Endings

I won't be volunteering anymore at the end of the month, so I'm not sure what happens next.  I made a calendar and put it in the art room so we could talk about endings, and how things are going to end in a few weeks.  It's scary.

It's also odd because the last day of the program (and my last day volunteering) is also Erev Rosh Hashana.  So my new year will start without this volunteer gig, something I have literally been doing since the day I got here in New York.  I'm really not sure what will happen next and it makes me nervous, but I am trying to see it as an opportunity to do something new...

Embroidery

I have really been getting into embroidery at one of the studios where I work.  It's fun, it's like painting with thread!  Plus it is incredibly soothing.

Today I did a demo at work with a bunch of different stitches, I don't know what they're all called but I know how to do them mostly from trial and error:

It started with the blue line, then the brown chain stitch, then the other stitch I don't know what it's called, and then combining stitches to make the orange sun and yellow star.

Fun!

Maybe if I get really good at it I can start doing designs on skirts and other clothes... I would love to do things like that to my clothes.  I have some skirts that I barely ever wear that might want to have some decoration on them...

Happy Anniversary To Me

Today is my 1 year anniversary of volunteering for this organization in New York.  Monday, July 12, 2010 was my first day of work last year, and it doesn't feel that long ago!  Since then I have run countless groups, seen individual clients, taken on more hours, started an art studio in a residential facility, created workshops, helped organize events and exhibitions, presented at trainings, written curricula, and made so much art.

It just so happens that tonight I've put together an exhibition/opening event for the art studio I started.  It's a pretty good anniversary because I don't think anything illustrates the amount of work I've been doing more than an exhibition, right?

I was about to post the flyer for the exhibition when I realized the flyer has client artwork all over it and I had to delete it...  But the name of the exhibition is "A Peek in the Studio: a show of in-progress work by the artists who live in our residence."  There will be awards, art making, viewing artwork, and of course food.

I also hope this show will revitalize the studio.  We've been seeing dwindling attendance, so I hope that we will get more people to start coming once we show the studio is a fun, relaxing, creative place.

Time to go back to prepping!

(This picture is the awards I made for the participants - each one will have the number of visits to the studio they've made, and anyone who has come at least twice will get one!)

Weaving

Tonight I taught my group about weaving after reading a tutorial about using cardboard to make portable looms on gingerbreadsnowflakes.com.  I didn't quite do it correctly but it came out well enough!  This is my square, it has some stripes, nothing too fancy.

Playing with buttons

Working on a mixed media project, doing some demos for clients, and this is what happened today.  Buttons, beads, embroidery, and some cool b&w fabric.

Professional Nerdiness (I love charts)

Because all of my hours are volunteering, sometimes I feel kind of low.  I keep a very detailed chart of my progress but tonight I made a graphic to show myself getting closer to my goal as a way to stay motivated.  I also calculated the percentage of the hours I've completed towards my two licenses - I am almost finished with 30% of the hours I need for my state license, and have finished more than 50% of the hours I need for my national registration!

Luckily, I married an engineer.  Everyone ASSUMES he is the nerdy one.  But I am an ARTEEST.  Obviously that makes me cool automatically, right?  Coolness came when I bought my first canvas?  Or pastels?  Right?

This chart is so awesome, and it just keeps getting more awesome.  You can get so much information quickly and easily (well, YOU can't, because you can't see the headers).

The graph just makes the info look pretty, like at a fundraiser, I can see the totals rising.  I hated the color schemes so I put awesome retro wood paneling on it.

NOW YOU KNOW HOW COOL I AM.

Coming soon... art?  Maybe?  Sorry for the intermission of art making, I am going a little nuts.

New Perspectives Directive (or: funky colors and waterspouts)

 In a previous post I showed you some fun pictures I took with my iphone camera of a random plant.  Well, the plant is actually the plant in the art room at work.  How that came about was I was waiting for a client who didn't come, so in the meantime I took pictures (something I often do when I don't know what to do with myself).  I chose to take some close-ups of the plant in the art room.  Then I realized if I took pictures with my iphone then I could email them to myself and edit them at work instead of waiting to get home!  I did just that, then turned them into the black and white images you see in the other post, and brought them to groups.

The first time I brought them to a group I just had them out in case someone needed some inspiration.  Two clients began coloring them in with funky colors.  Meanwhile, I traced one of the images and then colored it in with some interesting colors of my own.

I was really interested in how this came out!  Also what came of making this during the group was that people wanted to learn how to mix colors on the paper like I did - either with colored pencils (what I used) or oil pastels.  The result is that now I will be running a workshop on techniques for using oil pastels next week, since I think it is probably one of the most accessible drawing materials and a lot of "heavy handed" people may enjoy learning how to create illusions of depth, etc etc.

The second time I brought the images to group I pre-cut them into lots of random shapes, purposefully obscuring the image so it didn't look so planty anymore.  I then asked participants to glue one or two of these pieces onto a larger sheet of construction paper and then include those images in a larger art piece.  I said, think of these as the "seeds" for a larger art project.

My project ended up looking like a lot of waterspouts on a turbulent ocean.  I wonder what that's about.  It's probably the most violent image I've made in a long time, even though it's in all blues, greens, and browns.

Anyway, the group really got the idea of the project and ran with it.  It was great to see where people went.  I think pre-cutting the image really helped people move past its origins and try to make something new instead of relying on the original form of the plant.

In general I love using the xerox machine to warp images, so I may continue to stretch the plant pictures beyond their origins and bring them into the groups to have at it!

Superheroes Directive

Superheroes (Strengths-based telling of personal narratives OR developing a positive self image)
Date(s) completed: 2/8/11 - 2/22/11

Single or Multi Session?
Multi-session
Age of Group Members?
Any age (In this group it was adults)

Gender of group:Men and women

Number of members?
10-12 (any size would work though)

Type of site?Outpatient

Other relevant information about population or site?
Clients diagnosed with severe mental illness. The topic of the group is "Storytelling Through Art"

Materials Used?
2d

Describe materials needed for directiveOptional prepped materials included blank comic book strips (boxes on the page to fill with comics), speech and thought bubbles, pictures of classic superheroes for reference

Directive Description:
As many know, superheroes often have a traumatic or troubling past.  Many superheroes have witnessed or suffered severe trauma (Batman saw his parents murdered).  Some superheroes have something about them that makes them different from their family and friends and may have been rejected due to these differences (X-Men).  Superheroes use their experiences and transform them into something good - Batman protects the vulnerable citizens of Gotham, the X-Men protect other "mutants" from persecution and advocate for their rights.  It is important to note that super-villains also experience similar histories to superheroes, so it is up to the person whether they use their experiences for good (Batman) or evil (Joker).


In this project you will create your own superhero based on yourself.  If you were a superhero, what would your superhero name be and what would your powers be?  Who would you protect and why?  You can draw yourself as a superhero, make a comic book, or be inspired to do something else with the project idea.

Objective:
The goal of this project is to encourage the group participants to recognize their strengths (in spite of or because of their experiences).  For example, the creation of a fictional superhero may allow group members to see themselves as "survivors" rather than "victims."

Prior directives or prep work with group?n/a

Comments/questions/suggestions for improvement:
I thought this would be a one-day project but the group members really got into it, even the people who have a hard time focusing usually.  Some people weren't able to come up with their own superheroes but chose their favorites and made homages to them, explaining why they were their favorite superheroes.  It was pretty surprising (maybe shouldn't have been) how many fans of Wonder Woman were in the group - men and women.  There were a lot of metaphors that could be used for other groups - The Hulk was a great superhero for discussing anger management, for example.

Also, using this directive helped me win over a few of the male group members because I have a pretty decent working knowledge of superheroes.  I did some research on different superheroes' pasts, too.  The guys were impressed.  However, I felt it was also important to have pictures of female superheroes, which is kind of hard considering there aren't that many famous female superheroes (Wonder Woman, Bat Girl, Super Girl, etc), but the women in the group seemed to appreciate it.

Defining Home FINISHED

I can't believe it's finished!

Read about the original directive, my birthday and first progress post, and the last progress post.

This has been a great project to do with my group.  A month may have been too long for some people, and maybe not enough for others.  For me, it was the right amount of time.  I got to invest in my project, but not become overwhelmed or consumed by it.  I worked on it for about an hour a week for the whole Found Object Art Month at work.  Today, I took pictures of all of the clients' projects for a big creative arts celebration we're having on Wednesday, and I have to say I am really proud of what came out!

Since I can't show any of their work here, I will just conclude this directive with my finished piece.  I may also write a formal directive outline for future use (and to pass along to others).

See the individual pages below the cut.

Found Object Art Month

The other art therapy intern and I came up with something totally exciting and awesome to do at our site: FOUND OBJECT ART MONTH!!!

For the month of November, we will bring found objects (aka junk/trash) to groups and encourage art making out of these lowly materials. We are using the month of October to prep by getting people excited through advertising, asking staff members to bring in (clean) junk, and one day this month we (art therapy dept) are going to take a field trip to get some unusual junk to contribute to the pile.

Also, we're going to come up with some more structured art directives using trash and invite non-art therapists to give them a try in their groups as a way of exposing more people to art making.

The end result will be a premier event at the site and then, down the line, a gallery show somewhere not on the floor. It might be somewhere else in the building, or it might be at another facility (we're working on it). Also we are hoping to do some research about art with found objects and maybe write about it for the American Art Therapy Association.



In honor of FOUND OBJECT ART MONTH, I will be posting every day in November pictures of amazing junk/recycled/found object art!




Today we began distributing the fliers, and since I love them so much I am posting them here. The photos aren't credited in these images but they will show up again in future blog posts and will be properly credited. I found the images through google-searching so please forgive me this faux pas.

DESTROY and create

Recently in two of my groups we worked on watercolors for a few weeks. A lot of the clients are used to working on an art piece for one group and never returning to it so trying to get people to continue working on one project week to week is taking some adjusting. Most people "finished" their painting in the first session and didn't want to return to it in the second session. My suggestion was cutting up the original painting, gluing it to a new sheet of paper, and then working from there.

One client did actually cut his painting up and we talked about what it was like to destroy our artwork. He said it made him sad to do it. It's interesting because he did it without question, and I didn't even demand it! I said, why don't you cut it up and turn it into something else? or you can start something new with watercolors? But he really developed his painting a lot more after cutting it up. It was also a little surprising to me because I had the impression that he hadn't invested much effort into his original painting (a large splatter-painting). However, he said he liked what came out of this process and he seemed really focused while he was working on it.

I don't have a picture of my original painting (which I realized after I cut it up), but here is where I am right now:


It's interesting the kinds of things that happened when I did this with mine. I first only glued one strip of the original painting down. Then, after starting this new painting, I glued two more pieces down to kind of line up with the new marks I'd made. I wanted to blend these new strips into the painting a little, but not too much.


I just glued the new pieces down using elmer's glue, which means they aren't totally sealed to the paper. I'm also pretty impatient so I started painting while the glue was still wet. I like how it looks like the paint is flowing underneath some of the new pieces.


I'm finding this piece much more interesting to work with now that I'm adding bits of my own work back into it (postmortem?). It's not finished yet so I'll continue to work on it during the open art studio groups I have at the end of the day. I think it's good for me to continue projects in that group that I've started in previous groups because it models the type of attitude towards art making I'm trying to encourage in others: our art is important; we should care about it and actually invest time in making it.



Plus, with all the holidays this month I haven't really had an opportunity to make art at home, so I've been looking forward to this time in the open art studio. :)

The Scribble Strikes Again

When I'm not sure what to do in my groups sometimes I will go back to the materials. Last week, we explored chalk pastels. The only thing I don't like about chalk pastels is that you can't just stop working on a piece and be done with it. The chalk will get everywhere - forever and ever - if you don't fix it somehow, either with hairspray or a spray fixative. It's very frustrating. This extra step, which seems so simple, almost never gets done, and so every time I touch it I alter the image. Especially when you have a big group, this can get very messy very quickly!

However, I love how chalk pastels can really seem to come alive. The colors glow and shimmer as they are layered and blended.

Also, lately I've been working almost exclusively on black paper in these art groups. I like using the black paper because the brightly colored pastels (oil or chalk) really pop from the page. It also helps a little with the anxiety of a big blank sheet of paper, since it somehow doesn't seem to have the same expectation and intimidation of a white page.

When we were talking about our pieces, people said mine looks like someone reaching out to give a hug. An open circle. I like these ideas... I should actually explore some of my scribbles through poems and more artwork but lately I haven't really wanted to revisit my thesis!

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!)

Back in the studio

I started a new semester in a new ceramics studio, so you know what that means! ...Boring pictures of in-progress clay pieces!!! YAAAAAY!

Because I have extremely limited shelf space in this studio, I'm not really keeping anything I make until I'm satisfied with it. So no more misshapen bowls and stuff in the apartment, just the things I want to keep. The upside of this is that I can cut everything in half to see my technique and where I need improvement.

Today I made the tallest thing I've ever made (it's about 7 inches tall right now):



This teacher is explaining how to use our thumbs, which is nice because until now my thumbs kind of stayed out of the way. It's helping me make things taller, although after I made this I wasn't really successful for the rest of the day. SO whatever. I had a good run (haha).

Then I started my workstudy portion of the afternoon. I work from 3-6pm in exchange for class and studio time. First, I mopped the floors and wiped down the counters. Then I did the crossword.

Then at 4:30 the children's class started. It was chaos but SO MUCH FUN. The kids were ages 7-12, so I positioned myself between two 7 year olds at the wheel and basically gave them lots of attention in order to make sure they didn't fly out the window or something. One of the kids was so hilarious, I would say "I think you need more water," and he'd say "I agree!" or "I was just thinking that!" Ah yes. I'm sure you were.

It's also pretty amazing working with "normal" kids, aka, kids who have not suffered extreme abuse or trauma (this is my most recent experience working with kids). It feels so much different. I say to them, clean your tools, take your bucket to the sink, and come back to wipe down your station. And they do it! Okay, water gets everywhere, whatever, it's pretty much done how I asked them to do it.

And the behavior is enough under control that we can do funny things, like when we were looking at our hands and the girl said ,"it looks like I'm wearing mud gloves!" and I said, "I know, me too, look at my hands." She said, "no you have some spots without clay." "Well, I think you need to help me with that, then!" And then she wiped clay all over my hands so I had mud gloves, too.

That isn't to say I don't like working with kids who have a more difficult history, but it is very different. Working with these kids today makes me appreciate that work more, somehow.

Flower

I made this during the open art studio time at work yesterday. I'm not sure what it is. Someone suggested it's a water lily or lotus, someone suggested it's holding fire.

Directive: Ripped Paper

(Artwork by the group facilitator - me! - and shown with permission)

Ripped Paper (Coping with new situations)
Date(s) completed: 8/23/10

Single or Multi Session?
Single

Age of Group Members?
Adults (Could be adapted for all age groups)

Gender of group:
Men and women

Number of members?
10 (any size would work though)

Type of site?
Outpatient

Other relevant information about population or site?
Clients diagnosed with severe mental illness. The topic of the group is "Coping Skills Through Art"

Materials Used?
2d

Describe materials needed for directive
Large pieces of pre-ripped paper
Miscellaneous art supplies (markers, crayons, paint, tape, staples, glue, etc)

Directive Description:
Choose a piece of ripped paper and incorporate it into an art piece: be inspired by the shape, fold it up into something else, make a sculpture, whatever you'd like. But! Do not cut the ripped paper.

Objective:
The topic of this group is "coping skills through art." This directive asks clients to cope with new situations. Often, clients will make art using the same technique given content-related directives. This is a technique-related directive, where the content is up to the clients. This project can be frustrating so it is important to leave time for discussion of the experience at the end of the group and debrief any frustrations.

Prior directives or prep work with group?
Haven't posted them yet

Comments/questions/suggestions for improvement:
I think this could be a part of a large series of coping art projects.


This was also posted on the Directives Blog (which is a private blog for our class to share art therapy directives we come up with)

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?)

Exploration of Watercolors

I made this in one of my art therapy groups that I ran a few weeks ago. It was a day when the directive was mostly to explore a medium, which was watercolors (one of my favorites). I don't usually do watercolor paintings without using my favorite pens but here is what I made.



Sometimes it's good just to stop using the markers and crayons. Markers and crayons are good, but it's easy to get in a rut and make the same things over and over. By just changing the medium, the subject matter will change and hopefully it will inform other (marker and crayon) work. Even if it doesn't, it's nice to break out of the repetition - or, at least, it is for me!

Another time (in a different group), we explored clay and sculpey. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it but I really felt like it was a clay day that day. This particular kind of sculpey is interesting because it doesn't make your hands messy, but at the same time it is very hard and takes a lot of strength and endurance to make anything out of it. It turns out dealing with frustrating clay is kind of like dealing with other frustrating things... you just kind of have to keep at it, and know when to change your strategy. So much potential for conversation and metaphor!

Art therapy is so neat.

My Character Today

This isn't really an original idea but I did it today in one of my art therapy groups. The directive was to choose a character that you identify with today and then make a piece about it.

I said that my character is Dorothy from Wizard of Oz because I'm on a long, maybe scary journey and I have friends to support me on the way :)

So here is my piece:


I have never been good at drawing four-legged animals, so... that is a pretty sad lion.

My favorite part of the drawing is Dorothy. I had printed out some pictures of characters from movies, comic books, cartoons, etc, as inspiration or to incorporate into a picture.



Nice legs! (haha)