Final Blog Post-- Arts Therapy Activity With My Mother

For my final blog post I decided to ask my mother to participate in a creative arts therapy activity. I had all the art materials, and she was willing to help me out, but I couldn’t decide what art activity or creative prompt to give her in order to get her started. I wanted to give her some direction, because she specifically asked for it, but I didn’t want it to be too bland of a direction (such as “draw the first letter of your name”) because I wanted it to have enough substance for it to be meaningful. I also didn’t want the activity to become too personal and invasive, both to protect her privacy, and to shield myself from finding out things I may not really want to know.

In the end, I decided to tell her about all the arts activities we did in class and let her pick one that interested her most. To my delight, she chose the “draw a bird’s nest” activity. I was excited that she chose this particular exercise, because of its implications surrounding motherhood and nurturing.  As she was working on the drawing (she used pastels on a white blank piece of paper) she had a slight smile on her face and continually looked at her work as if she were appraising it. She noted a few times that she wasn’t a good artist and I assured her that I wasn’t judging her art based on how good it was, and that art therapy was about expressing feelings, not drawing perfect things.

After she was done, my mom showed me the picture she drew. She seemed a bit self-conscious, so I tried to take the focus away from her skill by asking her about her art making process. My mom told me that the first thing she did was make the bottom of the nest so that the eggs would be supported. She then said that she made the tree next so that it could support the nest.  I then made some neutral comments about the piece, such as, “I see you used blue for the eggs. Can you tell me about that?” My mom said that she used blue to signify childlike purity and innocence.  I asked her about her choice to draw a sun and she said she drew an orange and yellow sun because she wanted the eggs to live in a happy and warm environment. I then asked her if she saw herself in the picture, and my mom said that if she were in the picture, she would be the bird, and the bird would be hovering over the nest with a worm in it’s mouth, ready to give the eggs food when they needed it. I asked her why she didn’t draw the bird and she told me she didn’t draw the bird because she didn’t know how to draw a bird well, and the bird she pictured in her mind was very detailed. She said she didn’t draw it because she thought she wouldn’t be able to.

I then turned the picture around and asked my mom if she saw anything differently. When I turned the picture on its side, my mom said she saw a bird lying in the nest—she said the tufts of straw looked like the bird’s hair, and the space next to it looked like a beak. She then pointed out that in this position, the eggs were lying on the bird’s belly. I asked her how the bird felt with the eggs on its belly. Were the eggs heavy? Did they feel comforting? My mom laughed and said “the eggs are heavy! That bird is tired!” I asked her if that how she felt, and she said that after cooking Thanksgiving dinner this week and looking after everyone in our immediate and extended family, she felt tired and like she needed a vacation.

I then asked her if there was significance in the number of eggs she drew. She said that she deliberately drew 8 to show all the people she takes care of. She counted 4 eggs for her four children, one egg for her husband, and one egg for her elderly, ailing mother. I asked her whom the two other blue eggs represented and she said she didn’t know. She thought about it for a minute and said she didn’t realize she put two extra eggs down. Then she said that maybe the two eggs were meant to signify the general people in her extended family and network of friends that she feels responsible for taking care of. It was interesting to me that even though she made a choice to consciously add the eggs, she still unconsciously added more eggs to the list. 

After the activity was over, my mom and I debriefed about the experience. It was clear to both of us how much responsibility and pressure she sometimes feels from taking care of so many people. In the end, I was very glad that I chose to do this activity with my mother. I was able to see a different side of her and I think it was helpful for her to see her own caretaking experience in a different light.