Maria Freebairn-Smith

Maria Freebairn-Smith is the Outreach Director and Family Programs Coordinator for The Center for Creative Exploration. She has been painting and teaching the intuitive painting process for over 30 years with a heart-centered and inquiry-based approach. She participated in the first teacher training for The Painting Experience, facilitated by Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley. Along with Barbara Kaufman and others, Maria was one of CCE’s original founders.

Maria’s connections to Zen Buddhism are a family affair. She was raised in and around San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm. Her mother, Martha deBarros, a zen lay priest, and her stepfather, Lee deBarros, an ordained zen priest, brought meditation practice into her life. She was married and took her refuges at Green Gulch Farm and her sons had their adolescent coming of age/rites of passage studies and ceremony at Green Gulch Farm.

Along with her process painting training and meditation background, Maria holds a degree in Psychology from Barnard College, Columbia University, is a trained mediator by Gary Friedman and Catherine Connor of the The Center for Understanding in Conflict, and has a graduate Certificate in Restorative Justice Practices. Other advanced trainings include Waldorf Early Childhood Education, Middendorf Breathexperience, and Motion Improvisational Theater. Maria brings a lifetime commitment to body, breath, and inquiry practices that ground her teaching in a broad transpersonal perspective.