Return to Self: Intimate Mindful Mask-Making Workshop + Artist Reception with Niki Lopez

What if you gave yourself one Sunday afternoon to slow down, make something with your hands, and reconnect with yourself?

Join interdisciplinary artist and social practitioner Niki Lopez for a special, intimate edition of The Art of Self-Expression: Mindful Mask-Making, presented in conversation with her current exhibition, Return to Self, at Longville Wellness.

This is not a typical paint-and-sip or craft class.

Through guided reflection, intuitive art-making, music, gentle aromatherapy, color, texture, and a wide range of creative materials, Niki creates a welcoming environment where you can experiment, follow your instincts, and make something that feels personal to you.

Your mask might become bold, playful, symbolic, protective, quiet, expressive, or simply something beautiful you enjoyed making. There is no single right way to create.

No previous art experience is needed.

The experience is intentionally limited to 15 workshop participants, allowing for a more personal, relaxed atmosphere and room for individual creative exploration.

Workshop Experience

Sunday, November 1, 2026

3–5 PM

Your ticket includes:

• Guided mindful mask-making with Niki Lopez

• All art materials

• Your completed mask to take home

• Music and gentle aromatherapy to help set the atmosphere

• Light refreshments and wine

• A supportive, inclusive creative environment

• Opportunities for reflection, experimentation, and connection

Tickets

$65 Individual

$120 for Two

Space is limited to 15 workshop seats.

Following the workshop, guests are invited to stay for a free Artist Reception from 5–6 PM. Community members who do not attend the workshop are also welcome to RSVP for the reception.

The reception offers an opportunity to meet Niki, experience the six works in Return to Self, and spend time in conversation around the exhibition.

About Return to Self

Presented by Longville Wellness, Return to Self brings together a cross-section of Niki Lopez’s work created between 2009 and 2024. The exhibition explores recurring threads throughout her practice including identity, ancestry, the body, spirituality, healing, protection, self-definition, and transformation.

Installed within a wellness setting, the exhibition creates a natural conversation between art and healing, inviting visitors to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with parts of themselves that can become buried beneath survival, expectation, and the noise of everyday life.

About Niki Lopez

Niki Lopez is an Afro-Latina, queer interdisciplinary visual artist, curator, teaching artist, and social practitioner based in South Florida. Her work moves across mixed media, sculpture, masks, painting, photography, installation, writing, and community-engaged practice.

Masks and sculptural self-portraiture are recurring elements in her work, often exploring identity, ancestry, spirituality, protection, personal transformation, and the stories people carry.

Niki is also the founder of What’s Your Elephant™, an arts and education nonprofit that uses art and dialogue to create space around difficult and often unspoken experiences.

Workshop: 3–5 PM

Free Artist Reception: 5–6 PM

Come for the art. Stay for the reflection, conversation, and connection.