THE ATELIER
Atelier Habitus was named with the complete and full awareness that half the population wouldn't even be able to pronounce its name.
So, for the like-minded, lovely people who love to investigate, let me expand on the reasoning behind naming it Habitus.
Atelier: ah-tuh-LYAY
An atelier is an artist's studio or workshop, traditionally a place of craftsmanship, experimentation, and creative inquiry. A space where imagination is given material form, where observation becomes practice, and where the process of making is as significant as what is made. Historically, ateliers were also places where knowledge, technique, and ways of seeing were cultivated and passed between artists.
Habitus: ah-bee-TUSS
Habitus is a nod to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who used the term to describe the deeply ingrained dispositions we acquire through our experiences and environments. Our tastes, perceptions, instincts, preferences, and ways of navigating the world are not entirely independent choices. They are shaped by the circumstances, cultures, relationships, and experiences we inhabit, often without our conscious awareness.
What happens when we begin to recognize these influences?
When we become curious about the tastes we've acquired, the assumptions we've inherited, and the environments we've accepted as ordinary?
What might we discover when we deliberately introduce different experiences, sensations, materials, and perspectives?
Atelier Habitus brings these two ideas together. An artist's approach to examining and composing the way we inhabit life.
The craftsmanship of self.
Ways to enter Atelier Habitus
Greetings! I am Rhona.
I’m an internationally exhibited artist, bestselling author in five countries, and founder of Atelier Habitus. My work has taken me through studios, university classrooms, and museums as a fine arts professor, department chair, and museum director.
I spent over two decades teaching creative intelligence, the lived skill set of noticing patterns, generating options, and shaping reality through choice.
I intentionally mangle the separation of creativity from logic, emotion from action, or personal insight from structure. I’ve always been fascinated by how our senses, surroundings, and creative expression shape the way we experience the world.
My particular love is for how something familiar acquires authority, how imagination interrupts it, and what becomes possible when we begin to make our own arrangements.
Honestly, the sheer improbability of being alive prompts a mischievous contentment. Such an exquisite occasion deserves a little audacity.
