Experientials Vol. 32

I can't believe that this semester is almost over with, and more importantly that my first year of grad school is almost over... WOW! I have one two finals, and a couple more assignments to turn in but beyond that...

This piece is one that I actually did not work on, but I (with my partner) directed an art therapy group session. The topic was the end of the group, and the group decided to make a group portrait. It ended up being more of individual portraits, all connected by the web.

This is a piece that I did at the end of class. There were no directives, I just made art. The process on this one was so interesting to me. I had no direction, I just went and picked out paper, and I liked both the pink and the black paper. And then I tore the pink and glued them together to create one sheet. I then began making some swirly marks. This started to look like a tree, and so I elaborated on the tree. As I outlined all the branches, the peacock began to emerge, and so that is what the final product became. It is really crazy that it evolved from piecing two things together, into a tree which is growth, into a peacock which is beautiful. There are many metaphors there!!!

Experientials Vol. 31

Today we talked about merger and the idea that women often form close relationships with females and "merge" with them. It was really interesting, to talk about this and to dialog about why this happens with women more than men... one explanation was that women are just better :) and just more attuned to others emotions. We were supposed to look at different women friendships in our past and then draw about them. So in my piece some of my friends are represented as circles, as am I. Although we never completely merged, in an unhealthy way, there were some mergers and overlapping.

This experiential was led by the Jungian group, where sandtrays are an essential part. We made our own mock sandtrays and created these environments for animals that we picked out. I picked a penguin because they mate for life and a lady bug because they represent luck. After creating the environment, I noticed that I had only one penguin, and got another one for him so that he could have a mate. What was interesting is that I completely hid the ladybug, and essentially hid the luck. However if you look at some of the closeup pictures, I made the penguin leave footprints in the sand leading to the ladybugs hiding place, and in essence allowed him to be able to find the luck.

Experientials Vol. 31

Today we worked with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the object of the experiential was to link a thought to our feelings. We started out warming up with movement and then created a movement around our thought. I have been thinking a lot lately about how it feels like I live two separate lives sometimes. The one at school and the one at home., so my movement was almost like a pulling apart. And then we translated this to the paper. What I realized after looking at this is that although they are separate, they are also close together, although there is no overlap. And the "opposing" colors I chose were not so opposing. I chose, pink and purple, then yellow and orange, and blue and green. All those combinations are very similar pairs, and are next to each other o the color wheel. As part of the CB Therapy we were given homework. Mine was to continue to work with this feeling and movement. I would like to see what happens if the lines start to overlap...

This is just a close up of it where you can see the colors and lines.

And this shows the big giant paper with my classmates images on them as well. It is always really neat to work this big and really get the body movement into it.

Experientials Vol. 30

I can't believe that we only have a few weeks left. There are so many papers due between now and then... It seems very daunting now, but I am sure that they will all get done—one by one.

Today in Multicultural class we looked through an African symbol book and picked out symbols that we were drawn to and created a piece with them and then we looked at the meanings to see what we were intrinsically drawn to. My symbols (starting at the top left and going clockwise) mean: wisdom, pride & greatness, and warning against evil. (The last symbol is also a stylized Foofoo seed.) It was interesting to do the process this way and see what symbols we were drawn to and what this might mean to use. I was drawn to the repetitive circle symbols, probably because circles and circular figures are already symbols in my artwork.

One of the presentations today was on the Hispanic culture and as part of that presentation, we made worry dolls. Here is what mine looked like. It was commented that we have the same hair ;)

During group class, we worked in a Gestalt group. We created a piece to music based on how we were feeling as we came to the class. I had come in today not feeling well, having woken up with an asthma attack and now feeling the residual ickiness and starting to get a headache. As we processed these pieces we were supposed to ask the pieces what it had to say to us and then claim this with an "I" statement. Mine said "I am undefined in the midst of chaos." As I was painting the blob form began to emerge and I felt like it was indicative of how I felt. I felt foggy, and not myself, and I also felt the stressors of the outside world (school etc...) pressing in on me. However in the inside of "me" is still the real me, and although I may not feel like myself, I am still me and will regain composure soon. It was a refereshing piece, and I feel like it said what it needed to to me.

These are the pieces that I did while processing the slideshow of client work that was given. They are very small (one quarter of and 8.5x11) and were all just quick to process the feeling that the slides were bringing up. The first was in response to group pieces that were done by women who had been sexually assualted and who now could not express what being held felt like. This is my representation of what it feels like to be held when you feel safe. I feel it is all encompassing and that it almost feels as if you are one figure, though you are actually two. The second is a piece in response to women who were uncomfortable expressing anger and I wanted to see if I could access my anger and represent it visually.

This first one was about the overpowering sorrow that some of the women felt and how that must feel. I felt like it would only be a drop in the bucket... and that each tear is meeting an ocean of others. The next one was in response to the fingerpainting slides she showed. At first I was just drawing and then I realized it was similar to my fingerpainting. I remembered being struck by the ghost image and that affecting me, and this had also affected the women in this group. I guess in ways I identified with them and was taken back to my image.

These two were completed during the remainder of the slides, but I am unsure of their meaning at the moment, although I think that they may have just been a way for me to connect with the slides being shown, since I was having a hard time connecting (because I was feeling so bad).

Experientials Vol. 29

So we are getting close to the end of the semester and all the projects are starting to be due. This is a piece that I did for my child and adolescent class. It was about splitting and the concept of not being able to hold both the good and bad in one person. So I took these jars and filled them with little strips of paper that say good and bad on them. It was a nice way of exploring the concept.

This piece was a piece that we did while playing the part of a woman that had lost their mother at a very early age. And this piece was supposed to be about a significant relationship. With this piece my character talked about not ever fully letting people in and often pushing them away.

Experientials Vol. 28

Well let's just say today was a very intense experience to say the least. In fact I am a little shy of putting some of this out there, and am not even sure I will have the guts until I finally hit publish post... It is personal and I am scared of sharing it, but I think that it is such a testament to art and the therapy...

So here is one of our warmup pieces. It was fingerpaints, which was an amazing regression. We painted to music and it was interesting to see how the piece evolved over the 10 minutes or so that we painted it. I felt the paint between my fingers and under my nails, it was so smooth and it was nice to be in physical contact with the materials. It doesn't really look like much of anything, but it was really a great experience

We had put a piece of paper up under this finger paint and when we removed it, there was a ghost image, or where our smaller painting had went outside the boundaries as well any stray marks we had made. I am a messy painter so there were a lot of stray marks. We were asked to look at this ghost image and free associate and then create a much larger piece again to music. Well I saw a kiss in the palm print that I had left, some claw marks that were where I wiped paint off my finger and then the white box where my painting had been. This is what emerged. Again, it doesn't look like much but it was a very tactile experience

And this is the one that hit home. This painting is by a process called core painting in which it is a very cognitive experience and you are supposed to let your psyche paint what needs to be painted even if you do not want to paint it or if you think it will be ugly. In fact you have dialogs with the painting and the facilitator (in this case the professor) would help you ask the painting questions when you are stuck. It is supposed to bring out unconscious material and you are not supposed to have to share the story behind what it brings out. Now I am a firm believer in art therapy and about it getting to the trauma, also about unconscious material emerging, but I was not prepared for this. So I am painting and first I paint horizontal lines that are blues and then a black bottom. So then I was compelled to use red paint and for some reason had an image of blood dripping, and so I added this to the black and made a small red blob above it. At this point I thought that I had ruined the piece and called the facilitator over. We dialogged with the piece and I knew that the next addition was to be the yellow circle in the corner. I then felt compelled to add on to the red blob and it grew became a larger red blob. I then added the orange horizontal lines in the blackness. When I took a look at what I had drawn I saw something that shocked me, and scared me. I saw my trauma represented in front of me, burning and bleeding. I am not sure what else would have emerged from this piece, for our session was cut short. We will continue to work on it next week, but now I am left with a traumatic, somewhat sexual and vulgar image that quite frankly brought to the surface events that I would just as soon forget. So there it is, the power of art therapy... it can sometimes be scary... but if I had been in a session, it certainly would have brought to the forefront issues that I may need to talk about, or reconcile in a newly developed fashion. I have never painted about this quite so literally, though I often painted the lack of self-esteem I was left with afterwards. It was quite shocking to have it present itself in this manner, and so clearly, visibly and somewhat eloquently. I would like to think that the yellow orb is the sun and that it is a symbol for new beginnings and rising above this and beyond this trauma. I would like to hope.

Spring Conference

Today was the SIUe 25th Annual Spring Art Therapy Conference and we were really fortunate to have Shaun McNiff (http://ada.lesley.edu/faculty/ftmcnifj/). The workshop centered around working with resistance. Shaun is an amazing speaker—he is very charismatic and really understands the value of involvement. The whole experience was really inspiring. Shaun really utilizes all the arts in his practice, and we explored a lot of movement interpretations as well as created our pieces while he was playing rhythmic music on drums and sanzas (an african instrument that is really enchanting!).

Here are some pictures of our ceremonial scarfs from the program. At our orientation at the beginning of the fall semester we started our scarfs and their was a scarf ceremony to welcome us into the program. Throughout our time in the program we continue to work on the scarves, and they become symbolic of our growth as therapists and in the program. Since this was the 25th Anniversary of the program, we displayed the scarfs of past alum and current students and faculty—it was really a beautiful sight.

This is the first piece that we did. It was about using movement to create the image, and letting the image itself emerge. It was really easy to lose yourself in the artmaking with the enchanting music in the background. I started a second piece but did not get to finish it (so you get to see what a work in progress looks like!). After making these pieces we learned how to respond to our pieces through movement, and eventually responded to a partners piece as well through movement. (It was quite humorous because we were supposed to work with someone we didn't know and Tessa and I were the last ones to not pair up—so I ended up being paired with the one person I know the best. We commented to Shaun about this and he said "that's fate for you!")

Here is all of us walking through the images and witnessing them. Shaun described this as a beautiful dance, and it was so nice see all these images that had emerged, and to know that we all created them together. We were all witnesses to this creativity—it is so beautiful and inspiring.

The next piece we did was to be made out of natural objects. The dogs and I had gone on some nature walks to gather stuff the night before, so almost all the stuff is from the apartment grounds or the park across the street. We then witnessed everyone's piece and then had a dialog with our own piece. Right before we started the dialog, my piece was accidentally broken, and I had to fix it. Knowing that, this is what mine said:

It's ok to be broken and put back together
I am changed but I am still me
The integrity of my own uniqueness
How fragile am I, yet I can regroup and be strong

It was really amazing to me how a piece that I did not originally see as very meaningful spoke to me at a core level, and had so many important things to say to me. It was so valid and relevant to my life, and who I am.

As a closing ritual we all brought our nature objects to the center of the room and spoke one word about the day/our pieces. It was really nice to see all the pieces gathered together in one place, and to hear the variety of words evoked. Mine was bonded. (If you look closely you can see my piece!) It really was an inspirational day... what a treat!