Termination Paintings

Termination is what the end of a therapeutic relationship is called, but a lot of times (it seems) it becomes the word for the end of any relationship. And the end of a relationship a lot of times involves exchanging gifts that show that you recognize your relationship and value it.

For my termination pieces for the staff at my internship site, I made these paintings (they're all about 2x4"). I then used a directive that I used in my class: I laid the paintings out on the floor and asked people to guess who they belonged to and why. This exercise encourages people to talk about each others' strengths and what they value in their relationships, so it's not just about me but it's about everyone.

In the future when I have a long term group, I'd like to do something like this where everyone makes pieces for other people and then we all try to group them together or something like that. It's really neat. But I think it would be even better if there were multiple perspectives - these were about my relationships with the staff, but their relationships with each other are different, so they notice different things than I do.












Each one represents my relationship with that person and something I noticed about them. :)

Scribble 8 : Connections II

I tried to adapt my group to the new circumstances but it didn't quite work out. This was 35 minutes of work, that's all the time we had. I continued with the theme of "Connections" since I didn't have any group members last week.

With this one I actually had an idea in mind for what I might do. I thought of how drops of water are individuals but when they get near each other they fuse to form a group: a puddle, a pond, a lake, an ocean. I thought that was an interesting way to think of connections: a relationship, a community, a nation... Unfortunately I didn't have enough time for these drops to actually fuse together, so now I just have a bunch of independent drops floating in space.

Scribble 7 : Connections ?

The week I made this I was supposed to focus on "Connections." It was the last full 2 hours I spent in the art studio because my group isn't working out as well as I'd hoped for reasons beyond my control.

I know I'll be doing a lot of moving and traveling over the summer but it might be interesting to turn these into paintings or series of paintings and prints. I have a lot of them now.

Thesis Scribble 3

I investigated the hole on the right (surrounded by orange) in this art piece and this plant art piece.

Thesis Scribble 2

This scribble goes with this art piece and this art piece.

Thesis Scribble 1

FINALLY my scribbles are scanned in and ready to be viewed by the general public (both on my blog and in my thesis).

This scribble inspired first this art response and then this response. You can see I focus a lot on that giant red bubble.

Scribble 6 : Tree

When I was reading Bruce Moon's book The Dynamics of Art as Therapy with Adolescents, I noticed that all of his groups had some kind of theme. Even though the youth were free to make whatever they wanted they always had a theme. I figured this was in case someone felt stuck and didn't know what to make.

I thought I might increase my attendance to the open art drop-in group if I introduce an optional theme. Today's optional theme was "TREES." I wanted to be able to have conversations about the metaphor of a tree, something that is grounded and consistent but flexible and growing. So inevitably my scribble turned into a tree.

Someone said it was Picasso-like but I think they were going for Van Gogh.

Someone else said I should be selling these scribbles. So far I've made 6. The problem is I'm very attached to these things, I see my inner psyche playing out in them, I don't want someone else to have them!

Scribble 5

I did this one two weeks ago. It's pretty involved and worked-into. I think it's my favorite one.

Scribble 4

This is the latest one, from last Tuesday's group.

Scribble 3

At one point I had four people in the room with me... and then there appeared four pink balls floating in my piece!

Scribble 2

Don't get me wrong, the scribble is just the beginning. This took 2 hours to make. It's actually pretty large.

Scribble 1

Every week I work on one scribble drawing for 2 hours in my Artist in Residence art therapy group. This is the scribble from the first week... the purple thing in the middle emerged when I was afraid nobody was going to show up to the group, so it appeared early on. The detail on the purple part was also the last thing I did before the group was over.

Artist-in-Residence Group

Right now at my internship I am running a group that is kind of in the "Artist-in-Residence" style of art therapy groups. I sit in the room and make art for two hours and invite people to come in from the drop-in space to join me.

Today in class we made art about a type of group that we run and then talked about it. I kind of like the art piece that came out of this process. So here is my representation of artist-in-residence art groups:


I'm the blue figure at the bottom of the blue circle creating/existing in the blue space. Potential group members are the other figures who pop in and out of the space. I made it as an interactive piece so the figures can actually pop in and out by pulling little tabs stuck to their feet.

Close-up of the figure of me and one representing a potential group member:


The cool thing about the artist-in-residence style of group is that it kind of opens up the art room to the participants, so maybe they will feel like they can come into the art room at other times to work even if you're not there. It rests firmly in the "art as therapy" end of the spectrum of art therapy.

Self-Disclosure: "i'm a jew"

I had a kind of weird conversation recently with someone. This person was under the impression that I was going to talk about being Jewish with my clients more than I do. Because, otherwise, I appear to just be another white person, someone who doesn't understand being a minority.

Anyway, I made a piece about it... I wanted to make a book where I could be revealed in pieces or as a whole.

I chose a skeleton to represent me because 1) I tried to draw myself and that was a disaster, and 2) because I really wonder how much disclosure she was thinking of. Just mention that I'm Jewish, or go down deep to my identity issues?

(I considered finding a naked person for this, but I felt like that would be too funny and not taken the way I intend.)

After making this I wondered if there was more relationship between making a skeleton to represent my Jewish identity in this book.

The image seemed gruesome to some but I think I am trying to express that I felt like I was being stripped of my individual identity. In this instant, I felt like what I am was more important than who I am. The parts of me that make me look unique (skin, fat, muscle, facial features, clothing) are all stripped away.

I kind of like this skeleton because he looks friendly to me. He has a posture that isn't like the standard medical posture, he's kind of extending a hand. He says, "Hey, let's make some art."