Therapy art

This is a work of knitting I did last spring for a class in positive psychology. The assignment was to map a strength using any format we wanted. I decided to knit a map of "connectedness."

But what I really want to say about it was how therapeutic the actual knitting was for me, and illuminating. I felt relaxed knitting maybe for the first time ever. Usually, my shoulders are around my ears and I'm clenching my teeth while I knit, but this was a pleasure. I felt more artistic than I do even when I make a pattern up because while that's a technical feat that only requires math and diligence, I had no idea what this would look like when it was done, and no expectations either. It feels like such a finished piece, especially because of the instructions that I wrote as my map of connectedness which extended all the metaphors of the materials and its structure in a very satisfying way.

This project made me fantasize that as a therapist I could knit people artifacts of their therapy. While they talked I could reach for different materials that were somehow significant and knit them into a piece that could represent the journey they had been on. I read somewhere once that Anna Freud knitted while she saw patients, but haven't been able to verify it!  This fantasy gave me an idea of what I would be like as a therapist, as a client spools out the material and together we create the artifact of the therapy. I like the idea of having something concrete coming from the symbolic.

More practically, it inspired me to take this class, because I saw a possibility for a new kind of communication through artwork that words aren't quite enough for.

Class Experience: Out of the Darkness

Despite my efforts to think less and do more in this class I found myself incapable of not thinking during this activity. With black paper in front of me and with the directive of showing something “out of the darkness” my instinct was first to draw stars or to draw two eyeballs, like in a cartoon when the lights go out. But when I heard the directive it automatically felt more metaphorical. I didn’t want to go with my instinct to paint stars or eyes, I wanted to find something that felt right and that fit into my personal narrative.

I thought about what it would mean to come out of the darkness in my life right now. I decided that for me, coming out of the darkness would mean moving forward without fear of regret or anxieties about the future. It would mean to just go, to stop worrying about where I’m going. It would mean knowing that even if the choices I make along the way are mistaken, the act of making those choices will not be. I’m at a point in my life where I often feel lost and stagnant, not as far along in a career or romantic relationship as I would like or as I imagine I would be. Still so uncertain about so many things. To come out of the darkness would mean to not feel so lost and to just go.

With this in mind I decided on a traffic light. As I drew it I recalled all the times I’ve been in a car during an intense tropical storm or mild hurricane, and the relief at seeing a lit up traffic light directing me safely home. I wanted to create the illusion that the green light was lit up and the red and yellow lights were not. As such, I was frustrated to find the green paint kept seeping into the black paper, making it difficult to create the effect I wanted for the green. However, the paint seeping into the paper did help with the red and yellow lights making them look turned off.

While I was content with my idea I was not so happy with the execution. I wish I would have allowed myself to work a little more freely with the water colors. I also did not space the green, yellow and red lights out appropriately which frustrated me immensely when I realized.

Finally, a power for my superhero

The superhero assignment was the hardest one I've had yet. I was completely blocked at coming up with a power for her. I made a nice, unassuming woman, but couldn't come up with a single power I wanted her to have. I was incapable of wishing anything sincere for her and couldn't think of anything funny. If it had been funny (as so many of the powers people in class mentioned were), it would also have had to be symbolic to me, and that just wasn't happening. I am not used to being left "speechless," and that's what my poor superhero was -- speechless because I couldn't give her a power.
Yesterday I was riding the subway with my kids, and I had, once again, been wrong about something, and my oldest son said, "See, I'm always right." It's kind of a joke because I often point out my fallibility, and he's trying on some infallibility. So, I thought, a really great superpower might be to always be right. Just always, have no doubt in yourself because if you think it, it must be right. Then I thought that might be kind of a burden -- really, who likes someone who is always right? And so my superhero had an instant weakness built into her strength.
In any case, I thought I'd mention it because this work had still been on my mind three weeks after we did it. It's a reminder that work we do with clients might stay with them too, and it's worth it to go back and see if they have any further thoughts about work they did in the past and see if anything new has come up.

When I came into class yesterday, I was excited to use my hands, get dirty and be creative and loose. After a week of writing midterm papers, all I wanted to do was let myself be free and not think. When we received the clay I was very much looking forward to getting my hands dirty and being creative. To my surprise, however, I found the material incredibly uncomfortable and irritating to work with. I was looking for something unstructured and messy, but the clay was just too unstructured and messy to be enjoyable for me. I ended up playing around with the clay in my hands for almost the whole time, resisting making anything out of it. Then as I was moving it around in my hands, I noticed the shape of a mouth. I decided to make big, pouty lips out of the clay. When I looked back at what I created I found my choice interesting because as I was playing with the clay, it kept reminding me of unappealing body parts and bodily functions. It was interesting to me that after these associations, I decided to create pouty, beautiful lips. I think I  was unconsciously resiting the unappealing bodily associations by going the opposite rout and creating a highly appealing body part.

Art Share: Wet Clay

At first I was not sure about this. I have always been fascinated by pottery, and was immediately reminded about my cultural background and my travels to the southwest, so naturally I thought about the amazing pieces I have seen. After cutting my clay, which ended up being pretty large, I immediately loved the color and feeling of it. It was like a stress ball (which another classmate mentioned). I wasn't reluctant to get dirty, I actually really enjoyed it. I felt that my hands were useful and that I was capable of making a piece of my own, that's why I made a vessel. I want to keep it and put it in my office as a visual reminder of perspective and capability.

Art Share: Watercolor

"Something coming out of the darkness"- At first I had no idea what to paint, so I wanted to represent that in colors. I started from dark colors and worked my way up, but the colors weren't as vibrant as I would have liked. It started resembling a mountain and I realized I have a thing for mountains and find such peace at the top of a hike. I also thought about the song, "ain't no mountain high enough," and I feel connected to it. I guess whenever I've hard dark moments, I've visualized a scene like this and have been able to make it through.

Art Share: Superhero Me

This is Gusto... she runs *really* fast, she has great agility, changes course with the speed of the wind and usually makes it there in the nick of time.

No need to be coy here, she's the soccer mom with the super speed.

I was so excited this week because one of the children I work with finally told me he wanted to draw a picture during our session (I work in an elementary school doing child-directed play therapy, and so far, all of the kids have only wanted to play board games). My client is 7 years old and it was our second session together.  I was looking forward to seeing a different side of him through his art, and I was also looking forward to putting some of the skills I've learned this semester into practice.

My client started to draw a map of a city, and my first inclination was to take out a marker and a piece of paper and draw next to him. However, I remembered our conversation in class surrounding what do to in this situation, and I decided that it would be more therapeutic to be present and watch his art-making rather than to focus on my own. I asked him if I could move the case of markers that was blocking his paper so I could watch him draw, and he said yes. For a minute, the room was quiet as he drew and I looked on. Then he said, "It's really quiet in here."As I'm not someone who is particularly comfortable with silence, I was surprised that he said this because I hadn't even noticed it was quiet-- I was so focused on what he was drawing. However, once he said this it was clear to me that he felt uncomfortable with the silence/me looking over his shoulder and giving him my undivided attention. I asked him how he felt about the silence and he said he didn't mind quiet if he was expecting it to be quiet, but he didn't like it if he wasn't expecting it to be quiet. I asked him if he wanted us to talk while he drew and he said yes. We started to talk but I could still tell that he seemed uncomfortable. My instinct told me that he didn't feel comfortable with all the attention I was giving him and his art, so I asked him if he wanted me to draw with him. He said yes and when I asked him what he wanted me to draw he said that I should also draw a city so we could put our pictures together when they were done.

I started to draw my own picture and the vibe in the room was immediately more comfortable. It was much easier for us to talk when I seemed to be focusing on something else. This changed the focus of the session and the purpose of the art making--his art was no longer the main point of the session; rather, it served as a distraction so he could talk more freely without feeling threatened or vulnerable. 

Art Share: Supergum

Hi everyone, I just wanted to post a picture of Supergum and Sidekick gum. They usually catch people by throwing themselves under shoes, but I think that by now they have probably been baked, so they might have to think of a new strategy.

Art Share: Pearl the Supergirl

This is Pearl the Supergirl. She is supposed to look like me with dark skin and long black hair. She was born in the ocean and lives both in the sea and on land. Her superpowers are being able to talk to animals (which is what I wish my own power was) and breathing underwater. Her leaf weapon helps turn waste into energy. Her weakness is trying to take on every problem of the world and being hard on herself.

I had a lot of difficulty creating this piece. At first I felt excited to create a superhero me and make her really cool. As I continued I felt stressed for time. At some point I decided to clothe her in red over the brown instead of just using the red as a body as I had already created a brown body. This proved a disaster and I got extremely angry because the clay was blending into each other and the body I had created just looked like a mush. I threw down my piece and almost felt like crying. A classmate told me just breathe even though inside I felt like storming out of the classroom. I eventually got it together and redid my piece even though I felt extremely rushed. I was not very pleased with my end product, but I was proud that I got it done and I loved it for what it was.

Art Share: Hugo and Mr. Whale

Here is my 3-D art piece we created in class a few weeks ago. Hugo the duck lives in land in a wetland type area while Mr. Whale lives in the Atlantic Ocean. Both are good friends and enjoy when Hugo gets on Mr. Whale's back to go on rides/adventures. Whales have always been my favorite animal ever since I was a child and whenever I am anxious/upset I picture a whale swimming in the ocean singing whale songs. I feel as though Hugo represents me as I sometimes feel stuck on "land" and wish I could swim away into the ocean. Both characters feel lonely apart, but together they are a strong team.

Article Share: Miami Art Program

Hey all! Here's an article my father clipped for me several months ago from my hometown's newspaper. I finally got around to reading it and was able to find a link online. It's about a therapeutic art group working at a women's prison in Miami. I thought it was an interesting read and really speaks to the idea of art as therapy. Enjoy!

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1982665.html

I'm currently placed at an Elementary charter school in Fort Green, Brooklyn, and this past week I had the pleasure of observing a second grade art class. I ended up sitting down at a table with four second graders- one girl and three boys. The assignment they were working on that day was to draw an animal. They could use markers and pencils to draw their animals and they were also allowed to glue bits of cut up paper to their projects. All of the children were working diligently on their animals but they seemed to be having a good time. One boy, however, started to grow very frustrated because he didn't know what animal he should draw. "Should I draw a panda or should I draw a zebra?" he kept asking the table. His classmates tried to help him decide. "Which animal is your favorite?" they asked. The boy said that his favorite colors were black and white and that he liked both animals so he couldn't decide. He sat and thought without drawing for a few minutes and then his art teacher came over and asked him if he needed help deciding what to draw. He told her his diliemma and she said, "Well, last year I remember you drew a lot of zebras in class. Maybe this year you can try something new and draw a panda!" The boy seemed satisfied with this logic and began to draw a panda.

Before joining the second graders' art class, I would have assumed that any 7-year-old would jump at the chance to try and learn new things.This scenario was interesting to me because it seemed to prove how difficult it was for people of all ages to step out of their comfort zones, take risks and try something new (especially when it comes to art). 

I had a hard time creating my super hero this past week. When Professor Fagen first told the class about the assignment I was excited about the prospect and had lots of ideas-- I knew I definitely wanted my super hero to look feminine and strong and also to have a long, awesome pony tail. I didn't mind the way she turned out, but I wasn't so happy with it either.

 I think the aspect of the project I found most frustrating was the material. I couldn't figure out a stable way to shape the clay, and my colors kept blending into one another, creating murky, almost dirty-looking surface. My ineptitude with the clay caused me to have a difficult time matching my idea of the character to what I was actually able to create in front of me. This exercise gave me a much better understanding of how important the materials are in the process of making art.

Animal Character

I'm not sure why I chose to create a polar bear, and her cub nonetheless. Perhaps I relate to her in some way. The colors are calming, and I like that she has white fur. She represents strength to me, not only being able to care for herself in harsh conditions, but for her cub as well.

Superhero n me

Meet Storm aka hippie Einstein. She's my superhero figurine and after much thought I finally have more meat to her story. I was feeling frustrated with the process of creating her and her having turned out so different from my idea of Storm from X-men that I did not have the energy or creative space left to feel connected with this cutie in front of me. The time since class has given me the space I needed to reflect on the exercise and bond with this miniature character that I brought to life.
So Ms Hippie here likes to sit and chill while the world whizzes around her. The thick white locks on her head seems to portray wisdom of an older person, whilst still retaining her youthful presence. She has her arms outstretched as she is open to letting people into her world. She has white spots on her black suit that she wears - maybe signifying energy points/specks of magic within her that she often forgets she has.
And so the story goes on and am sure I will unravel more along the way. This exercise has taught me the value of giving space for an art piece or exercise to grow on my clients, as this has for me. Moments of frustration may lead to something more insightful if I have the patience to sit with it and revisit the process maybe a few sessions later. And that's the beauty of creating art, it has a timeless quality to it that is often lost in just talking. 

Reflection on Currie's article - 'Doing Anger Differently...'

This reading made so much of sense for me as I am working in a high school, with teenage kids. Adolescence and angst often come together and I have encountered so many kids who have told me that they have an 'anger problem'. I don't really know how I feel about labelling their behaviours as 'anger' as it stigmatizes a very normal emotion - anger, into something that is seen as a problem. I remember my supervisor's infamous mantra that it is not anger, but what you do with it that determines if it is a problem or not. I liked how the author described music as a metaphor for emotion. Emotion is fluid and not static and addressing the varying states of emotion is a process rather than an intervention to be prescribed. The case examples provided about encouraging the boys to pick up a language to talk about their emotions were very helpful ideas to my work. In some ways, projecting anger as an external object to be discussed, removes some of the intensity and feelings of guilt and shame that often stops us from talking about our feelings. 

Art Share: Stippy

I had a very frustrating experience with this activity. We talked about using professional grade Sculpy to explore capacity to tolerate frustration, but I think I got that out of this "easy" scuply :) I just really had a hard time getting it to do what I wanted, and got so absorbed in the effort and the feeling of frustration that I didn't have that much attention available for creating a character. I had some ideas as I was sculpting but they were kind of in the back of my mind. I wonder whether resistance came up for me because we were talking about adolescence and resistance, but I really didn't want to answer the questions on the sheet of paper, or share in front of the group. It's probably useful to have the opportunity to connect with all of these feelings since I really enjoy working with teens, and might get to start doing so a little bit in my placement soon.

Class Experience: Superhero Project

I listened to music while doing this activity. I tend to over think things and often find it difficult to go with my gut. The music allowed me to get out of my own head a little bit and just go with the flow, not think so much about the choices I was making and whether or not they were clever or meaningful. It was a nice feeling to just grab clay and go for it, to just follow my instincts. It was interesting to then step back and notice a few things about what I created. The first thing I noticed was that the colors I chose to create my superhero were the same colors of my childhood bedroom: Pink, Yellow and Orange Second, I thought it was interesting that even though i gave her an arm shooting straight up, as if about to take off flying, I then made a base to which I grounded her. Lastly, for whatever reason I wanted to give mu super hero gray hair. I had hoped to give her several gray hairs but unfortunately, due to the time constraint, only added on gray streak. When the time came to fill out our Character Fact Sheets  the only thing I truly knew about my super hero was that she was middle-aged. Looking back, I think it's funny that I made a middle-aged character and yet dressed her in my childhood bedroom colors. Not sure what any of it means, if it even means anything, but interesting to think about...

Superhero Project

Dr. Greenzo

The only quality that I cared about for my superhero was that it could fly. I was very stubborn about this wish, even if it meant it looks like my superhero has met his doom in a bed of spikes. That being said, I am actually pretty happy overall with how it came out. During one of the first classes I talked about feeling anxious about creating art since it is not something I have done much of in my life. Since then I have reminded myself that I would never put so much pressure on myself in other aspects of my life to ever expect to be any good at something on the first try with such little experience. I see each new project in class as a first try. I have come away from each of them so far viewing it as a first draft or a learning experience, since this is all pretty new to me (or at least feels new; I certainly had to take art classes in school). This lets me be happier with my product and less judgmental towards whatever ends up on the table in front of me at the end of the period. I always think of what I would do "next time". There hasn't been a "next time" for any of the projects yet, but maybe that will change before the semester is over. That is something that I should make time to do at some point. 

Class Reaction - Superhero

"That moment of completion is also, inevitably, a moment of loss - the loss of all the other forms the imagined piece might have taken." 

Today I felt disappointed with the superhero I made. Not because I didn't like him or felt like I messed up, but rather I wanted it to be so much more. Once I put the finishing touches on him I wanted to roll it all up into a ball and start over. I didn't feel like I had given this idea my all, I didn't feel like I was "good enough" at art to do justice to what I had imagined. I suppose this may be what our clients feel like if they are to spend an hour working on a piece only to find it doesn't resonate with them. I think it is good practice to sit with a piece that you want to destroy. For me, it was a practice in acceptance and a reminder of the loss that is inherent in artmaking.

Quote from: Bayles, D. & Orland, T. (1993) Art & fear: Observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking. OR: The Image Continuum.

Response to Today's class

After class I thought more critically about the process in which I created my superhero. When the professor asked us to think about what our superhero's powers would be, I had a really difficult time reaching into the imaginative side of me. So instead, I simply started working, having few ideas of what she might look like. I focused on the appearance; what colors she would be wearing, what skin color and hair color she would be. I guess this was the easy part of the activity, and once I started working on it, I recognized that I was very much into every intricate detail of my superhero. I wanted her to be perfect, and felt I had a knack for molding the clay and put all the parts together. I was so centered and focused on my work, that it felt like I had spent 10 minutes on it rather than an hour.

But again, once it became time to name her, figure out her superpowers and other details, I started to become frustrated because I felt like I could not come up with something clever or something that could relate to me. Perhaps my self-doubt got in the way, or I became overly-critical of myself. Even after others shared their superheroes, I found many others to be funny, meaningful, or creative compared to mine.

Another Art Share: Snail in the Woods

I have been feeling very connected to the idea of snails lately – feeling aware of myself as someone who moves slowly through the world, or what feels like slowly compared to the pace of things surrounding me. The snail was the second clay animal I made, but I felt immediately connected to it, and felt warmly toward it, as if toward a part of myself that I hold dearly. I have this amazing photograph of myself as a six year old, gazing adoringly at a snail that was a class pet. It was nice to connect to these different snail associations through this art making, and was neat to see the different meanings that came out of one simple assignment. Painting was interesting for me – I got very focused, wanted to do a good job, really loved mixing the colors and creating new ones, and felt like I could have gone on forever in it. Creating a background of different shades of brown was really satisfying- I love doing that, and I love drawing/painting trees, but don’t get the chance to do it very often. I also feel deeply connected to forests and trees, so this whole image became very soothing for me, and also telling of the tensions and contradictions I hold living in this bustling city.

Art Share: The Eye

 I know I am posting late on this, but here I go. When prompted to draw my “go-to” childhood drawing, I went immediately to the eye, which was drawn everywhere in my middle school notebooks. It was interesting to hear in the class that this is a very common image for young people to cling to. For me it was definitely about the idea of mastery – I learned how to draw an eye, felt somewhat capable in doing so, and kept doing it – I liked the results. I am pretty sure I was taught by some friends who were taking drawing classes outside of school. I am pretty sure I mostly drew in pen and pencil (not colors) because I was doodling in class, but because we had colors for the exercise I used them. Using the colors brought up memories of trying to draw my eyes with accurate colors at some point back there, and remembering noticing the details of the colors of my eyes, eyelids, eyelashes etc. at some point in my life. These were not painful mirror memories of scrutiny but more benign mirror memories of just detailed noticing. Again, it is notable how much can emerge from this one simple prompt/assignment.  I am currently at a macro placement, and it is great but I am a little bummed that I don’t have the current opportunity to try these activities out!

Directive v. non-directive work with children

A response to class discussion about working with children from several weeks ago: During this discussion, I was really wishing I had this class and information available to me during my first year internship. I worked with both high school and kindergarten students, and with the kindergartners mainly engaged in “non-directive play therapy”, meaning I took the lead from the students, and was very focused on providing a different response to behavior than other adults, a safe space for them to show me whatever they needed to, and an opportunity for them to be in charge – within the “change expectation about how environment will respond” goal.  I think this is always valuable, but I think my skill was limited to that realm. I had one student who, week after week, wanted to do the same thing: print out a coloring book style outline of Ironman, and color it in, or alternatively, have me draw the outline and color it in. I tried many times to see if the student would draw the Ironman or to play with it in different ways, but the student was intent on this plan. I don’t know how much I served him by indulging in this. I couldn’t really control the materials available because he knew that the school had computers and printers and that teachers and administrators could be asked to print things. Lack of a stable and private space was a barrier in creating boundaries in what materials were available. I would be very curious to hear ideas of what I could have done to move this relationship in new and meaningful directions. Meanwhile, teachers were happy because his behavior had generally improved, but it's hard to say what the cause of this was- he may have simply figured out how to better navigate the school system he was newly a part of. 

Response: What's really going on

On the day that we were given pastels for the first time, I felt a real connection to my artwork. I walked into class late but was able to dive right into a list of possible things I could draw. Everything about the picture I drew connected to an emotion I was dealing with at the moment. We went through a list of the types of things people will draw such as telling a story, expressing a feeling, depicts a relationship, depicts oneself and more. Looking back on my art work, I was connecting to multiple aspects of my life through the expression of art. I not only felt connected to my drawing but I was proud of the work that I had done. I had taken a picture of it because of the meaning it provided to me and sent a message saying that things may be unbalanced now but that it is just temporary. I had just moved into the city and beginning school, starting my internship, and working another job. I realized I was barely sleeping where my days turned into nights, into days and I was not fully focused. I also realized that I had no been taking care of myself and that everything happened so quick my mind was running. I decided to depict this by drawing night and day and how they were opposite but slightly meshed. I only drew the yin/yang because I had been watching the TV show Psych where two of the bad guys were called yin and one called yang and it had been stuck in my mind from the night before. It surprised me that all this meaning could be uncovered through a drawing as well as send other messages that I had not realized before. I loved this exercise.

Response: Lost in translation; from the mind to the art piece

As I began to mold my magnificent animal that I had pictured in my mind, I had only hoped that it would look the same way. I have an artsy and creative imagination and when drawing, it doesn't always end so well. I thought to myself, molding an animal will be easy, I can do this. In reality, this elephant did not look like I planned what so ever. I couldn't even create it as an object but merely as a flat shape. It was disappointing and almost more disappointing that I would have to work on it again the following week. As I came up with ways I would save my poor Penelope from my no so fabulous art skills, I imagined an elephant I saw in a picture that I imagined was from India with a beautiful painted trunk. So I went for it! In the end, it still didn't come out the way I expected it to. Painting for me was extremely therapeutic and was a way to really focus on one thing and not be distracting by everything else going on around me. I may not be able to present my artwork successfully just yet, but I will continue to try.