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

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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

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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.

Destressing

Behind the Artwork

Let Go - Community Wellness project for Kent County Victim Witness program

With life’s ebb and flow, we sometimes may feel like we’re drowning in the sea of disappointment, defeat, or despair. But if we are willing to accept change, transformation can occur. Once we muster the courage to let go of whatever is dragging us under, a lifeline of hope reaches back through the breakers to keep us afloat.

Let Go - Community Wellness project for Kent County Victim Witness program Let Go, a collaborative project with the Kent County Prosecutor’s Victim Witness Unit, promotes wellness and resiliency. During the workshop, individuals wrote Let Go notes as a way to release anxiety and negative thought patterns. After writing, some individuals talked about their hurtful experiences or even shed a few healing tears.

Next, participants glued the notes under layers of transparent fabric, creating a wave pattern in their small, personal painting. The therapeutic art process symbolizes the release of daily concerns and devastating losses into the water. Following the workshop, we combined the individual paintings into a larger collage piece to encourage others struggling through domestic violence or the tragic loss of a loved one.

Let Go - Community Wellness project for Kent County Victim Witness program

This community-based project gives voice to our pain and encourages the reconciliation of emotional conflicts as a means to de-stress. Though the act of letting go may not be a simple, one-time event, even small steps of forgiving and leaving the past behind can activate healing. As a result, many participants experience freedom and a sense of new beginnings.

Let Love Grow

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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.

Blooming Earth

Behind the Artwork

Blooming Earth

After gathering some rocks during my evening walks, I began the aesthetic process by spray painting base layers of green, gold, and black. At the time, it had been raining regularly, so I decided to leave the rocks outside as an experiment; as suspected, the drops of water formed interesting patterns in the wet paint.

To capture the tension of this particular pandemic moment—with the profound sense of loss and grief— I tried to make some burn marks on the rocks with a cigarette lighter (I had never used a cigarette lighter before, so I burned my forefinger a few times before I got the hang of it). I continued by adding random drops of fluid acrylic paint and allowing the paint to naturally spill over the burn marks. This technique didn’t produce the results that I wanted, so I held each stone under the running faucet, which succeeded in activating spontaneous layers of colorful patterns.

The finished interactive artwork, situated in my garden near the mailbox, invites passersby to take a rock or to leave a rock. The colorful rocks blooming in my garden also reflect bounty—in times of scarcity—through the gift of art. This generative work invites community members to start a constructive dialogue by including a mystery prompt painted on the bottom of each stone. When participating with this healing installation, individuals shift from spectator to witness—giving a testimony of peace within our conflicts.

Blooming EarthBlooming Earth

Do You Still Love Me?

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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