Communities, Art, and Healing

This week BASIS OV was on spring break, so we didn't have an art group meeting. Instead, I spent the week reading a few of my art therapy books and scoring last week's stress assessment packets the group members filled out last week. Wow, grading takes a long time! I definitely have a new level of empathy for teachers. I read a lot this week about art as healing, and I want to talk a little bit about communities using art to heal after a crisis. I read a lot of examples this week on this topic, and two in particular really stood out to me.

The first one example is of communities across the nation using art the cope with grief, fear, and trauma after September 11, 2001. It was especially helpful for children who witnessed the events of 9/11 either firsthand or on TV and found it easier to express their feelings in their pictures rather than through words, or found it easier to talk about what happened after having drawn or painted something related to what they witnessed. Furthermore, schoolchildren across the country (such as Dianne Brudnicki's students in Duvall, Washington) sent drawings, cards, friendship boxes, and other art pieces to New York firefighters, family members, and other people affected by the tragedy to try and bring comfort to them and lend emotional support. For the 10th anniversary of 9/11, VOICES, an organization dedicated to making known the stories of 9/11 victims, set up a Paint By Numbers canvas titled "Gone But Not Forgotten" and invited people to come paint it and talk about their stories. The creator of this project, Dan Robbins (the inventor of Paint By Numbers), said that this project was a "unique and meaningful way to reflect on the past, remember those who were lost, and work together to complete a masterpiece that reflects the resiliency of the city."

The second example of a community using art to heal is the survivors of the Oklahoma City Bombing. After the attack killing 168 people and wounding more than 680 more, many survivors suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An art therapist named John Goff Jones helped more than 120 survivors of the bombing, and his work especially helped the victims who were unable to communicate their inner pain verbally. In Jones' group meetings, participants were encouraged to express their thoughts, emotions, experiences, and memories through specific prompts, such as different drawing tasks and collages. This art therapy group was really important to the survivors because it created a safe space for sharing, and it created a community in which visual and verbal stories could be heard, understood, and supported by each other.

Here are some interesting and informative links related to these examples of communities using art to heal:

http://www.voicesofseptember11.org/healing-communities/healing-through-art

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/arts-and-health/201109/what-art-therapy-learned-september-11th

https://www.arts.gov/NEARTS/2015v2-nea-50-shaping-americas-cultural-landscape/opening-heart-and-soul