Maria Freebairn-Smith serves as Outreach Director and Family Programs Coordinator for The Center for Creative Exploration. For more than 30 years, she has painted and taught the intuitive painting process through a heart-centered, inquiry-based approach. She took part in the first teacher training for The Painting Experience, guided by Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley. Together with Barbara Kaufman and others, Maria was among the original founders of CCE.
Maria’s relationship with Zen Buddhism is rooted in family life. She grew up in and around San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm, where her mother, Martha deBarros, a zen lay priest, and her stepfather, Lee deBarros, an ordained zen priest, introduced meditation practice into her world. She was married there and took her refuges at Green Gulch Farm, and her sons completed their adolescent coming-of-age and rites of passage studies and ceremony there as well.
In addition to her process painting and meditation background, Maria earned a degree in Psychology from Barnard College, Columbia University. She is also a trained mediator through Gary Friedman and Catherine Connor of The Center for Understanding in Conflict, and holds a graduate Certificate in Restorative Justice Practices. Her advanced trainings include Waldorf Early Childhood Education, Middendorf Breathexperience, and Motion Improvisational Theater. Maria’s lifelong commitment to body, breath, and inquiry practices informs her teaching from a broad transpersonal perspective.