Leaving for Boston today!

The time has really flown and I am hopping on a bus to head to Boston for Artsbridge today! I plan to update this blog on my experiences while there as much as possible...Below is a painting of mine titled "Moving Horizon." I thought it was an appropriate image to share as I move into this adventure.

Anticipation

The time seems to be flying by lately, and it brings me closer to the beginning of the Artsbridge program. I have many feelings - a combination of excitement, anticipation, curiousity, and yes...some anxiety. The program will be hosted by Boston College this year, and it is a beautiful sprawling campus. In fact, I lived practically down the road from the campus when I lived in Boston after graduating from college. In many ways it's a familiar area, but in many ways it is not.

I have adjusted to the hectic and always intriguing pace of New York City. When I lived in Boston I was in tune with that city's unique rhythms and energies. Now it is time to readjust to it, but also to expand - as I enter into a new experience.

I am already anticipating how much I will miss my husband Adam during the month that I am gone. However, we are both very interested in how this adventure will unfold, and if anything it will just add one more rich layer to our relationship.

I expect that there will be the unexpected at Artsbridge. I look forward to intensity, challenges, sharing, growth, and creating. I look forward to being an arts instructor and also a student of the experience itself. I'm sure that I will be creating a lot of artwork myself in my free time, journaling often, and of course blogging here about my experiences. Stay tuned!

Artsbridge

This summer I will be an art instructor in a three week intensive program in Boston called Artsbridge. I am incredibly excited and honored to be a part of this program and will be updating my blog regularly over the summer as the experiences there unfold...so keep checking back! Below is a description of the program, courtesy of their site at:

http://artsbridgeinstitute.org/
(image to left: from last summer's program)


The mission of Artsbridge, Inc. is to provide a safe environment, which cultivates creativity, voice, respectful listening and dialogue in order to empower today’s youth to become leaders in the quest for peace in and between their own communities.

For generations, children on both sides of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict have witnesses and suffered trauma. Though most have never met their Israeli or Palestinian counterpart, they have come to see “each other” as “the enemy.” There is no trust, and no sense of understanding for the lived experiences of the other.

For many Palestinian and Israeli youth, there is difficulty imagining a future that includes peace and coexistence with their neighbors. As hard as it is to imagine peace and coexistence, it is even harder for them to recognize they have potential to bring about positive change in their environment and their future.

Israeli and Palestinian youth who participate in Artsbridge will discover a process that facilitates the safe expression of their desires and fears. Through Artsbridge these youth will be introduced to the tools that can help then envision the prospect of a future which includes peaceful coexistence. They will learn to see themselves as creative, empowered individuals with the ability to work towards affecting positive changes in their environment, while developing leadership skills that will help them empower others.

The Artsbridge Approach

In order to make a lasting impact on its participants, Artsbridge uses a holistic approach unique among Israeli-Palestinian educational programs. Artsbridge integrates expressive arts therapy, dialogue and art making. The therapeutic component enables participants to articulate and process their own trauma. Through a reflective dialogue model they learn to hear, understand and honor the experiences of those who live on the other side of the conflict. Through art making they find common ground, work cooperatively and create something new and positive together.

The Artsbridge staff are art therapists, artists and psychologists who have experience working with youth from many walks of life. They also represent various sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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From the studio...

This last year has been a very productive one for me and my personal art making. Although the first year of art therapy graduate school was incredibly intense and busy, I actually seemed to increase my studio time. I think one way of looking at it, is that I've been "practicing what I preach" as an art therapy student and intern!

My summer is about to get a bit busier, but all with good things (more on that later!) I know that I will keep returning to my studio practice, as it has been and continues to be an intrinsic part of who I am.

As usual, I've currently got about 6 different paintings going...I love being able to "dialogue" with each piece, and then switch the conversation to another one when I feel that the timing is right. Each day that I come back to them I find something new, that often leads me and the pieces into unexpected directions.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time developing my Sandstone Series. These pieces are highly textured, and I am using a combination of molding pastes, sand, resin pastes, paint, and sea glass that my mom and I have both collected over the years that she's lived near the ocean. Each painting in this series, whether small or large, is built up from many layers - sometimes as many as ten. The process is incredibly meditative for me and I love combining the tactile with the washes of color. Often I will lay very wet washes of paint across the sandy surface, and move the canvas around so that the color stains and settles into the patterned textures in the same way that the ocean spills over the sand when the waves come in.

Below are a few pieces from this series...I am completing some more pieces in the series now and will post them to my blog and art site soon!

Viking Mountain Funeral Exhibition

I will be participating in a group show called "Viking Mountain Funeral." The title makes you kinda curious doesn't it? :)

Saturday June 6th, 6pm-12am
DJ's, performances, bands, & refreshments

Sunday June 7th 12pm-7pm
Open Studios in the area



It should be an interesting show...see the attached flyer to the left for more details!

Transitional Objects

"It is in the space between inner and outer world, which is also the space between people--the transitional space--that intimate relationships and creativity occur."
-(D.W. Winnicott from Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena,1951)

The term "transitional object" is used frequently in art therapy. In her book Handbook of Art Therapy, Cathy Malchiodi gives an excellent description of the meaning behind transitional objects and how this relates to art therapy:

Art products can become transitional objects which may become imbued with meaning beyond what they are in reality. For example, a drawing or painting made by a child who is dependent on the therapist for support may become a transitional object in the absence of the therapist, defusing separation anxiety. In a similar vein, an adult may make a clay figure of a parent who abandoned her as a child, symbolically evoking that person and the unresolved trauma of separation. Henley (1992) notes that art product functions as a transitional object because it supports self-relationship and empowerment and encourages connection with the therapist who facilitates the creative expression.
(Malchiodi, 2002, p.54)

When we are young, a transitional object for us may be our "blankie" that we drag with us to our first day of preschool as a "stand-in" for our parents while we are apart. When we are older, a transitional object may be a piece of jewelry, given to us by someone we love as a reminder of their place in our lives. At the end of our first year in graduate school, my supervision group worked on clay pieces for the last few classes. These evolved over a few weeks, and were left to air-dry for our last day of class so that we could take them home with us as a transitional object from our time together this year.

Our supervisor and teacher Alison gave us each a creative piece of herself - a hand-made ceramic piece that she had created - each one slightly different and unique. In this way, she gave us a transitional object that could visually and symbolically represent her when we no longer met on a weekly basis.

Both pieces are sitting side by side in my studio, and overlooking me as I create. For that matter, my studio has become filled with these transitional objects - many from clients and friends. Each one acts as a container for special memories and experiences that I have shared with others.

Studio space ~ Breathing space

My painting practice has been an integral part of my experience as an art therapy student. This summer I look forward to spending even more time in my studio.

The studio is like an old friend, that is always there waiting patiently for my return...

My studio shifts constantly, but is always packed with inspiration & works in progress. Here are a few pictures of my studio in its current incarnation:)