paint cut paste

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

if you follow me on pinterest, you know that i’m a sucker for garland. and prayer flags. and anything resembling these celebratory, sacred, strung-up beauties. so recently when dreaming up handmade and meaningful decor for two friends’ baby blessing ceremony i co-hosted, garland came to mind, of course! specifically, i was inspired by a pin i saw by a beautiful mess. i knew this would be a sweet touch to this particular ceremony.

my fellow art therapist friends and i love to create unique rituals for participants at blessing ceremonies we have thrown for one another and for other family members and friends. many of these art rituals have been featured on my blog already, such as the  woven watercolor blessing, the blessing nest, the blessing sunburst, and momma birthing necklaces or sibling blessing necklaces. this blessing garland fits right in, as it is a simple, collaborative project that can be easily done at a gathering (of any sort!) and it is not an intimidating art project in the slightest.

first, i combed fabric stores to find five colors (in this case, along the nursery color scheme) of lovely fabric. i scored with this silk and a pretty golden cord to tie them to.

once i got the supplies home, i began to tear the fabric into strips that were about a half inch wide.

i love the look of the torn edges

then i cut each one to about 8.5 inches long to make several strips of fabric in each of the colors.

i performed some experiments with markers and pens to discover which worked best on the silk. this is the way party-goers would be able to write their blessings onto the fabric. in the silk’s case, gelly roll pens worked best, as the sharpies and even the fabric markers ran and bleed on the fabric.

i tied blank silk tabs onto the golden cord in a random color order. this way the garland could serve as party decor before guests were able to add to it.

at the blessing, i placed many silk strips and glitter pens into a bowl near the garland with a note, asking guests to write blessings for the baby on the way on the silk, and tie it onto the cord wherever they would like.

after each guest added a blessing or two to the cord, the couple put the garland around a doorway in the baby’s room. they plan to hang it in the birthing center when they are ready to meet their daughter.

i love how such a simple, little touch added another artful element of love and support to this blessing ceremony and to this growing family!

as we all witness within ourselves each day, emotions are fluid, flexible, and multi-layered. if you stay with any one feeling long enough, you will surely see it shift and move and change. that’s how we are built. when we look at our children, we often see emotions shifting (and totally mood-swinging) seemingly by the second.

and with good reason! if we could peek inside of the brain of a growing child and see the chemical chaos happening inside as cells are exponentially reproducing and learning is happening, we would have more appreciation (and compassion) for the fact that our child is even capable of putting one foot in front of the other to walk. i mean, it really is a wonder humans can manage all of this! there are ways of helping children to visualize something as seemingly ambiguous as their emotions — you guessed it: ART!

my husband and i are buddh-ish, and practice mindfulness meditation ourselves, so we take my daughter to a monthly meditation group for children, which she absolutely LOVES! the most recent session involved helping children to identify the quality of emotions through the metaphor of a wave. the speaker read a book to the children called my life with the wave, and talked a bit with the kids about how waves can be tiny ripples or steady crashes or huge tsunamis, and the parallel to how we sometimes feel inside.

the children were invited over to some art tables to create images of what their own personal “feeling wave” would look like in that moment, on that day.

after each child completed the art, s/he was to place it along a longer sheet of paper on the floor to add to the “ocean” of feelings in the room… made up of everyone’s individual wave.

we walked through the ocean gallery in the end to witness each person’s artful and isomorphic wave.

the parents and children gathered together on the cushions for the kids to talk about what they noticed. it was a lovely morning of being present to our feelings and expressing them through art… and, of course, the art therapist in me got all excited about that!

our kids organically live in the present moment – they are experts at it, and great teachers to us in helping us to do the same. (sometimes the shock of reeeally slowing down to BE HERE NOW is the hardest adjustment for brand new parents.) while kids’ lives exist only in the present (not in ruminating about the past or in planning for the future or multitasking,) giving children a language for their innate mindfulness provides a wonderful tool with which to understand themselves and express themselves. here are some books we’ve enjoyed with N ever since she was a wee thing:

• peaceful piggy meditation
• tibetan tales for little buddhas
• the sun in my belly
• starbright: meditations for children (moonbeam is a good one in this series, too)
• there are a couple thich nhat hahn books i’d like to get, too, like planting seeds: practicing mindfulness with children and mindful movements: exercises for well-being

do your children practice mindfulness? what sorts of tools have you found helpful with this?

for N’s fifth birthday, we gave her a small aquarium, and she was able to pick out two goldfish and a snail as new pets. well, sadly her sweet snail, marigold, didn’t last more than a month. (something about nitrates in the water, for which we have since gotten new water purification drops.) with this gift, we realized that the difficult lessons of mortality would soon be upon us, and here they are, sooner than we expected.

r.i.p. marigold

in its inherent transcendent nature, art is able to make the invisible visible, to make the unseen seen. according to carl jung, the processes involved in art making are most similar to spiritual processes than any activity – both provide comfort, order, and beauty. when the art image is the embodiment of a feeling, such as the grief of a loss (yes, even that of a pet snail,) the art object can becomes empowered as a talisman of sorts, providing containment and solidity for an otherwise nebulous emotion. the art we all made as offerings in the snail’s funeral helped to elevate the ceremony to that of a ritual, modeling for N healthy ways of saying goodbye and processing feelings that can be difficult.

artful altar for marigold

once we broke the news to N that marigold had passed on, we decided we would hold a ceremony the following day in our backyard to celebrate his life and return his body to the earth. i explained to N that we might each want to have an offering for marigold on an altar space at the ceremony. she said she wanted to make a backdrop for the altar, a small sign, and a golden candle.

N creating the altar "backdrop." details on this technique coming soon on the blog. stay tuned!

N rolled a golden candle from beeswax for the altar, and made a little image of herself and marigold.

my husband offered flowers, and he cut heart shapes out of petals for the altar. i chose to offer a yellow snail candle holder that i quickly crafted with sculpey when N was asleep the evening prior to the funeral. (i don’t like to bake sculpey near her because of the fumes, so i did it at night with the windows and backdoor open while she was asleep in her room with her door closed.)

dried berries & branches for antennae

we gathered together around the altar in the backyard last weekend. my husband and i both said kind words and memories about marigold. N said she was “too shy” to say anything, but stood quietly and chin-quivery in front of the altar.

we buried marigold’s body in our flowerbed, where so many snails swarm in the spring. marigold’s spirit will be in good company in the coming months. N added a rock for his gravestone, and she decorated the grave site with her daddy’s heart petal offerings.

here lies marigold. as far as snails go, he was fast and sweet.

after a mindful, heartful goodbye to her snail, N was ready to move on to the reception food (popsicles) and making fairy houses in the backyard.

when i was a little girl, i loved setting up a special little place in my bedroom where i carefully arranged all of my treasures (usually magical stones!) and twigs and leaves i would gather from the yard. at the time, i didn’t call this a “nature table” or an “altar” but essentially, that’s what i was making.

creating sacred space has always been a particular passion of mine, so creating a meaningful altar feels soul-fulfilling for me. an altar is a surface (usually elevated in some way) containing objects of significance and a place to engage in whatever sort of spiritual practice fits for you.

personal altar. autumn 2008

a nature table is a place where the seasons can be observed and honored. for those of us for whom season and earth intersect with our spiritual practice, these can often look similar.

as an art therapist educated at a buddhist-oriented school, who appreciates art as ritual, and has a “buddhish” husband, we keep altars for meditation in our home.

summer 2005, in our meditation room

as ellen dissanyake speaks about, art is about “making special.” she says “this aesthetic ability.. enabled us to ‘bracket off’ the things and activities that were important to our survival, separate them from the mundane, and make them special. we took the objects and practices involved in marriage, birth, death, food production, war and peacemaking and enhanced them to make them more attractive and pleasurable, more intriguing and more memorable. we invented dance, poetry, charms, spells, masks, dress and a multitude of other artifacts to make these associated activities, whether hauling nets or pounding grain, more sensual and enjoyable, to promote cooperation, harmony and unity among group members, and to also enable us to cope with life’s less expected or explicable events.” i feel like altars and nature tables are one very concrete expression of this idea of art as meaning-making or ritual.

altar i created out of scrap wood & fan blades as an art therapy & spirituality project in grad school at naropa, 2004.

in my art therapy practice, i often have something of a nature table going, usually incorporating art materials to invite my clients into the experience of the creative process.

setting in my office circa 2004

when i facilitate an art process or art therapy group, i usually create a sort of altar-like space in the center of the circle. it includes natural objects and the art materials being offered that day.

self-care art therapy group for new moms - fall 2011

my family often creates small birth altars in our home when a close friend is in labor, bringing a baby into the world… keeping a candle lit throughout the birth to send love and light their way. (by the way, i often use my own art on my nature tables, as well as lovely inspiring prints and often these amazing soul cards.)

birth altar for a dear friend. july 2007.

i’ve blogged about how some of my art therapy mentors created these fabulous portable altars in matchboxes.

matchbox altar made for me by my art therapy mentors. spring 2005.

now, as a waldorf momma, ideas about the nature table have been brought from the classroom and into our home through my little N.

nature table set up completely by N - january 2012

i am inspired by so many beautiful nature tables i see around the blogosphere. i am so fond of the seasonal beauty mary beth of salt & chocolate brings into her home. she has an amazing nature table photo set on flickr. there’s also a nice waldorf-inspired group on flickr called “the nature table” with many beautiful images.

spring nature table, 2010

do you keep a nature table or altar? as you can see, they come in various shapes and sizes. they can live at home or at work, be made with your children or alone, small-scale or large, seasonal or not. i would love to see how you express yourselves in this way, so i’ve set up a pinterest board for this purpose. if you’d like to share your altar or nature table, post the link to your blog entry, image, or pin of your table in the comment section of this post. (and i’ll repin it on my board!) let’s inspire each other!

bowl of natural materials for art

welcome to 2012, friends!

this time last year, i wrote a post about how the face and pace of this blog would be changing shape in 2011 and majorly s-l-o-w-i-n-g down. in january, it really looked like it would. then february hit, and it. did. not. happen. i continued to blog my fingers off all year long. and here i am, january 2012, with a similar resolution as last january.

my intentions this year involve devoting much more psychic energy and mind space to building my art therapy practice (and chasing the ever-elusive california LPCC by jumping through multiple hoops called three insane standardized tests. shudder.) that means that i reeally reeeally do need to treat this blogging addiction hobby of mine like what it has always been — a fun outlet. not a career, not a source of income, nor a book i plan to write someday. no stress. no pressure. no deadline. just the rainbowy icing on top – it’s a super delicious treat! so i’m needing to breathe space into the new year, and just let this blog evolve and grow naturally into what my life is becoming.

new years day

don’t get me wrong. i will be CREATING, ALWAYS. i will be MAKING ART WITH MY DAUGHTER, CONSTANTLY. these are also priorities in 2012. i will also be blogging about these on occasion. though, in all honestly, more of my own creations will likely show up on this blog than hers. with the onset of 5 mornings per week of kindergarten this past fall, N’s artistic time at home has been more focused on her true love: drawing drawing drawing for a couple hours each afternoon. and while “look at what my kid drew today! and today! and today!” makes for a nice blog for the grandparents (which is how this whole blog thing started way back in tha day) but, admit it – it’d be sorta boring for all of you wonderfully creative readers. seeing as i’m way too pinspired not to make homemaking creative and meaningful, i’ll share an early january creation with you all…

i wrapped a straw wreath from michael’s (super cheap and on sale) with yarn i already had at home (on new years eve. yep, i’m wild and crazy! but in my defense, my house was plagued by a stomach bug over new years so i didn’t have much choice.) N even helped to spiral up these lovely felt flowers (much like the ones we made for our autumn wreath.)

my poor baby has some dry winter hands right now

we hung it on the window pane we scored at that salvage yard last fall.

yay for yarn-bombing! doesn’t that wreath look cozy and warm? (it should – it’s about 70 degrees *outside* over here!) we dolled up the mantel with a few other warmy wintery friends.

and miscellaneous sidewalk finds and random objects from the back corners of cabinets.

N calls it “the winter circus” and says it’s her favorite mantel yet… AND she wants to be “totally in charge of” our spring mantel… so stay tuned for that! in the meantime, i will see you back here every so often. let’s just see if i can hold to my resolution to reprioritize where and how i express myself and allocate my energy… and maybe there will be a new year’s miracle that gives me the strength to step away from this pretty, colorful, friendly, flickering, alluring screen on some evenings… just maybe.

happy winter! happy 2012!

this is just a quick little (momma art) entry about what has become a bit of an obsession of mine in the past year and a half… painting with white ink on smooth, dark stones.

stones i painted in july 2010

i first fell in love with this idea when i saw them on genine’s art blog a long while back – if you have not yet visited this amazing blog, check it out! sooo inspiring! although little rock paintings are not a new idea and they’re all over the internet. i figured i’d share them with you here regardless. mostly because i love creating them — even though it’s intricate work, i find it very relaxing and soothing. i love to look at the stones and let them inform me, by their shape, color, and texture, what sort of image might live on them.

i like to use white acrylic ink and a script liner brush when i paint mine. recently, i purchased some different inks in sepia, gray, and turquoise, so i’ll experiment with those on rocks soon. (N and i have already played with inks on red clay pottery.) for some reason, N has yet to paint with the inks on rocks with me, but i imagine she’ll join me soon.

these make for easy and personal gifts for birthdays, thank yous, hostess tokens, etc. and it gives me something fun to do with all of the lovely stones i can’t stop picking up along the pacific coastline.