Art and Healing with Tweens!

Quilling 1

What I truly love about working with Art and Healing is that you can work with it at any age! I use the same techniques regardless of whom I am working! I was asked to come to McKee, KY, to work with a youth group of girls in grades 6-8. And so I got everything prepared. The girls were very cooperative although they had lots of questions about whether they would be "allowed" to do their own thing or would I be telling them what they "have" to do. I was able to assure them that they would be making their own art.

I had them sit up straight with their hands on their laps. We did the sideways figure eights and then the breathing. They of course giggled when I asked them to make a noise! They had no problem with drawing with their non-dominant hand and got pretty quickly to putting on paper something that was bothering them. They really enjoyed tearing this up and burning the pieces. One girl brought a letter out and burned it at the same time. I didn't ask them to turn to each other and talk about how it felt. I was hesitant, because in a small group like that they may not have felt comfortable. I felt for the first time working with this that I wouldn't ask them to share anything. If I do this with this age again, I think I will have them write on the back of their paper how they felt after doing the Access and Release.

They were really ready to settle down and begin the Tranformation artwork and didn't have any problem searching among the bins provided to come up with their own artwork! Here is their finished work:

  

    

They had an easy time picking their colors for the background of their artwork. This time though one of the girls asked for black and I was able to speak about black as the absence of color and that for this artwork they should pick a color. They seemed okay with this idea. I hadn't thought about how a lot of young people now really resinate with black. I explained that when they used black on their release picture it meant that they had more to work on with this issue. To help heal that place inside of them they needed a color to begin with for their transformation.

As they worked they talked a lot about a movie they were all going to see called "The Hunger Games." And they were busy needling each other about being stalkers. There were a couple of sisters in the group. I encouraged them to take a square of color with them to keep in their pockets, since several of them would be leaving their artwork to dry. It would be fun to get the chance to work more with them and to have them try different mediums and to get a chance to talk about what they have done. We had an art showing with everyone.

I showed them how to quill paper and used it on my own artwork in the first image. This is an old form of art. According to Ann Martin, "Quilling, the coiling and shaping of narrow paper strips to create a design, has been around for years — hundreds, in fact. During the Renaissance, nuns and monks would roll gold-gilded paper remnants trimmed during the bookmaking process, and use them to decorate religious objects as an alternative to costly gold filigree. Quilling later became a pastime of 18th and 19th century young ladies in England, who would decorate tea caddies and pieces of furniture with paper filigree. The practice crossed the Atlantic with colonists, who added quilling to candle sconces and trays as home decorations."

One of the girls actually used some quilling on her picture! It is always nice to pass on something you love! Thanks to Rebekah Koury for inviting me to come share this work with this group of great young women!