Bad Art Club Facilitator Training
“Show up as yourself, lead with your heart, and the group will meet you there.”
This is a weekend-long immersive training in the Bad Art Club modality. Participants will gain an embodied understanding of how to design and facilitate creative experiences that deepen belonging, give permission, inspire collaboration, and cultivate genuine connection.
- Format
- 3-day immersive
- 24 hours of training
- When
- January 2027
- Exact dates TBD
- Location
- San Francisco, California
Bring Bad Art Club to your city or town.
Get trained in the Bad Art Club modality and start gathering your own community through the joy of making bad art together.
Who it’s for
For community leaders, teachers, therapists, social workers, parents, creatives, and anyone who holds space for others, whether in an official capacity or just as a core quality of who you are.
8–12
Cohorts are kept intentionally small (8 to 12 people) so that every individual receives personalized support for their own transformation.
What the training will provide
01
Facilitation skills
- An embodied experience of the effect of Bad Art Club’s core structure and principles, so that the method lives in your body and not just your notes
- Setting a container that is inclusive, trauma-informed, and holds the possibility for real vulnerability and transformation: creating a threshold, the shape of the room, music, the altar, framing
- Opening the field of permission through effective framing and demos
- An ability to tune into the frequency of a group and spontaneously offer experiences that meet them where they’re at and take them somewhere new, together
- Functional facilitation skills, including regaining attention and timing
- Leading an integration sharing circle
- Four flexible and powerful frameworks for designing a transformative workshop
02
A toolkit of activities
A foundation for your own creative mind to run with, and a felt understanding of the impact of each one:
- Tools to cultivate safety and belonging in a group, including resourcing, mirroring, and creative prompts that deepen connection
- Tools to guide the group into greater presence, including breath, sound, movement, and self-touch
- Tools to open imagination, invite collaboration, and create conditions for creative play and exploration
03
Personal growth
- A quieter inner critic, a stronger curiosity, a greater willingness to make mistakes, and a sense of excitement to be a beginner
- Greater self-awareness, more robust self-care, more confidence, and a greater capacity to hold space for the full spectrum of human experience
- A body of artwork, both individual and collective, marking your journey
Training schedule
The training moves through the same 3-part arc as a Bad Art Club workshop: Connect, Create, Celebrate.
Day 1
Connect
This session is focused on creating safety and belonging within the group.
- Welcome and introduction
- Setting the container: how the space, the threshold, and your framing shape what becomes possible in a group
- Cultivating presence: breath, sound, and movement practices that bring everyone fully into the room
- Vibe Connectors: playful warm-ups that turn a room of strangers into collaborators
- Anchors of Belonging: practices that help every person feel seen and part of the group
Day 2
Create
This session is focused on opening the field of permission, inviting play, authentic expression, experimentation, and collaboration.
- Functional facilitation tools: framing and demos that give people permission to play
- Exploration of mediums and formats: hands-on play with materials and ways of making, solo and together
- Guiding movement: inviting the body into the creative process
- Designing a transformative workshop: putting the four frameworks to work on your own session
Day 3
Celebrate
This session is focused on holding space for the integration of powerful shared experiences.
- Setting the container for sharing: creating the safety for people to reflect and be witnessed
- Carrying a frequency: holding the group’s energy through transitions, from one experience to the next
- Grounding the energy: bringing the group back to center after big, open experiences
- Creating meaningful closures: endings that help people carry the experience with them
What else you get
A community of peers
People you’ve built genuine connection and trust with, to hold you accountable and cheer you on.
Accountability buddy
A fellow cohort member to check in with throughout the training and for the weeks that follow.
Group thread
With your cohort of Bad Art Club facilitators, for sharing resources and experiences outside of sessions.
Take-home integration practices
Including bad-art prompts to support your inner work and personal transformation.
One 1:1 coaching session
With Jules, to deepen into what’s coming up for you personally as a facilitator.
Cohorts are capped at 12. Tell us a little about yourself in our interest form, and Jules will reach out about next steps.
Meet your facilitator
Jules Costa (she/they)
Jules Costa (she/they) is an experience designer, facilitator, and the visionary behind Bad Art Club. She’s a certified Addiction Recovery & Psycho-Spiritual Integration Coach through Being True To You (280 hours), a certified Transformational Facilitator through Nativ (280 hours), and an ex-Senior Software Engineer turned Bad Art Teacher. To date, she’s led 100+ Bad Art Club workshops, touching more than a thousand individuals with this work.
Through Bad Art Club, Jules serves as a bridge between the functional and imaginal realms, supporting people from all walks of life to break free of conditioning and awaken to creativity. She believes that making bad art is a vital pathway to personal and collective liberation, and her work centers play as resistance, creativity as care, and art as a tool for remembering who we are.
After the training
Completing the training gives you a full toolkit to design and lead your own workshops, and the ability to say you’re trained in the Bad Art Club modality. You’ll be equipped to facilitate in spaces you’re already a part of and create your own spaces to gather groups and guide experiences. At Jules’ discretion, some graduates will also be offered endorsement to facilitate as Bad Art Club, including use of the name in your marketing and listing on our official event tracker.
Endorsed facilitators may use the name “Bad Art Club” in their marketing for one year, renewable annually. Endorsed BAC workshops must be capped at 3 hours and 40 participants, and cannot be run as retreats, corporate events, or private events under the Bad Art Club name. You may always share that you’re trained in the BAC methodology, even without endorsement, but you cannot train others in it.
