She finds the experience of sharing stories through the spoken word to have a profound power to enlighten and educate and conducts storytelling workshops for adults and teachers. Through her school residency programs, she helps children to tell and write their own stories. Lorraine particularly enjoys combining art and story in unique hands-on workshops for children and adults. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York State.

Click here to watch Lorraine tell stories.

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Trust the Process – An Expressive Arts & Storytelling Collaborative Seminar - presented by New York Expressive Arts Collective

Dive down into the waters of your imagination and discover the story that is waiting to be told! This hands-on seminar uses movement, drawing, writing, music and improvisation to help participants experience the essential concepts of interdisciplinary Expressive Arts and deepen their awareness of the place where image and story reside within each individual. In a playful, non-judgmental setting, learn to trust yourself to become your own guide!

New York Expressive Arts has been providing opportunities for personal development and community-building through the expressive arts for over 20 years. Central to our mission is addressing individual and societal needs by incorporating feeling, intuition, imagination and creative thinking into daily life.

Lorraine is now part of the Creative Aging Teaching Artist Roster for Lifetime Arts! Lifetime Arts fosters lifelong learning in and through the arts by increasing opportunities for participation in intergenerational and community based programming.

Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi was recently awarded a National Storytelling Network 2011 Member Grant to support her Reach for the Stars storytelling project. (Award amounts varied from $500 to $1,000 each, with a total of $5,100. Funding made possible from the proceeds of the 2010 National Story Night.)

“Reach for the Stars: Developing a Culture of Storytelling with Early Childhood Educators”
Storyteller Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi will conduct 6 storytelling workshops and 2 observation and evaluation sessions with teachers/director of the Dutchess Community College Day Care Center to:
Teach storytelling fundamentals; Develop strategies for teacher storytelling in classroom;
Develop ways for children to retell stories; Observe and evaluate teacher skills.