collaboration – creativity in motion

2023 Artful and Intentional Living

I have just finished my 2023 altered book of intentions and wanted to share the pages and intentions I identified for this year. This year marks 15 years of this creative practice!

The process begins with preparation, including finding the children’s board book I will be using, getting the book ready to create, gathering materials, and prepping the creative space I will be working in. I then direct my focus to intention, which includes creating a list of words I want to guide me throughout the new year ahead with meaning and purpose. From this list, I shift to creation, crafting a page inside my altered book that symbolizes or embodies each intention.

This year I chose the intentions: Meaning, Resolve, Respite, Anchor, Tempo, and Artistry. I primarily used material from my paper stashes, magazine photo collage, dictionary pages, ink, paint pens, washi tape, handmade paper, and oil pastels in a 5×5 children’s board book.

Meaning

Resolve

Respite

Anchor

Tempo

Artistry – The heart piece was done with the handmade paper I made in a BlendJet blender I recently purchased— I wrote on small pieces of paper things I wanted to let go of/transform, ripped them up, put them in the blender to pulp, and then formed new paper from it— other pages/intentions also include hearts with the same handmade paper….

As the year unfolds, I revisit my altered book of intentions to reflect on and witness their transformation. I am grateful I am also able to participate in this process year-round within an inspiring digital community of women who are engaging in this creative practice as part of Prepare.Intent.Create.Transform workshops.

What are some intentions you have for this year?

Creative Destruction and Transformation in Art and Therapy

I am super excited to share that this article I co-authored with art therapy colleague Mindy Jacobson-Levy was officially published in the recent issue of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association (Volume 39, Issue 4): Creative Destruction and Transformation in Art and Therapy: Reframing, Reforming, Reclaiming.

For a limited time, you can download the full article for free. This access is available until March 31, 2023.

In February, Mindy and I are also teaching an all-day, online workshop as part of the Expressive Therapies Summit Singular Sessions inspired by our article. Join us on Saturday, February 25, 10am-5pm EST for this 6-credit continuing education offering.

Participants will explore key concepts surrounding the role of creative destruction and transformation through the lens of altered book making. This will include dismantling the book’s pages and reframing intentions within a safely contained construct. As we take this metamorphic artistic journey, this workshop will spark your creative spirit through extensive art making, embellishing methods, and group discussion. Case material will be shared to demonstrate the value of the create-destroy-reform process. To register, visit here to learn more.

How have you used concepts of creative destruction and transformation in your art or therapy practice?

The Value of Community Care in Difficult Times

We are all familiar with concepts of self-care as an important practice to take time for attending to our emotional, psychological, and physical health, wellbeing, and needs. Engaging in self care has often been highlighted throughout this pandemic to bring attention to strategies connected to managing our stress, isolation, and extreme changes associated with COVID-19’s impact.

Beyond self-care however, is the value of community care and its importance in taking responsibility and accountability to collectively care for one another, especially showing up in the hard times of distress and struggle. Community care is also examining how we can use our privilege to be present and of help for another person or a group of people in ways that activates support and commitment not just on an individual level, but as a collective consciousness dedicated to caring for others in our communities and world. For example, people have been hand sewing and making masks for healthcare workers, loved ones, and community members to help protect everyone from COVID-19 infection. Our mask wearing, physical distancing, and handwashing hygiene to mitigate COVID-19 is a responsibility we can all practice for the health & well-being of those around us.

We have also witnessed a form of community care throughout US cities and beyond in other countries coming together to collectively support Black Lives Matter in unprecedented ways to denounce the murdering of African Americans at the hands of the police, shed light on the realities of systemic racism, and through acts of demonstrating, protesting, creating public & street art in response, as well as the use of digital activism through social media to amplify messages of support, solidarity, and anti-racism.

Community care has been an important component of taking care of each other during these difficult times. Read this recent post from YES! Magazine to learn more about how community care is showing up in this “next normal” we are trying to make sense of for ourselves and more importantly, others.

If you are interested in exploring the concept of community care with art therapists, below is an artist trading card exchange focusing around this theme that you are invited to participated in– what does community care look like to you?

Creative Action Link Round-Up: Racial Justice, Anti-Racism, & Social Change

Finding Calm Through Creativity In Uncertain Times

2017 Creative Inspiration in Art Therapy, Advocacy, and the Arts

In this post I want to offer some of the silver linings I’ve tweeted or retweeted this year, with attention to the arts, creativity, advocacy, and art therapy. There have been several positive moments, messages, and accomplishments that I have found hopeful and encouraging… some light among the events and challenges 2017 has seen.

The American Art Therapy Association recently published this 2017 review of art therapy achievements in public awareness, advocacy, organizational statements, campaigns, and professional development seen this year on state and federal levels and within the Association;
This early 2017 article Creative Collaboration is What Humans Do Best speaks to the power of creativity and imagination to help us proactively and collectively work together on the challenges we experience. This piece encourages us to use our interconnectedness for constructively solving problems and activate successful solutions. These empowering words were a great read and reminder to help counteract experiences of division and sense of powerlessness or helplessness we may face;
This summer I blogged about the US Department of Arts and Culture’s Guide to Artistic Response to Natural Disasters and Social Emergencies as a creative action resource. Also worth bringing attention to are other opportunities on the USDAC site available for art citizens who want to make a social impact with their creative expression. The next event happening is the People’s State of the Union, an annual civic ritual and participatory art project if you are interested in getting involved!
Throughout this year, the Americans for the Arts has blogged on many current topics impacting the arts, artists, and communities, as well as ways for arts advocates to get involved in, support, and how to reach out policy makers and legislators about matters involving social change, leadership, community engagement, arts business, and more. A really valuable presentation I attended at the 2017 American Art Therapy Association conference in November was a legislative advocacy and lobbying information session led by Senior Director of State and Local Government Affairs at Americans for the Arts Jay Dick. This session presented positive ways art therapists can leverage legislator relationships to meet licensure and advocacy goals;

Also in November the Americans for the Arts reported that $150 million has been proposed for National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanities funding in 2018. This news was a huge win for arts advocacy efforts, as it was recommended by the current administration that funding for these vital government programs be completely eliminated. These monies will also continue to fund NEA’s Creative Forces, a military healing arts network, which includes art therapy services for veterans and service members;
Art Therapist Lani Gerity’s 2017 blog posts (#157-#171) Out of A Thousand Ways to Have a Happy Artist’s Life series has also highlighted much needed reminders about how the arts, creativity, and imagination can be used to help us be more resilient, kinder, and peaceful when facing dark and unsettling times.

**********

I wish you a 2018 full of artful abundance and creative spirit…. Happy New Year to you and yours!

Creative Deeding in Action

This past month has seen much creative deeding! The Hope-filled Postcard Art Exchange that Nancy Lautenbach and I organized went super well with almost 100 participants swapping art across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Asia— You can check out some of the postcard art submitted on the 6 Degrees of Creativity Facebook page and on Instagram — So much hopeful energy and positive vibes shared through the handcrafted images made specifically for this collaborative effort! These blog posts from art therapists who participated in the exchange described more about their process: Carolyn Mehlomakulu’s The Power of Hope-filled Art and Sally Swain’s Clouds of Hope. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this project!

I also recently received word that undergraduate art therapy students at Millikin University implemented their own creative deed project for their Materials and Methods class, inspired by last year’s 365 project. It was awesome to learn about their efforts from their instructor, art therapist Serena Duckrow and to see the art and creative goodness they were spreading to others on their campus.

Millikin University Creative Deeds

In addition to the art that was made for the project, the students also used photography, video, and video editing to document the experience. They really valued the role that digital media played in their process. I love the idea of video being part of the project and seeing the different locations creative deeds were released. Below is a video that the students made to showcase their project, which they called #MUCreativeDeed. Enjoy this dose of uplifting art and messages of encouragement, self care, and support….

What is great about creative deeding is that anyone, anywhere, anytime can do it! Creative deed on! 🙂

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Implications of National Trends in Digital Media Use for Art Therapy Practice

I am excited to announce that in the new issue of the Journal of Clinical Art Therapy (Volume 3, Issue 1) an article that I co-authored with Girija Kamal, Michele Rattigan, and Jennifer Haddy about digital media and considerations for art therapy practice was recently published.

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of national trends in visual art-making and art sharing using digital media, and, the authors’ reflections on the implications of these findings for art therapy practice. These findings were based on a secondary analysis of the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts administered by the National Endowment for the Arts. Survey findings indicated that increasing proportions of people in the United States are using digital media for creating, archiving, and sharing their art. Reflections by the authors on these findings include support for increase in use of digital media by art therapists for their own art and the need for research about, and, education on best practices for use of digital media.

You can download the full paper available via open access on the JCAT site here.

Many thanks to Girija for bringing us together to contribute to this publication, as well as JCAT’s Editor Einat S. Metzl and the JCAT Editorial Board for their interest in this topic. 🙂

The Creative Leader & Creating an Environment for Innovation

Cultivating Creativity, Connection, and Community | TEDx Ursuline College

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Exploring Internet Based Platforms with Digital Art-based Approaches

It is with great enthusiasm that I share this co-authored paper : Online art therapy groups for young adults with cancer published this week via Arts & Health. It was a pleasure to help out with the original pilot for this project with the awesome team of art therapists Kate Collie, Mady Mooney & Sara Prins Hankinson to explore internet based platforms w/ digital and traditional art-based approaches:

Background: This study was the final phase of a participatory design (PD) project aimed at developing professionally led online art therapy groups for young adults with cancer.

Methods: We invited seven professionals with a range of relevant expertise to take part in a PD process that emphasized hands-on creative interaction. Each participant experienced one or more online art therapy sessions and provided feedback that we analyzed with qualitative thematic analysis.

Results: The analysis yielded six inter-related themes representing three types of experience (comfort, sense of connectedness and expression) and three types of therapeutic action that supported these experiences (facilitation, group support and dialog about the art).

Conclusions: The results assured us that our newly developed mode of psychosocial support was ready for online delivery to young adults with cancer. The results provided insight into therapeutic processes in online art therapy groups, especially with regard to collective meaning-making and sense of connection.

Collie, K., S. Prins Hankinson, M. Norton, C. Dunlop, M. Mooney, G. Miller and J. Giese-Davis (2016). “Online art therapy groups for young adults with cancer.” Arts & Health: 1-13.

In the project’s initial pilot, we met online over the course of many, many months through a closed chat room we accessed, as well as a private discussion board where we would post different art directives for our group to work on. During the course of this project each of us would rotate between facilitator, participant, and helped with evaluating the online tools and arts-based methods we were testing.

Some of the directives we participated in used traditional art media and art-making (mandalas, dollmaking to name a couple of my favorites!) either on our own or we created our own images at the same time together, then uploaded our art to our discussion board for further exploration as a group. Other directives we engaged in used online or digital art-based tools, such as Pencil Madness, ArtRage, Polyvore, artPad and more. Often we would schedule a group chat where we could come together to process the directive and experience of exploring these programs and approaches using computer technology. We also had fun with group video chats through Skype and Google Hangouts.

From the experimentation we did and evaluated together, this work helped inspire and inform what would become an online art therapy group that Sara would led for young adults with cancer.

It’s been a pleasure and privilege to work with this tech savvy & creative team! It’s been great to have the opportunity to try out and learn different ways of making art and working together through technology. It’s also exciting to see how this groundwork can then be applied to facilitating online art therapy group work.

I hope you’ll learn more about the results of this project through checking out our paper. Free access is still available for the first 50 downloads of the paper available here. For those individuals who are members of the American Art Therapy Association, a benefit of your membership also includes complimentary access to Arts & Health, where you can also have free access to download the article. Log into AATA’s Members Only section to learn how to access Arts & Health!

Enjoy!

What’s Your Art Story?

Cultivating Creativity, Connection & Community | TEDx Ursuline College

I’m super excited to share my TEDx Ursuline College talk that went live last week!

It was an amazing opportunity to share my love of social media, creativity, and community building…. It was a great experience to talk about the possibilities social networking offers to connect all these passions together!

I’ve been able to creatively connect with soooo many through social networking– the art-based collaborations & gathering together that can happen online is always so inspiring!

Cultivating Creativity, Connection, & Community- TEDx Ursuline College | creativity in motion — TEDx Rehearsal

How do you use social media to cultivate creativity, connection, and community?

Check out all the TEDx Ursuline College talks here.

Related Posts:

Social Media and Creative Motivation

Random Acts of Art Adventure Travel Posts

Creative Motivation Quotes

Spectrum 2016 Give-Away Blog Hop!

I have some exciting news to share today: I am going to be a returning contributor in Spectrum 2016 this year – and I have 1 spot to give-away here at my blog as part of Spectrum’s Give-Away Blog-Hop!

If you’ll remember from last year, Spectrum is an online Holistic-Creative workshop– now going on its third year, and organized by Hali Karla of Hali Karla Arts. Spectrum 2016 will be guided by 20 NEW featured teachers and more than 20 returning contributors offering a variety of workshops, inspiration and invitations – all intended to empower, nurture and celebrate your innate creative expression, healing journey, and personal development!

There will be weekly inspiration & reflective activities related to mixed-media art-making and journaling, guidance on integrating your creative process and holistic awareness into your day-to-day life, and a variety of opportunities to connect, support and share with others in the growing Holistic-Creative online community.

The themes that will loosely guide our 2016 Spectrum experience are Forgiveness, Shifting Perspective, Navigating Uncertainty, Integration, Alchemy, Connecting with Nature, Honoring Body, Trusting Joy, and Expressing One’s Truth! You can expect a variety of perspectives on these – and so much more.

To learn more about the details, including all of the contributors and workshop offerings for this course GO RIGHT HERE.

As a returning contributor of this year’s Spectrum, I am looking forward to participating in an exclusive interview with Hali around a topic I am super passionate about: Creative Motivation: The Gifts of Online Community Participation that will be offered as a bonus during the first month of Spectrum!

Pre-registration for Spectrum 2016 officially opens on February 1, 2016 (and the program will begin on May 2). So be sure to bookmark this blog post so that you can check back to see if you win the giveaway here or sign up just as soon as it goes on sale.

About the Give-Away:

I have one spot for Spectrum 2016 to give-away to a lucky winner in our January blog-hop – but if you follow the awesome blog-hop list below, you will have an even better chance of winning a spot by entering the other giveaways as well. All of the new teachers are playing along – and quite a few of the returning contributors volunteered to join in the fun, too – so there are over 30 chances to win a free pass!

Here is how to enter my give-away:

It’s simple! Leave me a creative hello below in the comments section between now and January 30, 2016. I’ll randomly pull a name from this group and will announce the winner of my free Spectrum pass via this post on February 1, 2016 – the same day pre-registration opens for Spectrum 2016!

Just below is a list of the other amazing, inspiring teachers who are playing along in the Spectrum 2016 blog-hop, with the dates their giveway goes live – be sure to visit their site and enter there, as well- all giveaways are open until the end of the month:

13 January:
Hali Karla http://www.halikarla.com/blog

14 January:
Andrea Schroeder http://www.creativedreamincubator.com/blog
Angelique Arroyo http://schoolformedicinewomyn.com

15 January:
Bebe Butler http://www.bebebutler.com
Beth Morey http://www.sheofthewild.com

16 January:
Briana Goetzen http://www.orangespiralarts.com
Carissa Paige http://carissapaige.blogspot.com

17 January:
Cat Caracelo http://catcaracelo.com
Catherine Anderson http://catherineandersonstudio.blogspot.com

18 January:
Chris Zydel http://creativejuicesarts.com
Effy Wild http://effybird.com

19 January:
Elloa Atkinson http://www.elloaatkinson.com
Grace Howes http://www.redbarn-studios.com

20 January:
Kara LC Jones http://motherhenna.blogspot.com

21 January:
Kelly Johnson http://www.wingswormsandwonder.com
Kitty Oppegard http://handoverheartstudios.blogspot.com

22 January:
Kristal Norton http://kristalnorton.com
Lisa Hofmann http://dandelionseedsanddreams.blogspot.com

23 January:
Lisa Wilson http://www.beingbreath.com
Lucy Pearce http://dreamingaloud.net

24 January:
Malini Parker http://www.maliniparker.com
Meghan Genge http://www.meghangenge.com

25 January:
Melissa Harris http://www.melissaharris.com
Michelle Turbide http://michelleturbidestudios.com

26 January:
Petrea Hansen-Adamidis http://www.arttherapist.ca/blog
Rachael Rice http://rachaelrice.com

27 January:
Robin Hallett http://www.robinhallett.com
Shelley Klammer http://www.expressiveartworkshops.com

28 January:
Suki Ciappara Ka’Pinao http://sukihealingarts.com
Tara Leaver http://taraleaver.com

Enjoy the blog-hop, good luck on the give-aways, and I hope to see you in Spectrum in a few months!

Summertime Creative Happenings & Goings On

Summer is starting to kick off and so is some creative fun and art therapy happenings coming soon:

July 1: 6 Degrees of Creativity’s 2015 virtual workshops open! Yay!

Imagination Unearthed: Hidden Creativity Scavenger Hunt | creativity in motion — 6 Degrees of Creativity

As part of this year’s offerings, I am excited to launch a new workshop dedicated to discovering the hidden creativity around us. My curiosity around this topic was first sparked by this recent post and something I thought would be a fun endeavor to embark on together as we search for uncommon or unknown ways, forms, and different examples of how creativity can present itself. I am also looking forward to the offerings that art therapy colleagues Sheila Lorenzo, Rachel Mims, and Heather Randazzo will be inviting participants to engage in as well, which include workshop topics on self-care through art & nature, recycled art & mail art fun, and yoga & art.

Summertime Happenings and Goings On | creativity in motion — Social Media & Art Therapy

July 9-11- American Art Therapy Association Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota: I will be involved with three offerings during this year’s AATA Conference:

The Digital Landscape of Social Media: Thursday, July 9, 1:30-2:30 pm: I will be leading this focus group to stimulate dialogue and discussion about social networking’s important role in building community
and creating connection for art therapists worldwide.

Art, Transformation, and Trauma: Papermaking as Art Therapy: Friday, July 10, 10:15-11:45 am: I will be moderating this panel featuring the work of art therapists who use papermaking inspired by the social action and art-based mission of the Peace Paper Project. Panelists include Meredith McMakin, Rachel Mims, Amy Bucciarelli, Genevieve Camp, and Janice Havlena. Content will include papermaking as a form of trauma intervention, including vignettes addressing eating disorder recovery, managing illness and disability, grief and loss, and working with veterans.

Ethics of Identity in Digital Culture & Art Therapy: Saturday, July 11, 10:15-11:45 am: I will be contributing to this panel with art therapists Megan Campbell, Moriah Lancaster-Laird, and Natalie Carlton about topics connected to digital technologies and ethical considerations for the art therapy profession.

I am also looking forward to bringing Creative Deed 365 to Minneapolis and invite you to consider joining us if you will be attending the conference!

July 24- ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County Trauma Collaborative: I’ve been invited to present on Art Therapy & Trauma Intervention to members and agencies who attend this quarterly meeting.

Stay tuned for other updates and art from Creative Deed 365 and the Random Acts of Art Adventure, in upcoming summer posts as these creative pursuits carry on! And I hope to be able to share some of the wonderful work in the spirit of my Creative Covenants workshop happening over at Hali Karla Arts’ Spectrum too. And, right around the corner….Daisy Yellow’s ICAD 2015 begins June 1 – Wondering if I should combine my creative deed making with daily index card creating for this fun annual event? Hmmm…. more on this in my next post!

Summertime creativity is definitely in the air!

*****

Related Posts:

Creative Deed 365 Minneapolis

When it’s hot…Make some paper!

Social Media’s Role in Cultivating Art Therapy Connection, Community, & Creativity

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