With the Christmas season keeping me busy, I’m planning to take a break from the DBT Modules and post some shorter (maybe more interesting!) items. One of the sessions everyone at Timberline was required to attend was Art Therapy, twice a week. The first session was a guided class where each person was asked to make something based on a prompt. The second session each week was open; we could finish our project from the first day or we could work on something of our choice. At the beginning of each session we went around the table, stating our name and what our emotion was at the moment. At the end of each session, we shared our art work and described how it fulfilled the prompt and what it meant to us. And, once again, we had to share our emotion at the moment.
As an aside, Timberline was built on an old family farm and takes up 43 acres. It’s a beautiful wooded site in the Chicago suburbs, and when you’re there it’s hard to believe you’re in the city. The farmhouse, a century old stone building, was turned into the art studio. It’s a very neat building. The wood floors are intact. The stone walls still show inside and out. It has tall, very narrow windows and exposed ceiling beams. We sat around one long table made up of smaller tables, all of which were covered with multitudes of paint splatters. The floor was spotted and the sidewalk leading up to the door has more and more spatters as you approach that door.
The art instructors were interesting people, and had their introductory speech down pat. Because the client turnover happened every week, we had the same instructions every week on what to do and how to take care of the studio. Our specific instructor had a large ceramic vase full of paint brushes with bristles so hardened by paint they were like rock. She called this the “vase of shame” and emphasized every time about washing out our brushes.
We had almost every kind of art supply available – not always in abundance, but always available. There was canvas and many, many kinds of paint. There were drawers of magazines for collage. There were drawers of markers, pens, crayons, etc. There was clay, glitter glue, old books, and small wooden boxes. My personal favorite (besides the Sharpies!) was the cabinet she called “Hobby Lobby.” I’m sure you know what I mean – buttons, ribbons, pompoms, wooden beads, pipe cleaners, cardboard, etc.!
One of the first items I made was out of clay. Our prompt for the day was to “make something depicting one of your values.” Here is a picture of how I depicted Partnership…
They are intended to be the same
size, shoulder to shoulder.
More art projects are on the
way this month!
