September has rolled around again and the art therapy group
resumes its weekly schedule. As we have some new faces around our big table we
review our guidelines right after the introductions. We don’t have many rules
of Do’s and Don’ts but we do need to hold our time together as a place of
physical and emotional safety. Top of the list is Confidentiality and we
discuss what that means in our community. Next are Kindness and Respect and all
the ways that we practice these in action.
Then we spend a bit of extra time on Acceptance and artistic Non-judgement because
not only is the artwork personal, beautiful and unique but each woman is as
well. We all have our strengths and challenges and we want our group to be
a time to feel accepted and valued just as we are. Because so many of our
participants believe that they can’t do art correctly (?!) we encourage a personal interpretation of how each activity evolves…including deciding to opt
out of any segment. Because sharing creativity in this way can make a person
feel vulnerable the women are also allowed to pass when we take turns at the
end to share what we’ve created. They rarely stay silent after hearing the
other women speak. Doing art together in this way can be a playful way to make
our lives brighter and build friendships.
The chosen activity was a variation of the classic “Design Your
Own Nameplate” Each woman was given a plain white lunch bag and an assortment
of artist tools: markers, coloured pencils, pastels, and strips of coloured
papers. They were asked to make a design that represented themselves and include
a nickname, either one they made up for this activity or one they already had…
as long as it is one they personally, freely choose.
As intended, this activity opened up a lively discussion of the
names we call ourselves compared to the names that we are given by other
people… and how these names affect our lives.
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