Prelude to Mother's Day

Waters of Life, ©2003, H.Hunter, 11" x 15," Collage

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.

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?

Plant and Painting Share Common Roots

Amaranth, ©2011, Hannah Hunter, Collage (paper, fabric and watercolor on panel)

Amaranth. I was walking up the stairs to my studio, trying to come up with a name for a panel I'd just finished and this name came into my head. Curious to see what it meant, I looked it up.

Here's what I found: Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a wide ranging genus of herbs. The root of the word comes from the Greek, "amarantos," or "unfading" and it combined, sometime in the word's history, with the the Greek work for flower, "anthos."

A small purple flower, Amaranth provides a sturdy source of nutrition and serves to support sustainable land care in Africa.

Unfading flower. I like that. At in this time in the world, when so much seems unsure in so many countries, the world, at least my world, needs some reassurance about those things that do not fade.

Amaranth, the flower

I think about the children with whom I work. Day after day this week, I ran my eyes down the census to see if anything had changed; a chance for a miracle cure. No, there were still too many children whose diagnoses were grim. (Isn't one too many?) I wanted to push against this--to create a moment of fun, a small space for healing. Although I am not a doctor or a nurse, I am an artist and the healing I can offer is moments of relief, spaces for joy, a dose of hope.

Into this space comes what does not fade: art, prayer, laughter and love. Amaranth.

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!

Young Adult Bereavement Art Group / Art Therapy in Action

Ceramic Grief Mask, Hannah Hunter ©2009

It's February and that means time for the winter session of YABAG--or "The Young Adult Bereavement Art Group". It began in 2009 as a collaboration across disciplines to serve young adults ages 17-24, who have lost a loved one. It has grown from an isolated observation into a dedicated vision of how to best serve this population niche, sponsored by UC Davis Children's Hospital and UC Davis Hospice.

The group started when someone in our Children's Bereavement Committee commented that there were no art therapy bereavement support groups for people this age. The heads at the long conference table all turned toward me. Me? Didn't I have enough going on? However the prospect of beginning a program is something I find irresistible and I was soon on board.

A neonatal nurse, pediatric social worker, hospice bereavement coordinator (tongue twisting titles-good peeps) and I began to meet and over a period of several months and planned the group structure, curriculum and found funding. Our first group met in February of 2009 and my world cracked open.

I and my co-facilitator, a man of great humor and compassion, found ourselves in the presence of persons who were grieving losses by more causes than we could have imagined. We discovered that what often gets individuals of this age to a support group is the confluence of tragic circumstances.

What we also discovered was the openness of these young people show toward one another. Once these young people show up, what follows is honest and inevitable. Our program takes them and us through an 8 week journey of art and talking and listening, all designed to parallel the grief process.

We've worked hard to spread the word about this program; seeding the local universities, community colleges and high schools with fliers and reaching out to police departments, therapists and social workers.

It takes time for word to take hold and grow roots. YABAG is offered free of charge and meets from from 6:00 - 7:30 p.m., beginning Monday, February 28th and concluding Monday, April 11th.

If you know of anyone in the Sacramento area who might benefit from this work, please contact us for more information at 916-734-1139.