Why My Friend Draws

From the Heart6 Comments

Pricilla's dog sketch

My dear friend, Priscilla, lives across the country from me. But sometimes, we exercise “together”—via headsets and smartphones—while she walks her pup in her neighborhood on the East Coast, and I amble through my neighborhood in the Midwest. Recently, while talking on one of our walks, Priscilla texted me one of her first watercolor drawings of her dog.

Her initial work delighted me. Surprisingly, she had already started to develop her own unique visual language as a beginner artist. I texted back a few suggestions for watercolor paper, brushes, and a bit about color theory.

A few days later, Priscilla emailed her vignette on why she appreciates drawing. So, I asked if I could share her lovely painting and prose. She agreed.

Why I Want to Draw by Priscilla Fox

I lose myself when I draw. It’s fun to completely focus on getting that dog ear right, or the wrinkled, worried brow that is so much a part of my pup’s expression. I love learning new things and honing new skills. Drawing helps me be a better observer of the world around me. I love spending time with friends who also want to learn to draw. We speak the same language! One is fluent and is patiently teaching me and my other friend. We laugh a lot and share stories and encourage one another. So, in one way, drawing is as much about friendship as anything, and that is a good thing.

Drawing helps me be present. If I am thinking about what I need to do when I get home, I can’t draw. It just doesn’t work to be preoccupied! I have notecards with this saying on them: “Every day is a gift. That’s why it’s called The Present.” In this way, drawing nourishes my soul.

When I draw, I am learning to focus on what I see, not what I assume to be there. Just because a coffee cup has a circular opening at the top doesn’t mean that’s the way it looks if you really look at it. I have to leave my preconceived ideas at the door before I pick up my pen. This also is a good thing to bring into the rest of life. Drawing reminds me to leave my prejudices behind.

My four adult children often tease me about making everything in life a children’s story. There is an ant on the counter that is “scouting for food for his family,” or there is “one lonely piece of pie left that is feeling unloved.” I have stories written that need pictures. Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to draw pictures to go with my stories. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the process of learning to draw—and everything else it is teaching me.

Awakening Hope and New Beginnings

Behind the Artwork5 Comments

Awakening 2020

Awakening inspires forgiveness. The healing art provides a tangible way to let go of a past hurt, regardless of whether or not the situation has ever been reconciled. Forgiveness does not mean what happened is OK; it means letting go of your anger or resentment. For this particular art project with the incarcerated teens from Girls Court, participants each wove a ring of flowers with a biodegradable note and released it into the water.

The active gesture of letting go gave their pain a healthy, aesthetic expression, while the ritual of placing a floral wreath in the water symbolized a new beginning—a sort of baptism, or cleansing, of the soul. By extending forgiveness to those who have hurt us, we experienced redemption and growth—awakening our hearts to healing.

Awakening 2020

Awakening sprang from my own journey to forgive a hurt from years ago. At age 13, I wanted to belong. Specifically, I wanted to be part of a group of older teens, who were also vacationing with their families at the same location as mine.

My dad’s approach to parenting was pretty hands-off, but during this particular vacation, he firmly said that he didn’t want me to hang out with these older teens, because I was the youngest. But, as a typical adolescent, I didn’t listen to my dad’s advice. I mean, I was either part of this group of kids, or I was on my own.

So, one night, while my parents were out, I invited the teens for a game of monopoly at our place. Later that evening, a couple of the older girls made coffee. I suppose it seemed like a grown-up drink. Although I didn’t like coffee, I drank some too. Again, I wanted to fit in; I wanted them to accept me.

I don’t remember finishing my coffee, though, because I completely blacked out. One of the older girls had slipped something into my coffee, without me knowing it, and I passed out cold.

While I was unconscious, the other kids stripped me of my clothes, carried me to the edge of the beach, and tossed me into the water. The cold water shocked me into a weird place of semi-consciousness—with the horrifying realization that I was naked. After swallowing some water, I felt like I was going to drown, even though I was close to the shore. The other kids laughed as I stumbled toward the beach, fell sideways, and passed out again.

I don’t know what else happened that horrible evening. The next morning, I woke up in my own bed, fully-clothed. Sometime during the night, I had vomited.

I also awakened to the fact that these older teens were not my friends. I was disposable to them—part of a cruel joke played on a child. Not only did my brain still feel foggy, but my heart hurt, too.

Though I made a foolish mistake as a 13-year-old, by not listening to my dad, I was not at fault for being publicly exposed. The guilt and shame belonged to my “friends,” the older teens, who had drugged me, undressed me, and thrown me into the water while they taunted.

Recently, almost 50 years later, I realized that I needed to deal with the painful memory of that dark night. I had never actually told anyone about the incident, because I had taken the older teens’ shame on myself. For my own emotional health, I decided to forgive the other teens, who had transgressed against me, who had used me, even though they never apologized. The forgiveness wasn’t for their sakes; it was for my sake, to help me move forward with my life and experience peace. Although my unfortunate childhood incident happened decades ago, it’s never too late to lay the past to rest.

Awakening 2020

I created Awakening to take proactive steps for my own spiritual healing. The redemptive art provided a tangible way to let go—along with a refusal to accept any shame from circumstances beyond my control. By extending mercy to those who hurt me, I experienced growth and new hope. Amazingly, the tragic childhood incident transformed into a catalyst to help others sort through their painful issues, too. The cleansing act of forgiveness gave me a sense of closure, and a fresh sense of hope awakened as I invited others into this healing project, too.

Giving Hope to the Lonely

Behind the Artwork2 Comments

Visual Arts Mission Asia

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

Visual Arts Mission Asia

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.

Let Love Grow

Behind the Artwork

Children holding pine tree saplings for planting

Let Love Grow shares the gift of art through the form of young trees, spreading beauty and joy while strengthening the health of the planet. By giving away saplings to students from underprivileged schools, we nurture creativity and encourage caring for our environment. The generative act of planting trees creates a piece of living art that cultivates hope for future generations. This creative, communal project invites participants to let love grow in their lives.

Children creating paintings for Let Love Grow workshop

My dad loved to plant trees. His love for trees inspired my husband and me to plant a tree everywhere we lived, from California to Philadelphia to Denver to Germany to Grand Rapids.

One of my last memories of my dad was when we planted seedlings together along the highway. Somehow, he talked my family into helping him plant hundreds of seedlings. I didn’t exactly appreciate this opportunity at the time; it was hot, hard work.

Only a few months later, my brother called me to say, “Dad passed away.” At the funeral, a speaker told a story about my father handing out dozens of seedlings to a group of children for their moms on Mother’s Day. Even though I was sad about my dad dying, that story made my heart feel happy.

As I thought back over the memories of my dad, I realized how much he loved trees. Through planting trees, my dad taught me how to care for our world. As the biggest plant on our planet, trees make our world a beautiful place, provide oxygen and clean air, and give food and shelter to many animals. Plus, we can help reforest our planet after wildfires or other destruction.

Like my dad, I now use my art to plant trees and to love others. Art is necessary to help heal our broken world; planting a tree strengthens the health of the planet, but more than that, it creates a piece of living art to give beauty and hope to future generations.

A special thanks to Vans Pines Nursery for donating the saplings to our school program

Let Love Grow paintings

Since our art is very much collaborative and interactive, we would love for you to be part of this journey. Join our team and help support healing art.

Do You Still Love Me?

Behind the Artwork2 Comments

Close-up of eyes on Nude Self Portrait

Do you remember the last time you really, truly made eye contact with another person? We often consider looking someone in the eye to be normal and polite, but usually it doesn’t last long before we glance away. Staring into someone’s eyes is surprisingly intimate—there’s a reason we call the eyes “the window to the soul.” Many times, it feels too uncomfortable to stare for too long: What will our eyes, or theirs, reveal?

As part of my post-graduate work this summer, I asked my husband to join me in a two-minute stare-down exercise. The assignment was somewhat painful, tender, funny, and grounding, all at the same time. For this project, my husband and I sat about eighteen inches apart, facing one another.

As I set the timer on my iPhone, my husband immediately took my right hand, and caringly held it throughout the entire two minutes. Within the first 30 seconds, as I stared into his warm brown eyes, we both smiled big, which made us both laugh. My husband asked, “Are we allowed to talk?” I let him know that we weren’t supposed to. Then we regained our composure—a reset—and resumed the stare-down.

As I observed his bushy brows, once a dark brown with flecks of red, but now completely white, they twitched and made some playful, tiny movements. I smiled again. My whole body felt relaxed, while my left hand rested peacefully across my lap.

In the second 30-second interval, a single tear fell from my right eye and slowly made its way down my cheek. I’m not sure I had ever felt such a slow migration as the tear’s downward movement took its time. My husband’s eyes warmed. I continued to try to emit “I love you” messages with both of my eyes. I saw his eyes blink a few times. I felt sadness, fear, vulnerability, and comfort, as I inwardly pressed into my husband’s strength.

I wondered, “Does he still love me, too?”

In the third 30-second time period, a second single tear finally streamed down my left cheek. This tear had remained on the edge of my left eyelid throughout the first minute. I wondered if it would ever become heavy enough to fall. When the tear finally fell, it wasn’t in a hurry either. By raising and then scrunching his gray brows, my husband seemed to ask, “Are you ok?”

I tried to communicate back through silent, Morse-code brain waves, “Yes, I am resilient. I love you.”

The final 30-second period seemed very long. I felt insecure as I stared into my husband’s eyes. Did his passion for me still burn? Did he see my deepening wrinkles and double chin? Was I still beautiful and alluring?

Nude Self Portrait (detail)

Nude Self-portrait: A study in brokenness, vulnerability, and resiliency (detail)

Time seemed to move so slow. But with each passing second, his eyes only grew warmer. He never wavered. His gaze remained constant.

My eyes never left his. I still belonged to him after almost four decades. Our years, full of adventure, spanned three continents, from Japan to Germany and everywhere in between. Memories poured through my mind: laughter, tears, walks, date nights, conversations, a daughter, fights, a son, misunderstandings, cross-country moves, another son, an international move, a third son, four grandchildren, and more lovemaking.

I suddenly picked up my phone to see if the timer was still going. It felt like we had gazed at each other for an eternity. But we had another two seconds to go. At the end of our two-minute stare down, my husband affectionately dried the tear off my right cheek with his two fingers. I leaned toward his tender touch. We both smiled. As we stood up, he wrapped his arms around me and drew me close.

Throughout this two-minute exercise, my eyes were tempted to break away, even for a second. But as I pushed past the discomfort, I experienced a new intimacy with my husband. Somehow, the brief exercise advanced our marriage to a new level of trust. For the rest of the day, my soul felt at peace: My husband still loved me, and I loved him.

Nude Self Portrait

Nude Self-portrait, Pamela Alderman, Mixed media, 75 x 28-inches, 2020

Does the Golden Rule Still Work?

From the Heart

Healing Leaves Project

“Identify someone different from you; then the two of you go serve someone else. The best way to have reconciliation is through service. Not through racial seminars,” said Dr. Tony Evans, a famous black pastor, in a radio interview after the unjust and brutal killing of George Floyd. Dr. Evans’ quote stood out to me, because it points to the type of movement needed for our nation to heal.

While listening to the radio and lamenting the loss of George Floyd’s precious life, I wondered how I could be part of the solution, to help bring about meaningful change. The Healing Leaves Project came to mind. For this project, we pasted leaf-shaped Post-it notes with hand-written messages—words like “love wins” or “show empathy”—around the protest zone in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and prayed for healing.

On Sunday afternoons for the month of June, my Healing in Arts team and random individuals we have met on the sidewalk have been sticking these notes, which speak hope into our pain, on store windows, street benches, and lamp posts. We even gave a pack of leaf-shaped notes and a Sharpie to a stranger who wanted to participate.

Healing Leaf Post-it notes and Sharpie

In thinking about what more I could do to be part of the healing process, I remembered a situation from several years ago, where I learned some lessons on how to solve conflict through helping my neighbor and living by the Golden Rule—treat others the way you want to be treated. Here’s my personal story:

We have lived in several states because of my husband’s work. In one place, we had African-American neighbors move in next door. We appreciated these new neighbors, a young mother, whom I’ll call Monica, and her children, because our children would have new friends in the neighborhood.

From the very first day they moved in, the kids got together after school to play basketball or baseball in our yard. At times when the kids played, small conflicts occurred. For the most part, these skirmishes were easily solved between the children. But sometimes, Monica and I had to get involved to help solve the disagreements and restore the peace.

It’s fair to say that Monica and I both made some mistakes over the years as neighbors. Some of these mistakes caused friction. Overall, though, things flowed smoothly.

But one day, when I brought over some food as a gift, Monica got really offended. She explained that this particular gift insinuated that she had less than me. Because of my gift, she established a new boundary line between our homes; a line she didn’t want crossed—“ever again.” I felt surprised and disheartened at Monica’s strong response. After sincerely apologizing, I prayed for a chance to reconcile with her and make things right.

A few months later, an opportunity came to help Monica in a natural way. One day, as she was struggling to back up her car around another car parked in her driveway, I took a risk and went over to help her. It took about forty-five minutes to help direct her, but when Monica finally maneuvered around the other car safely, she got out of her car and ran over to give me a hug. In that moment, the tension that had existed between our two homes over the previous couple of months disappeared, and peace was finally restored.

Healing Leaves message on lamp post in downtown Grand Rapids. Michigan

Monica taught me how to be sensitive to others—what may be a gift to one person isn’t necessarily a gift to another. She also showed me the importance of humbly listening to others and respecting their boundaries so balance and harmony can exist. The Golden Rule and a willingness to change, on my part, helped reestablish peace between our two homes, and our kids continued to enjoy their backyard sports.

Years later, I discovered that within a five-house radius of our home, different neighbors showed love to Monica and her children through unique acts of service. One neighbor drove one of Monica’s sons to football practice. Another neighbor went to watch another of her sons play basketball. And a third neighbor invited the boys to the lake and taught them how to swim. There was no organized effort in the neighborhood to help Monica raise her children, yet several neighbors did their part to seek the common good for all.

Childhood Studio

Behind the Artwork

Childhood art studio

Through an art class, I have been recently introduced to artist Rochelle Feinstein. Feinstein writes about the importance of chronicling the creative process and each stage of making. She explains that these various periods became special markers.

For her, the history of making started when she was only four years old. Her space, a child sized bed, “supported a menagerie of stuffed animals, systematically arranged by color, size, and species.”[1] Though unaware at the time, Feinstein, from a young age, was already setting the stage for her future studio work.

Reflecting on Feinstein’s creative journey, I had my own epiphany. After living everywhere from Japan to Germany and places in between, my husband moved our family to my childhood home in the Midwest. Years later, after our children left the homestead, I have a whole house with unoccupied spaces to expand my studio into. As the light changes throughout the day, I shift my projects from one room to the next, following the sun from rise to set.

One sunny morning, while sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom to work on my next ArtPrize installation, I realized that I was in the exact spot where my artist’s heart first formed. My studio practices started in that very room. As a child, I spent hours after school on the floor in my bedroom, creating mini-installations from old shoe boxes, Dixie cups, fabric, sequins, and all kinds of other found treasures. In that moment, I uttered a prayer of gratefulness—my creative journey had crossed two oceans, three continents, only to return back home to the humble floor of my childhood studio.

Mock-up model for Yellow Ribbon installation

To design Yellow Ribbon, I started with a paper pattern. Next, I created a foam board model.

[1] The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists, Grabner, 2010, University of Chicago Press, Rochelle Feinstein, p 21.