community care.
All materials will be provided, and no prior art or journaling experience is required. Light snacks will be made available, and participants are welcome to bring lunch.
Joy is a Therapeutic Art Facilitator with an educational background in Behavioral Health, Sociology, Public Health and therapeutic art facilitation. She believes that art is a creative expression, fueled by our own stories, thoughts, and emotions, which bloom from our hearts into amazing art pieces. She is the owner and creative facilitator of Revive Art Journaling, an organization that partners with various schools, churches, and organizations to create a fun and colorful environment for students to use recycled materials (old holiday cards, dried flowers, stickers, etc.), paint, and draw to create mixed media collages and personalized art journals. Her background in SEL (social and emotional learning) allows her to use the art journals as tools to help students explore their sense of self, learn the concept of color theory (color's connection to influencing our emotions), meditative mindfulness, develop their emotional intelligence, unpack the wonders of gratitude, and discover the captivation of their creative identity, and gain confidence in their artistic self-expression. Her goal is for participants to upcycle the recycled materials into mixed media colleges to reinforce the concept of reviving their art and themselves in their art journaling, bringing "old, dead things" back to life, while creatively sharing their story!
She has led therapeutic art workshops in 10 Philadelphia school programs, including Mighty Writers. She has also worked with college students at Eastern University to help them destress as they pursue their careers, helping them sustain mental wellness and healthy work life balance.