Final Blog: Art therapy session with my friend Sharon

I decided to ask my friend, Sharon, to participate in the assigned art therapy session. Sharon has been a friend of mine for about three years now and actually lives in my apartment building, right below me. Sharon is a lover of animals and works as a full time dog walker/cat sitter. She is a loyal and thoughtful friend and very self-reflective. She also has a background in the arts and has worked as a graphic designer. Although I will not go into her whole life story on this blog I will just say that she is currently in an unstable relationship that has been weighing on her heavily. When I called Sharon, explained the assignment and asked if she was interested in participating, I was not surprised when she enthusiastically agreed to give it a try.  

Before Sharon arrived, I cleaned my apartment and organized a couple of different “art stations” where she could work from (the kitchen table and on the floor in my bedroom with lots of pillows). I made sure I had an array of materials for her to choose from (watercolors, oil pastels, color pencils, clay, scissors, inkblot ink, scotch tape, glue and different colored paper). Knowing Sharon fairly well, I thought it would be helpful to offer her some structure by providing her with a selection of directives, while still giving her choice over which one she engaged with. I decided on the following directives -- “Create an image that expresses an emotion, tells a story, depicts a relationships” or simply “be/play/meditate with the material”.

When Sharon arrived, she decided she preferred working on the floor. When I gave her the different directives, she decided she was going to “be/play/meditate with the material” because as she stated, it sounded like the least emotionally triggering and that she would approach it with less self-judgment than the other directives, as there would not be any goal to obtain.

As she was sifting through the different colored paper I had bought specifically for this project, I was surprised when she asked if I had white paper. I realized that although I thought I had put a lot of thought into making sure I had a wide selection of paper, I had forgotten one of the most obvious choices of paper! I suddenly noticed my own self-judgment creeping into the room. Why did I forget to bring white paper?! Noticing what was happening, I acknowledged my critical mind and tried to return to the task at hand and asked Sharon if it was important for her to have a piece of white paper. As I was asking her this, her eyes began to settle on a piece of purple paper. She said that she was very happy with purple because it was a healing color.

She chose watercolors as her main medium and began to paint. I told her she had roughly about 30 minutes but that she could stop whenever she felt finished or go overtime by a little. Sharon began by making fluid, swirling patterns, blending different colors together and using lots of brown. After about five minutes she paused and asked if she could start over again. I found her reaction very interesting and wasn’t sure how to respond. I wanted to give Sharon freedom to do what she wanted, however, I was also curious about why she was feeling unsettled. When I asked her why she felt the need to move on she said that the painting was looking “too muddy” and that although she loves the color brown she did not like “that brown”. She also said that there wasn’t any more room on the page and she knew that if she continued the painting, it was just going to get muddier. With that, she asked if it was OK to move on to the next painting and I said yes. I was hoping we might eventually move back to the first painting to further explore what was transpiring on the page. As I reflect now writing this piece, I wonder if one of Sharon’s main expressed fears – self-judgment – was getting in the way.

Sharon painted for about 25 minutes on the second paper and created a scene of what she described as a bird trying to escape chaos, caught between a sunset and darkness. What most stood out for me was the way that Sharon described her process. Sharon said that she began by making a green stroke, which reminded her of a bird. Once she saw the bird emerge she did everything she could do to preserve and protect it. She said that at first it looked like the bird was trying to escape from chaos (the mixture of colors on the right) but that then it started to resemble a sunset. Then, as she describes, she thought to herself, “Oh no, the bird is flying out of the sunset into shit”. When I asked her if she saw herself in the painting she immediately said, “Yes, I guess I am the bird”. She said the painting was undeniably a metaphor for how she feels in her current relationship - she is struggling to break free. She said that she specifically was careful to not cage the bird in and left space on the top for the bird to fly free. When Sharon spoke there was a real tenderness and emotion in her tone. Oftentimes, when I have heard her speak about her relationship she seems a bit distant from what she is saying and that she is intellectualizing the problem to some degree. This exercise seemed to allow her to be with the situation in a different way.

During our discussion I also commented on the style of painting that she used. At first I noticed that her brush strokes were very fluid and that they became more pointed and jerky. Sharon stated that this shift occurred when she started to judge her doodles and herself. Once again, just like in the first painting, her self-judgment was naturally emerging. Sharon stated that she was surprised to discover that she actually really liked her final product. Later when we were talking after the session Sharon asked if art therapy was meant to act as mirror for our life patterns. I said that yes, if we are paying attention we will see many of the same struggles and tendencies we go through in our daily lives, emerge through our engagement with the art. She said that made a lot of sense to her and that her struggle to break free from dysfunctional relationships with men and her self-judgment were two of the greatest obstacles in her life weighing her down.