paint cut paste

over this school year, i had the honor of being one of two “secret gnomes” for N’s waldorf kindergarten class. the job of the “secret gnomes” was to organize the class gifts for the holidays and end-of-school-year. right up my alley! in addition to monetary gifts, we gave the children an opportunity to collaborate on creative gifts for the teachers. because the “secret gnome” identities were just revealed, i’m now able to share with you what we gave the teachers for the winter holidays — these wonderful beaded necklaces.

finished necklace for male teacher

this gift that incorporates the energy of each child in the class. this was an opportunity for each student to select something that is special to them or that reminds them of the teacher. we asked each family to find (or create) a bead, shell, stone or something that can be beaded onto a necklace (one per teacher.) we asked that each bead should be no larger than a lima bean, for ease of wear. (as you can see from the photos, not many kids followed this suggestion. ) from these beads provided, the secret gnomes strung a necklace for each teacher. for this particular assortment of beads, we strung them on a thin leather cord with small clay beads as spacers between the gift beads.

finished necklace for female teacher

in addition to each bead, we asked each family to write a short note about each bead (why the child chose each one in particular for each teacher) that would make it more personal and more special. we bound these notes together in a tiny (3″ square) accordion-style booklet to accompany the necklaces. (gosh, i wish i’d gotten a photo of it, but i didn’t.) we presented the necklaces in small silk pouches.

the teachers were so touched by this gift, and both wore theirs often since they received them. come back on thursday when i’ll post another collaborative, creative teacher gift idea!

i spent some time over the weekend creating response art, or empathy art, for my art therapy clients. empathy, of course, is the idea of sharing the feeling of another — to feel with, or to feel alongside someone else. empathy art (which can be called “response art” interchangeably) is defined by art therapist joanne kielo as “post-session artwork created by the art therapist to develop empathic capacity with a client, responding silently by rendering feelings into form.” this sort of practice is not only useful for therapist-client relationships, but it can also be very helpful for both parents and children.

empathy art sample, january 2012

when an art therapist shares their response art with a client, it can deepen the relationship in that the client can “feel seen” and witnessed in a concrete way. many times, response art can be made in the “handwriting” of the client, so to speak. meaning, it is often done in the style and/or with the symbols the client has brought into their own art process in therapy. [i talk more about this idea of using another's artistic "handwriting" in the guest post i wrote for the kiwi crate blog, here.]

empathy art sample, september 2004

the practice of creating empathy art can also be healing for the art therapist, and regarded as a form of self-care. art therapist bruce moon supports the idea that empathy art helps the therapist to clarify feelings, release affect, and allows a therapist to metaphorically exhale images s/he may have “inhaled” in during a therapy session.

empathy art sample, fall 2004

another function of empathy art is that it can be gifted to a client when it is time to end the therapeutic relationship. in this way, the art serves as a beautiful transitional object and a container for the symbol of the therapist’s presence and support.

empathy art as a transitional object, summer 2011

similar to therapy, parenting is an act of helping and of caregiving. because i wear both of these hats, i sometimes bring the self-care work i have learned in my profession into my home life as a mom. making my own art in the brief quiet spaces, as a way to respond to a situation that arose in the day or to a particular piece of my journey as a mom, has been very healing for me.

empathy art sample, spring 2010

on the flip-side, making empathy art for my daughter has helped her to feel supported. N was having some ongoing health issues over the winter, and she was expressing them through her art work. one day, i sat down beside her while she was making art and sketched a quick piece of empathy art that wove some of my daughter’s own symbols into my image below. when i gave her this picture, she said, “it makes me feel strong!” and she hung it in her bedroom.

"air spirit" - response art for daughter, winter 2011.

i share this with you to pass along one technique i bring from my professional life into my personal life as a mom. the idea of self-care for moms is one of great interest to me as an art therapist and, of course, as a mom. i see also how sharing visual responses with a client or a child can deepen connection.

even if you have not called it “empathy art” in the past, i’m thinking many of you have engaged in this sort of practice in some way. if so, i’d love to hear about it! 

just a quick ode to self-directed kid art that occurs in the privacy of a 5-year-old’s bedroom… the other day, N emerged from her room and proudly announced, “i made bravery cards, mom!”

“ooo, what are bravery cards?” i asked, wanting to be enlightened. apparently N came up with the idea of making little 1-2 inch sketches on “cards” that show “all of the ways i am brave!” these ways include things like…

“i’d go surfing on a tsunami!”

and, “if a yeti was chasing me, i’d stand and face him!”

and “i can stand outside in a terrible storm!”

and “i could ride a wild, bucking horse!”

…among other things that make a momma faint of heart. but gosh, oh so proud of the resourcefulness and confidence displayed by this little being who has been toying with the idea lately of facing/running from her fears. i love how art is such concrete evidence of what is happening internally, though in some (most) cases, it is not nearly this literal, but as the old art therapy adage posed by janie rhyne goes, “form leads to content.” i always trust the image.

i hope all the mommas and grandmommas out there had a lovely mothers’ day weekend! just wanted to share a little handmade mom’s day treat with you all – these cute felt flower pins that N created for her grandmothers, her great-grandmother, and a couple barrettes for herself and friends, too!

first, i cut out a bunch of various flower shapes from our felt scraps. (do they make kid-friendly fabric scissors? N’s kid scissors just would not do the trick on felt, so i had to do this part for her even though she wanted to, unfortunately.)

N selected groupings of small, medium, and large flowers she liked together. (she commented that it’s just like choosing skirts for her flower fairies she loves to make!) she chose embroidery thread from our cutely-stored stash to adorn the background circles for each pin.

she began to whip up some added cuteness with the blanket stitch she learned at school. impressive! of course, she asked while doing it, “um, why am i sewing one piece of felt to itself, mommy? just to be fancy?” why yes, sweetie. fanciness is important on mothers’ day.

next up – choosing buttons for flower centers. buttons are always a hit over here.

N learned to sew on a button with this project, and she basked in the glow of accomplishing this.

we found some adhesive pins at michael’s to affix to the back of each flower.

here’s a happy recipient (N’s gwee!) sporting hers on mom’s day sent via pix messaging.

i hot glued the few extra flowers to barrettes that N has been happily sporting for a week… and she saved a few barrettes for gifts for her girlfriends.

over spring break in april, it was time for me to plant some potted herbs for the season. with all of the fairy house excitement as of late, N wanted to make them into “fairy herb gardens,” naturally.

even without her own pinterest account, this trend seemed to seep into the consciousness of my 5-year-old. go figure. first we potted the herbs into two large pots. N said that she would decorate the basil and rosemary pot, and the other (sage, cilantro, and parsley) was for me to adorn. i felt honored to get to do one, as i assumed she’d do both. yay!

she decided we needed our shrinky dink herb tags here, but the ones we made a couple years ago weren’t the same types of herbs, so we spent an afternoon making new shrinky dink tags. (easy steps: scribble with colored pencil on rough side, cut shape, write herb name with sharpie on smooth side, heat shrink, stick in soil.)

then it was time for the houses. i gave her a choice of using natural materials (like she does in the yard) or painting some wooden birdhouses we have ($1 bin at michael’s.) she chose the painted route, and we got to work on our fairy houses.

next we gathered up some items for landscaping… like colorful marbles, stones, shells, sea glass, and even a few of the lovely painted sticks we made a couple years ago. N excitedly designed her fairy herb pot.

she spent a lot of time getting everything just right for the fairies. what a hostess!

the herb pots are so darn sweet… and we’ve spent some time over the past month (has it been that long!!!??!) clipping sprigs of herbs for our dinners and sprucing up the fairy neighborhoods.

my little fairy-lover has been making fairy houses out of natural materials for months. she loves to create them, and then check back in on them the following day to see if she sees signs of fairy activity. (sometimes the “fairies” leave colorful marbles or sparkly treasures for her overnight. *wink*) i just love these spontaneous nature creations that can happen without purchasing any materials or having any agenda. open-ended, outdoor art supreme!

on a recent family picnic in the park sort of sunday, she worked hard to create a fairy house at the base of a redwood tree.

she also loves making them in our backyard…

and adding to this one in her school yard during outside playtime…

do your little ones like to create little homes in nature? i’d love to hear about what you’re making. for some really sweet inspiration, we love this book on fairy houses. it’s one of our go-to bedtime reads at the moment. stay tuned for our fairy herb garden, coming up on the blog in a coupla days…

in mid-april, i went out of town for a long weekend to celebrate a friend’s baby blessing while N stayed at home with daddy. i don’t get the opportunity to travel sans-kiddo very often, so as my trip approached, N found herself getting anxious about my departure. i wanted to share with you this story of how she used art to find a way to cope with this.

before my trip, we got a book at the library called the kiss box. this was serendipity, as we did not pre-read it before checking it out, but it came in  handy in the days leading up to my weekend away. the story is about a momma bear who needs to go away from her little bear for a while, and the little bear suggests creating a box to put kisses in. the momma can take this with her and get a kiss whenever she needs one while away, and the little bear asks momma to make a box for him to have at home for the same purpose.

and wouldn’t you know it… the day before my trip, when i came home from work, N gifted me with a kiss box of my very own. she told me that she put 116 kisses inside for me to have while i was away.

she asked me to make one for her, too. and i did – immediately. she wanted to listen to me fill it with the kisses. i put 121 inside while she counted.

i carried my kiss box in my purse during my weekend trip, and kept it by my bedside when i slept. i did get kisses from it every morning and night, and a couple throughout the day.

when N and i spoke over the phone while i was away, we asked each other how many kisses we used that day. it was a fun way to stay connected despite the distance.

in addition to being fun, this art activity really shows how art can serve as a transitional object, and thus be therapeutic for children throughout their individuating from parents and when experiencing separation. according to mahler’s object-relations theory, transitional objects are external symbols for internal needs, though the child thinks of these objects as an extension of the body. object relations theory dovetails with attachment theory in that the primary care giver is the first transitional object, and often a child’s blanket or teddy bear can end up becoming a transitional object.

what’s so lovely about art therapy is that it can uniquely support this concept because the art made can also be viewed as an extension of the self, neither external nor internal. the art then becomes a holding environment for the child, which will increase his or her ability to tolerate object attachment and loss. in this case, the kiss box was a good reminder of my presence when i wasn’t able to be there with my daughter. and let me tell ya, the homecoming was spectacularly sweet!

airport welcome