An Hour of Art

Today I facilitated an "Hour of Art" with some of the women at the Recovery Home I am interning with. I decided I wanted to emphasize the healing components of art. So I steered clear of the term "Arts and Crafts", and I made sure to pick a project for our first session that was simple, positive, and to the point.

We made hearts.

Not red hearts like Valentines. We made human hearts.

The assignment to the women was to collage their hearts. I asked them to collage all of the places within their hearts where they had invested peace, love, joy, or hope. Anything positive that gave them reason to be thankful. I also asked them to collage what others had planted in them. Relationships with others are possibly life's single greatest gift. They were asked to collage any or all of these good things that are residing in their hearts.

The women ran in all different directions with the task. They collaged everything from jewels to words like "sugar daddy", "love", and "arise". We sat in a small room in the basement with some background music while we collaged. It wasn't ideal, but it worked for today. There were four women who participated. All of whom seemed fully engaged in the activity and happy to comply with the assignment given.

When we completed our hearts, we shared what the words and symbols signified to each of us and why. This part was revealing, and touching. It's so refreshing to be reminded of the things that makes our lives worth living. And always sobering to see that those 'things' differ vastly from our neighbor's.

It's too early to asses how the art will make a dynamic change in each woman's progress, but the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We even saw a few tears.

I found myself falling into the serenity that comes with the focused task of simply gluing pictures to a piece of paper. I found myself feeling more relaxed than I had felt all week. I also enjoyed an hour of dwelling on the things in life that I work for, look forward to, and love to experience.

Each woman labored to create today. Each woman spent mental and emotional energy putting to paper what she felt in her heart. There was a purging performed through this exercise. There was revelation today. Some women realized for the first time what actually made her feel positive about living. Some of the women couldn't remember the last time she felt the benefits of any of the emotions or experiences expressed in our hearts. But, each woman was willing to go to that place of joy, or hope, or peace, or love, in order to express it, we had to feel it. So, if for only seconds, we all experienced a taste of the abundance of life this afternoon in a small house in New Britain with nothing more than some old magazines, glue, and the willingness to feel.

(Below are the creations of the day)