The Collaboration of Story: Healing Imprint

Healing Imprint project on display

Healing Imprint: This multi-media collage series embodies the history, suffering, and grief of our neighbors, while exploring cultural conflict in a new way. The scattered placement of random forms on the raw canvas portrays the disconnect. In life and in art, our personal narratives define us. But strangers’ stories also matter, because they are part of the collective whole. As part of this project’s interactive exploration, gallery visitors are invited to continue the artwork. By adding their story or expressing their ideas on the paintings with a pen or Sharpie, participants leave a healing imprint. The responsive work calls for empathic listening, with the intentional act to include the other.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon

Yellow ribbons with hand written messages on trees

The Voices collection, featured at Veterans Memorial Park for ArtPrize, also gives the audience a chance to speak. Visitors are invited to write an encouraging note on a yellow ribbon and tie it to a tree, as a way to use their voice to support those who fight for our country. Following ArtPrize, the Blue Star Mothers will include the yellow ribbons in care packages to deployed soldiers and to veterans as a reminder of this community that supports them.

Here’s how it works

Write a thank-you note on a yellow ribbon and tie it to the trees. Let a veteran know that you are thankful for their service. Consider volunteering for a veteran cause, hiring a veteran, or even listening to a vet’s stories. Our veterans have sacrificed so much for our country; choose one way you can help give back to them to encourage art’s healing power.

Write an inspiring note:

Thank you for your service…
Thank you for your sacrifice…
Thank you for the freedom we enjoy…
Your service will never be forgotten…
I appreciate you for…

Our new type of ArtPrize venue gives veterans a voice as they share their stories of struggle and healing through art.

Yellow Ribbon is showcasing at Veterans Memorial Park

A special thanks to Kent County Veterans Services, Zero Day, Office Max in Grandville, and Healing in Arts for making this collaboration of veteran stories possible.

The Next Season of Growth

Yellow Ribbon around tree

Military families tie yellow ribbons around trees to welcome soldiers returning home. Continuing this tradition as a veteran’s wife, a military mom, and an artist, I designed the art exhibit Yellow Ribbon, which expanded into additional veteran art workshops for artists and non-artists, sponsored by Kent County Veterans Services.

Because of the veteran’s invisible battles with PTSD, military sexual trauma, or suicide—along with prolonged isolation during a pandemic—the projects promote hands-on involvement and a sense of community. Years ago, while living on a remote military base, I struggled with a debilitating sense of loneliness. Veterans also experience isolation when re-entering civilian life and encountering a disconnected public. The spirit of Yellow Ribbon continues by encircling each veteran with creative care, by exploring new aesthetic opportunities, and by providing a friendly space to experience positive social support.

Kent County veterans welcome: No artistic talent required.
Bring your smile and your unique perspective. Swearing allowed.

May Art Workshop – Tissue Paper Leaf Collage

Trees adapt to their environment incredibly well. With the change of seasons, trees let go of their dead leaves instead of clinging to them. In doing this, they make way for the new leaves to form and eventually grow. As humans, we tend to hold on to our dead leaves–toxic thoughts, adverse relationships, or bad habits. Our tendency to rehearse negative experiences again and again inhibits our growth and limits our potential.

For the May healing art workshop, we will create abstract leaf collages with Japanese rice paper and tissue paper. The project focuses on form and use of space, while creating colorful abstract leaf shapes that depict beauty and hope. Throughout life, as we learn to adapt and let go of dead leaves like the trees, we promote emotional resilience and make space for the next season of growth.

Tissue paper leaf collage

June Art Workshop – Plexiglas Tree Reflections

As trees grow, their lower branches often die from the lack of sunshine. When the branches fall off, new cells grow around the wound, creating a knot. Though the knot looks like an imperfection or scar, it provides new pathways to sustain the rest of the tree with nutrients and water. When facing adversity, we also need to find new ways to adapt and move forward.

For the June healing art workshop, we will paint abstract trees with acrylics on plexiglass panels. The project focuses on line, shape, and color to create harmony and balance. If we embrace our imperfections and scars, these important life markers, like the tree knots, signify strength and regeneration.

June Art Workshop - Plexiglas Tree Reflections

Note: Workshop participants will have the option to display their artwork at our August veteran art exhibition.

Broken Wings Virtual Workshop – Part 2

Broken Wings Virtual Workshop

Monarch butterflies contribute to the health of our planet by pollinating many types of wildflowers. But in order to survive the harsh winters, the monarch butterflies migrate from Canada to Mexico and back to Canada; it may take up to six generations for butterflies to complete the 6000 mile round trip.

Once the butterflies reach Mexico, they cluster on trees to stay warm. As the temperatures drop, the butterflies huddle more tightly. By banding together, they create an environment of safety.

Difficult events—like 9/11, the current pandemic, or when a loved one gets cancer—can cause us to cluster together. These challenging times teach us that we need each other to survive. We can’t endure hardship alone.

However, devastating events can cause divisions, too. Sometimes individuals start pulling apart and isolating themselves to cope. But these times of separation may make matters worse, and lessen our chances of survival.

Recently, Wedgewood’s Manasseh Project sponsored a couple of Healing in Arts virtual workshops for their residents recovering from sex trafficking. Most of the teens participated willingly. A few, however, refused to join the hands-on activity. But once they saw everyone else enjoying the creative fun, they decided to participate. One of the girls even affectionately called me, “Grammie.”

The monarch butterflies show us the importance of unity. The next time we experience adversity with someone, let’s set aside differences and cluster like the monarchs. When we come together—with healthy and safe people—we contribute to the welfare of our planet, making it a healing place.

Contact Pamela at Healing in Arts to book your next in-person or virtual event.

Broken Wings Virtual Workshop

Let Love Grow

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.

Does the Golden Rule Still Work?

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.

Give Away Hope

Children creating butterfly art

While coping with COVID-19, I find that looking for ways to encourage others helps me keep my own anxiety in check. Here are a few ideas on how we can connect with our communities and get through these challenging times together:

  • Create an art project with your children with simple materials like a paper plate or coffee filter
  • Give a donation to or share some food with those in need
  • Call someone who lives alone to help brighten their day
  • Start a friendly conversation with the check-out clerk at the grocery store
  • Write a happy birthday wish to a friend or acquaintance on Facebook
  • Simply smile at a stranger

Even if we think we don’t have much to offer, the smallest act of creativity or kindness can pay big dividends and help our own fears to shrink and disappear.