Posts from the ‘art therapist’ Category

Jan 14

Mending Walls and Making Change

ATCs on parade

At some point in their studies, art therapy students discover the “media continuum.” On this continuum, media are placed along along an invisible line moving from point A to point B line according their degree of safety and control.

A lead pencil at one end of the continuum offers a feeling of familiarity and control–and on the the opposite end spectrum, oil paint offers an unwieldy challenge. If you don’t watch out, you might find your client who has difficulty with impulse control spraying the paint all over your office walls.

The key is to match the both the media and the intervention to the needs of the client. To non-art therapists, this might sound theoretical and over cautious.

It’s not. In my very first art therapy bereavement group many years ago, an angry adolescent punched a hole in the wall of the hospital in which I was working; his reaction to my misdiagnosis of media and intervention. I hadn’t read the signals and had asked the group to attempt something that put this young man face to face with his grief far too early in his grieving process.

If I hadn’t been convinced about the medium continuum before, if my teachers’ stories seemed only to be tall tales, I became a convert and I’ve employed it ever since.

I use the same principle in my own art. When I’m feeling stretched thin, I stick with materials over which I have more control. When I’m feeling expansive, my work and my materials grow too.

Right now, I’m in the process of sanding the panel edges of my “Mending Wall” series. I love this series, but I don’t like finish work. It feels like all the fun and discovery is over and I’m doing the visual equivalent of balancing a checkbook.

Mending Wall 1,© 2012, H. Hunter, 12" x 12," paper, watercolor on panel

Recently, I decided to intersperse the task of sanding with our 6 Degrees of Creativity “Pocket Change” project. My deal for myself is: finish one sanded panel–make one artist trading card.

I’ve arranged the artist trading cards, in various stages of completion, at a discreet distance from where I sand. I can see them while I work, their bright colors shining, offering the possibility of almost instant gratification.

Mending Wall 1, edges sanded and stained

I’m beginning to love sanding. By creating a new rhythm: hard medium/easy medium/hard medium, I’m finding patience and sanding is leading to new ideas for my next series. I love the smooth, variegated surface of the wood.

Meanwhile, artist trading cards gather at the end of the table, ready to be mailed off for Beth Rommel, collector and distributor for our Pocket Change project. Gretchen Miller, Beth and I have concocted this project to focus on the power of creating change through making something small (in the form of artist trading cards) and through engaging in simple acts of creative kindness.

You get the picture–help yourself, help others–it’s not too late to join us! The deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday, January 15. For more information on the exchange, click here.

I also invite to share stories about your own media continuum experiences–whether you called it that–or maybe just “those darn pastels!”

Dec 20

2 Comments

“Caring for children…our first job”*

"Holding the Light" ©2010, H. Hunter, 5" x 8", SoulCollage®

Lately, it’s been a Charles Dickens kind of time. You know, that line from The Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”

These words, written by Dickens in 1859, 153 years ago, speak worlds about today. When I juxtapose the lights of Chanukah and Christmas against the carnage in Connecticut, I wonder how we can comprehend this paradox of light and dark. I don’t know.

I took heart as I listened to President Obama speak at the memorial service for the 20 souls of the children and souls of the 6 adults.

“This is our first task — caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.

And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations?…I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We’re not doing enough. And we will have to change.“

That is a call to action if I ever heard one and it makes me take a closer look at my immediate world.

It’s easy to become desensitized working as an art therapist in a hospital–every day–a census filled with names, ages, diagnoses.

Lately that census has included more than one child who wasn’t adequately cared for; whose parents didn’t meet their obligation and left them untended, unfed, or even worse, dropped or shaken.

My mind cannot contain the range of extreme thoughts which arise, watching a toddler careen around the playroom sporting an NFL-size helmet for self-protection.

Often, due to brain injuries, these children have little or no impulse control, so put away those crayons and markers art therapist, it’s time to get moving.

The task becomes following them, holding them, talking to them, playing with them, getting down on the ground and dancing with them and in every way that I can, loving them.

In this new year to come, I challenge us all to take one small step toward the goal of caring for all of our children. What might that be? Taking time to listen, really listen when a child speaks, (put down the cell phone already!), donating time or money to an organization that brings aid to children, reading to a child, mentoring one, teaching a class at a local art center or finding a school that needs your aid.

There’s only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we hold — for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a little one’s embrace – the best cure for the worst of times.

*President Obama in his address to Newtown CT, 12/17/12.

Dec 10

6 Comments

Winter Wisdom

“Art expression itself is a way of creating something new from what you already have, but may not have fully recognized within yourself.” Cathy Malchiodi

The other day I received a newsletter from my art therapist friend Lisa Mitchell.

She’s constructed a new series of workshops, including a vision board* workshop–and not just any old vision board workshop. Her descriptions note that, by using ordinary materials in unusual ways and learning new techniques, our intentions are solidified. In the process, our brain gets a workout using all our senses. The point is to bring our abstract ideas and dreams into the realm of the concrete and plausible, by incorporating them into the board.

That got me thinking about my own vision board, which I wrote about in a post, “Mindfulness at Play,” at the beginning of the year. I decided to go back to the board and see what has come to pass.

As I look at the board, I see a large, peaceful Buddha’s head framed by conifers and plants that remind me of our winter foliage here in California. Underneath the Buddha, from left to right, children hold a board filled with artist trading cards. To the right of the children a yoga class takes place. A teacher is helping a student with a pose.

In my post, I said that I wanted to deepen my art therapy practice; to become more present with the children, even as my own are grown. And I wanted, although I didn’t write it, to have a steady yoga practice.

What’s odd is that both of these desires have come to pass, but not by deliberate intention. The vision board hung on my studio wall, where it watched over me and I looked at it, day after day, while a year passed.

It has not been a straight path back to yoga–(is it ever?) Like Goldilocks, first I sampled the “big bowl,” a class at our University gym. I was the oldest participant and the class, a Viniyasa practice, and I felt like I’d just had an aerobic workout, not a yoga class.

Next, for my “middle size bowl,” I tried a class offered through our hospital. The instructor offered peacefulness with a pale green scented candle. I ended up with a migraine.

Finally, for a bowl that is just right. The solution came in an unexpected fashion. Both my daughter and my sister have recently been diagnosed with auto-immune diseases that make certain movements difficult.

I remembered yet another yoga class I’d taken the previous year for people 55 and over. Led by the fearless and inimitable, Hana Raftery, majoring in exercise physiology, she had every one of us, from me to the oldest 80- something moving with ease.

I e-mailed her and set up a private lesson for my daughter and me. I invited my sister, who suggested we have it in her new house, which has a wooden floor, but would be empty for another month. Shazaam! A yoga studio!

Downward dog pose

We began by meeting once a week and now have increased it to 2 times. We’ve been meeting since before Thanksgiving and even though the two of them are still waiting for their respective rheumatology consults, their movements are coming more easily.

I am in hog heaven, if you can say that about a yoga class. I feel like I really have found the bowl that is “just right.” And it all started with a small 8.5 x 11 vision board.

I’m looking forward to making my 2013 vision board soon and I invite you to join me and make your own. Who knows, those dreams might just be waiting for an invitation to come out and play!

*A vision board is usually a piece of matte board on which you paste or collage images that you’ve torn out from various magazines. The intention behind the vision boards is the notion that when you surround your self with images of what you want to develop or change, your life changes to fit the images.

Aug 28

7 Comments

Take 2: Palliative Care and Paper Swaps (The Whole Story)

Paper Offering for Missouri Artist, Alies

Our pediatric department is beginning a pediatric palliative care team and as we lay the groundwork, we’re introducing the idea of integrative therapies to our pediatricians.

It’s not a new idea. My colleague Kathy Lorenzato, a music therapist, has been teaching and practicing Reiki, a hands-on healing technique, for over 10 years, and I have joined her for the last 4 years. As far as integrative therapies go inside the hospital, at the moment, we’re it.

With this in mind, the two of us were invited to speak to our pediatric physicians on staff about art therapy, music therapy and Reiki. I made a PowerPoint to explain the use of art in palliative care and put together a resource list on other integrative therapies.

It sounds simple on the surface, but as my husband noted, trying to explain the value of therapies whose effects cannot be quantified, to a group of science oriented folks, made me more than a bit nervous.

That’s where my own art therapy came into play. Over the last couple of weeks, I participated in a Paper Swap organized by Gretchen Miller of 6 Degrees 2. I mailed my offering to an artist living in Missouri and looked forward to receiving an envelope of my own in return.

Days passed while I worked on the PowerPoint and my anxiety rose accordingly. Raised in a family with a healthy number of doctors, I’ve had some run ins with scientific minds and I’ve always felt myself lacking. Although art therapy requires a certain amount of intellectual engagement, I depend more heavily on my intuition, letting passion do the heavy lifting.

One day last week at the peak of my fear, a large padded envelope arrived, postmarked Australia. I opened it carefully and sifted through the contents; feathery tissue, textured rice papers, leaves of patterned scrapbooking pages and a packet of gaily colored buttons.

A tantalizing package from Beth in Australia

I considered the colors and shapes sitting on my lap and something shifted internally. As I touched the papers, taking in the colors, patterns and textures, my fear eased. I realized that “right here, right now” on my couch I was experiencing the tangible results of art therapy.

I went into the presentation 2 days later with an insight. Rather than seeing the doctors as a group of individuals whose opinions I wanted to change, I saw an opportunity to heal the split between my own thinking and feeling, between the intellectual and the artistic.

I stood on the podium, praying the memory stick and my own memory would work. As I looked at the slide of a patient’s artwork projected behind me, I remembered the joy I felt working with him–but I also remembered the research, the effort that others had gone to, in order to document the effectiveness of art therapy. Research that is necessary for art therapy to be accepted into the treatment team’s fold.

The presentation went well. The physicians were attentive, and even better, I felt the old split inside me being carefully drawn back together. When our talk ended, we gave a Reiki demonstration. Up there on the dais, Kathy, one of the pediatric residents, our Child Psychiatrist and I offered Reiki treatments to four doctors who came forward. I felt the tide beginning to turn.

Jun 10

5 Comments

Reiki in the Studio

In my last post, “A Light Touch,” I talked about the correspondences between practicing Reiki (a hands-on healing technique) and working with watercolors. (The Reiki Program at our hospital is directed by Kathy Lorenzato, music therapist and Reiki Master.)

The following week, the number of patients referred to me for Reiki treatments curiously multiplied and the week after that, there were even more. While I can see that Reiki clearly helps; patients quivering in pain slowly relax and fall asleep, even skeptical teens, who eye me suspiciously at first, doze off as well…I’ve become curious about how acting as a conduit for this mysterious energy affects me.

I notice that as energy pulses through my hands, it takes on different visual patterns in my internal awareness. At times it feels like a horizontal ellipse, pulsating and then changing to a vertical elliptical pattern. Sometimes small circles of energy seem to be there and other times the circles grow larger, for no noticeable reason that I can perceive or figure out.

I became fascinated with these internal images and wondered what it might be like to try and express them on paper.

I’ve been experimenting in the studio for several days now, making ‘collage sketches,’ trying to elicit these inner images.

Of course, art takes its own direction and as soon as I set about with my intention, an entirely different form showed up. Where these attempts will end up is beyond me, but in the meantime, I’m going to continue to follow the Reiki thread.

Apr 10

4 Comments

Going Through, Not Passing Over

Cyclamens: renewal writ large

I’ve been thinking a lot about holidays this year, particularly the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Passover is a time of spiritual renewal, of looking back in order to see ahead. A broad theme of Passover is freedom, something so vast, that I’ve scarcely tried to contemplate it; being someone who prefers to find the macro in the close-by mundane.

I’m also someone who seeks to understand what spiritual traditions have in common rather than how they differ.

Beans sprouting in pot painted by UC Davis Children's volunteer.

The Friday before the holiday weekend, I met a child in the hospital where I work whose artwork contained just these confluences of large and small, distant and nearby, to which I would add, past and present. This young six year old girl had lost her father to incarceration and her mother to death by addiction.

When I first heard about her, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Certainly not the vibrant being who walked into the playroom eager to engage in the activity I had chosen: creating a paper Easter basket.

I like this activity because by creating a series of folds and cuts in a square piece of paper and manipulating them, you can create a real container.

Flora sat down and pulled one of the folded pieces over to her place and began to copy the words, “Happy Easter,” onto one of the squares. With great detail and many felt tip markers, she painstakingly created designs and drawings on each surface of what would become the inside and the outside of the basket.

I find it intriguing that at this stage, while the child is painting or drawing, the inside and outside are not yet determined. Enclosure can go either way, depending what she chooses to do. A metaphorical exercise about the public and private selves.

At any rate, after Flora had filled both sides of the paper, I stapled her basket together-but she wasn’t done quite yet. she took squares of soft, pastel patterned fleece and glued one to each surface of what had turned into the inside of the box.

She proudly showed me her basket, asking, “but where are the eggs?” I went on my own egg hunt and found several colored plastic eggs. I handed them to her and she tucked them into the bottom of her basket.

It seemed to me that this small child exquisitely exemplifies the theme of Passover. She lost her original home and was forced to leave for a new one (she is lovingly cared for by a relative); she had created her own safe transitional home in the basket.

Jan 29

4 Comments

Mindfulness at Play

Have you ever felt the axis of your life shifting? Last year I was deeply focused on my artwork, with art therapy a bit out of focus.

As the year has turned, however, so has my attention. For many years, I relied on observations of my own children’s developmental stages to help me understand the children with whom I worked.

Now, with my own children navigating the waters of young adulthood, I no longer have that framework to depend on. While the memories are there, I need to stay fresh in my art therapy practice.

With that in mind, I’ve been re-infusing my knowledge of art therapy and child development by lots of reading, particularly on the Art Therapy Alliance group threads on LinkedIn.

I’ve been particularly intrigued by the development of Cathy Malchiodi’s “Trauma Informed Practices Institute.” In her recent newsletter, she lays out some of the core foundations for integrating mindfulness practice and positive psychology into art therapy.

“Making art can help us become mindful in the moment, just like when one learns to be present in the moment through the practice of mindfulness meditation. In art therapy, we often speak of that moment in art making when “flow” occurs– an experience of losing oneself in the experience, but at the same time being present and engaged in the process. Being in the flow state can help you become more relaxed and begin to observe yourself in new ways. Art expression itself is a way of creating something new from what you already have, but may not have fully recognized within yourself.”

Observing the children on the unit, I would say that the flow state has more and more been relegated to the world of Wii, Playstation 3 and Nintendo. While there is value in learning to control the actions of characters on screen, I have a personal bias. I think it is just as exciting and possibly more so to be able to affect actions with one’s own hands in our three dimensional world.

In other words, how do we help children find their way into the flow state with art, music, dance and other forms of creative expression? That’s the question I’ll be asking of myself in the next few months as I craft art activities which stimulate that sense of flow. I’ll also be looking forward to attending Cathy’s class this March in San Francisco: Enhancing Resilience Through Trauma Informed Practices: Positive Psychology and Mindfulness Based Art Approaches.

For a treat, if you click here, you will find a podcast containing a wonderful talk with Oxford psychologist, Mark Williams and a short 3 minute mindfulness meditation that made my day.

May 6

8 Comments

Prelude to Mother’s Day

It was Bring Your Child to Work Day last week, a day parents working at our hospital bring along their children, in order to explore careers in healthcare. We had speakers, tours and tables all set up to teach kids about a multitude of possible futures.

My assignment was clear: meet the oncoming wave of children, 50 or so, with a quick description of what it means to be an art therapist. A Twitter dilemma if I ever saw one. (Describe what I do in 140 characters or less.) In addition, I offered them an art therapy activity.

I wanted to engage the kids, find out what they might wish to do when they grew up, recognizing any answer is a work in progress.

To that end, I had a collection of muslin dolls, ready to be drawn upon in whatever way a child’s dream might dictate. Most of the children wanted to grab the doll and go (and what would you want with a naked baby doll, I ask you?) I politely let them know the talk was part of the bargain. No art, no doll.

My invitation was often initially met with a blank stare, but when I motioned them over to join other kids at a table filled with fabric markers, more colored pens began to “tatoo” muslin skins, transforming the blank “canvas” of that doll into a future self.

It was marvelous and all types of dolls emerged–nurses and doctor dolls of course, but also singers, computer geeks and pharmacists. I was so happy that the children felt that they were able to supplement the ample information that they’d heard with a chance to internalize their knowledge. Perhaps some expressed a dormant desire, a curious inclination just waiting for the opportunity to emerge.

It’s taken a long time for me to lean into my future. As a child on the playground, I was often stumped when we talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up. The presumed careers for girls, teaching and nursing, did not feel right. But sitting behind the table last week, wearing a bright pink sweater and sparkly earrings, I felt I was embodying the self that had been waiting all those years ago, an artist, who uses art as medicine.

Apr 17

16 Comments

Finding Sanctuary


Where I Live, ©2000, H. Hunter, 15″ x 18″, Acrylic, Caran d’ache on paper

Where do you find sanctuary?

I began to ask myself this question after a Trauma Informed Art Therapy Course I took last week in San Francisco.

When working with trauma victims, creating a sense of safety, or in other words, a sanctuary, becomes your top priority.

But how to do that? How to find safety in the midst of physical and/or emotional pain?

There are tried and true art therapy activities, but I wanted to go a bit deeper. The word “sanctuary” made me think of the Jewish practice of Shabbat. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a 20th century theologian, wrote about Shabbat as “a cathedral in time”–a “place” in time rather than space in which a person could could learn to rest.

In other words, sanctuary could be a state of mind rather than an actual place. I began to ask people how they find sanctuary. Some of their answers:

“Sanctuary is being with my family, watching Dad make spaghetti and then sitting around the table eating it together.”
“Sanctuary is when my whole family is home and I can close the blinds and we are together and the rest of the world is outside.”
“Sanctuary is running.”
“Sanctuary is my new kitten.”

I took advantage of the art groups I facilitated and asked people to make collages of their sanctuaries and the guardians of these places. What emerged surprised me:

A gorilla with wise eyes staring out of the picture surrounded by bits of colorful pieces of quilts.
The eye of a tiger surrounded by spring green fronds of leaves.
The plain of a desert with two yucca plants in bloom.
A home built on the foundation of chocolate chip cookies.

In almost all the images, nature played a central role. It didn’t seem to matter whether someone had ready access to nature, it was the time spent imagining and creating the image of a place that evoked a sense of restfulness.

It seems that with the ever increasing pace and pressures of modern life, this kind of sanctuary is more important than ever–a pause we take that allows us to touch base with something more primal and tangible. I’m curious how many of you use art as a refuge? If not, how do you find sanctuary?

Mar 25

8 Comments

Give Love: A Community Art Project

My blog friend and fellow art therapist, Phoenix Peacock is creating an amazing on and off-line art journal project about community: Give Love: A Community Art Project. She’s keeping an art journal about her own community based project and created a means for others to participate. To find out how, click here.

Her instruction is to art journal about a community member who has positively influenced your life. This could be a teacher, student, coach, neighbor, a stranger, anyone who is not related to you. Your interaction(s) could have occurred at any point in your life. To learn more about art journaling, check out Kelley Brown’s excellent blog: Art Journaling as A Creative Process.

I’ve been working on my own page during our daily art group at the hospital. As it emerged, I realized it was about my old and dear friend from art school days, Carol Spindel, a gifted author and artist.

This is what I wrote about my friend on the back side of the page:

I’m forever grateful to Carol for introducing me to the world of pattern because along with words and colors, it now forms the foundation of my art work. Cheers Carol!

Textile and Paper Collage

Posts from the ‘art therapist’ Category

Mending Walls and Making Change

“Caring for children…our first job”*

Winter Wisdom

Take 2: Palliative Care and Paper Swaps (The Whole Story)

Reiki in the Studio

Going Through, Not Passing Over

Mindfulness at Play

Prelude to Mother’s Day

Finding Sanctuary

Give Love: A Community Art Project

About Hannah

Search the site

Email Subscription

Categories

Blogroll