In the midst of a challenging year, we continue to work with profoundly challenged students, incarcerated teens, families grieving a homicide, survivors of sexual abuse, children who go hungry, and detainees in Thailand through Healing in Arts.
Our creative mission of serving and caring for others started with a lesson my mother taught me decades ago. At nineteen, while recovering from my parents’ traumatic divorce, I switched colleges and moved to the west coast. Initially, my new adventure sparked hope, but I didn’t realize that my grief and depression would follow me, along with a period of struggling with bulimia. My daily S-O-S phone calls to my mom often ended with her repeating this mantra: “Get your thoughts off your problems, and do something kind for someone else.”
Desperate, I decided to give my mom’s solution a try. When someone was sitting alone in the school cafeteria, I asked them to join me. When my grandmother sent homemade cookies, I shared them with my roommates. The emotional healing and growth, however, did not occur overnight.
My mom’s counsel, at the time, seemed hard to understand. But looking back, I see how she helped me grow in resilience. She taught me to replace the inward focus on my own negative circumstances with an outward focus—on benefiting others. While grieving my loss was healthy, and necessary, my traumatic experiences helped sensitize me to the needs of others.
By following my mom’s advice throughout the years, I cultivated a habit of empathy. Through encouraging others, I gained victory over loneliness, despair, and the loss of a family, which still cause some adverse consequences in my life. But these challenges lead to new opportunities for personal growth and, inadvertently, influence the direction of Healing in Arts.
We who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength.
the Apostle Paul
This September, following the tradition of my mom’s advice to focus on others, we collaborated with Gerda Liebmann from Visual Arts Mission Asia (pictured above). Our Healing in Arts team made 400 heart cards to encourage detainees in crowded immigration centers in Thailand, who are fleeing war and religious persecution. Some of the detainees have been held in the centers for seven years without an opportunity for processing.
The centers permit Liebmann to visit only one detainee per week. So, she created a project to collect 700 heart cards from artists and crafters from all over the world in order to encourage the lonely and forgotten. After displaying the cards in a Bangkok gallery, Liebmann distributed them to the detainees. Thankful for her work, Healing in Arts would like to honor Liebmann and her compassionate mission in Thailand. Join us for our next healing project. For more information, contact us at info@healinginarts.org.
Red pants with black lettering hung from the wall. The red against the white walls intrigued me to walk closer. I approached the pants to discover I could actually read them. I realized I was reading someone’s true story. It touched my heart, as if I heard the voice speaking from the pants. I walked away telling myself, “I have to meet the artist behind this project.” It was Pamela Alderman at the beginning of her MFA program. Today, I am a board member working alongside Pamela with Healing in Arts. It has been a pleasure planning behind the scenes and watching projects, plans, and goals come to fruition. I am overjoyed to see what Healing in Arts provides for others locally and internationally. I believe the world without art is just, BLAH. Kameko Madere
Healing in Arts creates art experiences to build hope, care, and connection in under-served communities, including special needs kids, incarcerated teens, sex trafficked youth, First Nations people in Canada, veterans with PTSD, and the elderly.
