March 03, 2021
Today, quite a few interesting things happened on the third day of our ECS. First, we started off with a morning of class discussion and activities regarding different mental and physical disabilities and how art can be used to help treat or bring joy to those who suffer from them. For example, we tried making a simple drawing using our feet after seeing the amazing work of those who cannot use their hands to make art or paint. It really showed how much talent these artists have, as drawing with your feet is certainly not easy! Next, we attended a wonderful presentation by a local art therapist, Susan Jacobsen. In this time, she told her story regarding art therapy, explained to us exactly how it works and a bit about how we could find a career in that field. After that, she led us in a very fun activity in which we made collages using photos from magazines and then constructing original poems about our collages. It was very interesting to see what everyone created! Susan also told us about a very special project she developed in this time of Covid: The Beyond Bored Book project (Mia is looking through a sample of it below). She even left us with some boards to fill ourselves, if we’d like to have our expressive art in the project. Next, after a nice lunch break, we heard another presentation by a different local art therapist, Barbara Wegener. In this activity, she explained a bit about what she does in art therapy and her approach to helping different people. We also did two exercises, which she uses with her patients. First, we drew a picture of what our inner critic, or the voice in our head, would look like. Next, we made Zentangles, different complex patterns within a box that we drew, which I personally thought was very calming. In conclusion, today on our ECS we met a few very neat people, did some great activities, and had a lot of fun!
