Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

When there is pain, depression, or anxiety, art can soothe and heal. If allowed the freedom to do what is within, a specific style emerges over and over.

Pat says she likes people. She paints hundreds of them, lined up and with lots of color.

Laura over comes her fears and depression by letting paint flow from her brush in squiggly lines. The picture shown is only one of many that she has painted. Her eyes get happy when she paints.

Grizley is bedridden. The only way he is able to get through his day is through detailed drawings, usually cartoon style, highly detailed. It takes hours. He HAS hours, of course.

I go frequently to a facility that has a good mixture of men and women. I find it interesting that the ones who clamor to paint are men. We decided to call in Men’s Club. They gather and paint…and even allow the women to come and watch. As they paint together, they socially bond as they come alive to the arts. Notice that one gentleman is painting a portrait of the other.

Many times I end up not being prepared. A project was on the calendar that I was assigned to at the last minute. We were planning on filling cookie cutters with jolly ranchers and popping them in the oven. I read the directions out loud to a group of ladies who could not always think clearly, but had much life experience in the kitchen. I explained my lack of experience and started asking them what would work best. “Do you think we need waxed paper or Pam spray? Would foil work better? How many pieces of hard candy do you think it would take?” We muddled through it together as suggestions were made. We had failure and success. We had an end product, but in the end, along with laughter, we had more than that. We bonded together in the process of discerning the best courses of action.

Mary was recovering in bed for many weeks. I have known her for years and she had not ever tried her hand at painting, except for painting walls. I surprised her when I came into her room. I told her I had a big piece of cardboard and big brushes and paints. “Would you like to paint?”

“Well, I guess so,” she replied cooperatively. “You can’t do it wrong.”

I spread a plastic garbage bag over her sheet and I held the cardboard. She picked up the big brush and started painting with red. She picked up another brush with yellow in it and watched things change from red to orange. More colors appeared as she experimented. When she was finished, we looked at it from all directions and our imaginations went wild. We hung it on her wall.

I obtain large pieces of cardboard for free from Cannon Industries. They are painted white and placed on easels for those who are in Alzheimer Units to paint on. I give them big brushes and let them go with the color. Ann, one of the residents, painted with yellow and was finished. Because we had a group who was watching and commenting, together we developed it into a sailboat picture. That is what the spontaneous shapes of yellow reminded us of. It had turned into a group art project and I like the result.