Eraser Landscape

I took an impression of the pieces of eraser left on the art room table today.

It was a lot. A lot a lot.

Some people demonstrate anxiety by
pressing down on a pencil or crayon really hard,
some people
color with a marker over a spot so many times that the paper rips. 
There are countless ways people demonstrate anxiety
with art materials.

One of those ways is erasing.

Erasing until the eraser is gone,
until it's just a nub. 
Erasing until there's a rip in the paper. 
Once a mark is made it's almost impossible to completely unmake. 
Must keep erasing. 
Even after it's no longer making any changes,
erasing, erasing, erasing. 
The eraser is ripped to pieces
and you blow the pieces around the table,
or maybe make a pile of them as you deftly wipe them off the paper like garbage. 
These little sticky white rubber pieces that aren't useful anymore,
not that they were useful in the first place,
at least after the first few passes.

The art room was empty. 
I couldn't resist. 
I saw a mountain range of pilled-up eraser pieces
and I had to have a picture somehow. 
I didn't have my camera.

So I gently laid my paper
over the mountain range
and rubbed with a pencil.

First, I rubbed lightly,
but it wasn't coming out how I liked
so I tried adding pressure. 
Then I just kept going. 
And the rubbing of the pencil
seemed to mimic the movement
the eraser must have made. 
A dance to honor the death of a once-useful yellow artist's eraser.

I made four xerox copies of the rubbing
so I could keep it
without getting graphite all over myself
(too late).

 

It wasn't enough.

When I got home I took an eraser and
erased the rubbing of the eraser. 
Erased, erased, erased
until I ripped the page. 
Then erased some more. 
It's very hard to erase a xerox,
and the eraser is useless
after the first layer. 
At first I thought I might make a design
but I realized quickly that was impossible
so I focused on simply erasing the pigment from the page.

Tectonic plates collided,
earthquakes formed a new landscape in the wrinkles of the paper.

I erased so much
the fiber of the paper cracked
and felt soft and smooth like cotton.

I stopped because my hand hurt and
I felt like what I was doing was useless.

After all that work,
all I had was a ripped sheet of paper
and a used-up eraser.


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Good-bye Fiona

Today Fiona passed away. She died at the ripe old age of (roughly) 7 1/2 years, after living in 5 different states (Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Illinois, New York), with two other pigs and a cat, and having more lettuce, peppers, carrots and hay than she knew what to do with. My little piggy-face :( I made this painting of her when I got home from one of my favorite pictures of her. She had the best piggy lips. We will miss you, Fiona!

More about Fiona's last illness and my other pigs here.

Same to you, buddy! :(

I was still kind of on this high today after having such a good day in the clay studio yesterday. I'm at work, walking around, la dee da, and a client passes me in the hallway as I'm off to lunch and says "Do you mind?"

"Mind what?" I asked.

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

"What question?" (sometimes the questions are too personal to answer)

"Well, why don't you dress more respectably? If you just brushed your hair and wore a nice shirt you'd look respectable."

I was pretty much floored. I lamely said, "I like my clothes..." and walked away, off to lunch, alone :(

I was pretty hurt and angry. I went to the cafeteria and wrote in my journal first thing, because I had to get this feeling out somewhere and I didn't have anyone to talk to right then. Cascading sadness :( :(

Wow he made me feel really terrible. It really brought me back to comments I've heard throughout my life about not dressing well enough. There was a time when I was a teenager and I wore pajamas all day every day...

But anyway! What! I felt so defensive and sad. It took writing all of that out in my journal to be able to take a step back and really think about the situation. If he hadn't been a client, I could have said something really nasty right back. That made me remember who he is and look beyond his comment. I know him, I know how vulnerable he is. And I wondered, did someone just say this to him recently? Did it hurt when he heard it like it hurt when he said it to me? Because saying "You would look more respectable" doesn't even sound like something he would ever say!

Where I work it is important to talk to clients about hygiene and dress, but I guess this is just a reminder about how it's also important to be sensitive about it. Just because someone isn't taking care of herself doesn't mean she doesn't think about it. I had a lot of reasons for dressing like a shlub in high school, and none of them were that I didn't care how I looked.

My reaction was wanting to say it to someone else, pass on the poison, but instead I'm taking it in, processing it, and putting it out here and in my journal. I guess that's part of being a therapist. If I were in a one-on-one with someone who thought I reminded them of an abusive parent, I'd have to hold a lot of poison like that, so this was basically nothing in comparison. I wish I had been able to do it faster, though, and been able to say something in the hallway. I guess I just wasn't prepared! Talk about a surprise attack!!

I mean, let's not make any pretenses of maturity here. Of course I immediately went to the bathroom to check my outfit/hair in the mirror. Don't worry, I looked cute. (HA!)

Leave the group :(

I hate asking people to leave the group... I kind of feel like it hurts my feelings. I know, I know, don't take it personally, it's not about me. And I know, I know, when someone breaks the rules they are essentially kicking themselves out. But it makes me sad. I always hope that we can still have a good rapport and that they will still feel welcome in the art room (as long as they follow the rules, of course).

Thud

This is the sound of an art therapy directive dying.




That was how I felt after one of my groups I ran a little bit ago. The directive just fell completely flat. I changed my idea multiple times during the group to see if I could go with what the group would be open to doing, but I just couldn't make it work.

After the group I was kind of sad and I drew this picture in my journal. But I realized that there were some small things that happened in the group that were great. Even though they may have seemed small to me at the time, I have to contextualize the work I'm doing, who I'm doing it with, and where they are right now. In other words, I had to "meet them where they were at." (A phrase that doesn't make sense to me - ending a sentence with "at"? Why does everyone say it that way?)

Art Therapy (for me)

This semester I went to an art therapist regularly for a few reasons... 1) I was having a really hard time with a lot of things relating to school, so I needed some support; and 2) I am an art therapist so I'd really like to know what it would be like to be a client.

Because I'm an artist I didn't use my time in sessions to make artwork. I used the sessions to process the work I made at home or in other classes/situation that I felt related to what was going on. I also decided that I would use the time in one of my classes this past semester to make art for my therapy sessions - in this class we were supposed to outline a project at the beginning of the semester and work on it consistently during class. I decided to explore myself through art making.

July 1 was my last day because we are moving this week, so we put up all of my artwork on the wall and talked about it. I didn't put it up in chronological order, but rather the order that seemed to make sense visually.



The pieces at the bottom are print-outs of large scribbles I did at my internship (many of which I featured here).

I think I will show some of the paintings from this exercise throughout the month, especially if I can't think of anything else to write about!

Being a client was an interesting and educational experience for me. We took a narrative approach, by that I mean I identified characters I play in different situations and really analyzed them (instead of analyzing me). I learned what some of these characters feel like when I'm playing them, when/why they show up, and how they affect others. Well, mostly anyway. It didn't feel like it was enough time to really get into it! But you can see the characters showing up in the paintings and interacting with each other, which is really cool.

I'm definitely glad I had that opportunity and I can't wait until I actually get to see clients again...

My installation

The gallery is open now so I thought I would post a picture of my installation! This is the final piece to my thesis project, all of my work (including the poetry) all in one place. PHEW!

Sneak Peek!

I installed my piece in the show today... it took 5 hours, yes, five whole hours, but it's done. Installed and done. It looks so good. It's all of my thesis artwork and poetry in one place, grouped together and everything. If you've read my thesis, you'll understand it more than just seeing it on the wall, but I think even just seeing it on the wall will be interesting. The poetry will invite people to become intimately involved in my pieces, not just letting them view them from a distance.

Can't wait to see what everyone's stuff looks like on Friday!!!!

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. :)

Thesis Readers Thank You

I am doing termination pieces for EVERYONE UNDER THE SUN. For real. I've done so many for so many clients, I've done some for coworkers, some for teachers, and now here are the pieces for my thesis readers.



These are about 7.5 x 10.5. I've been using this fancy paper for the termination paintings and the paper really does make all the different with watercolors. Wow.

These paintings I'm making for people are about how I feel about our relationship. Some of them have poems on the back, some of them have messages, some of them don't say much of anything. They're for the receiver to interpret how they want.

I'll post more termination objects after they're revealed to the people who will receive them... as I'm pretty sure my thesis readers aren't reading my website, I think it's safe to post these (I will give them to them tomorrow and Thursday).

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.

A Positive Fantasy

Almost like a womb (again)
Growing (again)
It isn't growing alone, it is surrounded by health and vitality.
It's safe here to come out -
And if you aren't ready to come out we will reach in and help you realize
This is healing water
Water to help you grow.
It is not poisoned.
It comes from the fresh sky and the fresh rain and lands on fresh, fertile earth.
This time it is different
This time you can put down roots.
This is good soil
This is good earth
This is good water,
Clean and fresh.
It's okay because this time when it rains it will be just enough.
And when you're planted it won't be so deep you won't be able to get out.
And the sun will obey its natural cycles and come and go as the sun does.


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Protecting My Eyes

My eyes are the chariot that protects
The lids droop to protect the eyes
From taking in
As if the light is too bright and will burn the retinas causing permanent, irreversible damage.
Oh.
It's that serious...
The chariot patrols the borders through my eyelids
The shape of my eyelashes reflect its spines,
Its protective gear,
Keeping out contaminants
Keeping out the harsh rays that threaten to destroy my vision
Forever.
It's okay to let them droop.
Plants grow in the dark.
Did you know that?
Too much sun can kill even a cactus.
They need the dark to grow and digest.
So keep your lids down,
So you can grow and heal.


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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.

Thesis art

It's funny because I thought this was the ugliest piece I made, but it's the most interesting to photograph.