First Art Group

On Thursday I had my first pseudo art therapy group to help high schoolers relax through creating art. I decided that for the first group, we would make positivity stones, painted rocks with either a short positive message on it or a soothing pattern. I spent most of the beginning of my week walking around my neighborhood collecting small, smooth rocks that would be good for us to paint, and then I made a few example rocks (with the help of my super supportive and talented mom) that I would be able to show the group before they started painting their own. I also read a lot of articles and chapters from books on group art therapy to try and gather all the advice I could on running an art group. Honestly, I was a bit nervous. I have never done anything like this before, and I didn't know if I would be able to lead the group effectively.

(The example positivity stones my mom and I made before the group)

I started out Thursday's group meeting by giving them a stress assessment that took about 25 minutes to take. I am going to give them the same assessment at the last meeting of the group to see if participating in the art group helped them cope with stress at all. Next up, I gave them a short introduction of what my senior project is about and what I hope the art group will help them accomplish. Then I showed them my example positivity stones that I brought with me as well as a few more pictures from the internet. I set out the paint (we used acrylic paint), water cups, and paint brushes and let them create their rocks. I gave them about a half hour to do so, which wasn't enough time for a lot of them to finish, but we were pressed for time because of how long the stress assessment took. At the end of the session, I gave everyone a half sheet of white paper to write a brief reflection on. I wanted their reflections to be fairly open ended, but I could tell that a lot of them didn't know what to write about so I posed a few questions to them: How did you feel during and after painting your rock? Were these feelings mostly positive or negative? Why did you choose the colors you used? What did you paint onto your rock and why? I gave them five minutes to write these and then I collected them from them and put away the paints and other materials.

Reading their reflections was really interesting. A lot of the participants wrote about being frustrated at first, and I could also tell this just from being in the room. Many of them felt like they weren't good artists or didn't know what to paint, and some of them wrote in their reflections about messing up, like one participant who "felt pressure on messing up," or another who wrote that "I got upset when my rock was bad and started over." I noticed that a lot: many people painted their original rock over with a solid color and then made a new design. I had to remind the group multiple times that the goal of using art to relax isn't to make something that is considered "good" art, but instead to enjoy the creative process. The process is more important than the product! Some of the participants understood this very well. For example, one participant started painting her rock using a paint brush, but then decided to just use her fingers. She wrote in her reflection, "It helped me relax after I started finger painting and not caring what it looked like." A lot of participants wrote about how they had fun painting the rocks, and they felt more relaxed and worry free after the doing the activity. However, there were some participants who felt a little more stressed from the painting! For example, one participant wrote a reflection saying, "The painting was a bit stressful with the time restraints and the paint not drying as quick as I wanted to." Which brings me to my next point...high schoolers are very impatient! So many of them complained to me that their paint wasn't drying, as if I could solve that problem for them. They were also very fidgety and impatient about picking out their rock, paint, and paint brushes, and wanted to do all of this before I told them to. It was also at some times hard to control because they all wanted to talk to each other, and it got so loud at times that relaxation would seem impossible. This group is definitely going to test my ability to be patient, because I love all these people very much, but honestly at times, it felt like I was teaching a second grade art class. I am definitely up to the challenge though and am looking forward to the next group meeting!

The group at work painting their rocks: