Art heals.
I have watched Art transform people when I worked as an expressive therapist. I know it from my own life, too.
I’m in an exhibition at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts that opened last night. Here’s the introductory blurb for this exhibit:
“The definition of alchemy is to transform something toxic into an illuminated substance, which why we ask each artist to transform a cigar box by means of his or her own personal aesthetic and medium—taking a box that would be normally filled with a polarizing object as a cigar and creating an alchemical vessel, an original piece of artwork in order to benefit the Smith Center’s cancer support programs. We hope you will join our efforts in realizing this community-building art exhibition and benefit to support our important work with cancer patients, their caregivers, and veterans.”
As a prompt, artists were encouraged to answer the following 3 questions (either with a partner, or alone). Here they are, if you’d like to follow along at home:
- What is one of the most difficult things you have ever had to go through (Feel free to tell as much or as little of details as you want. But reflect on what was challenging about the situation.)
- What helped you get through that? What did you draw on (friends, family, spiritual practices, God, nutrition, silence, intuition, ……etc)?
- How does getting through that inform or affect the way you live your life now?
The ladder is made from a coffee stirrer.
I spent a couple of days answering these questions and came up with “Out of the Woods,” a diorama containing several of my own alchemic symbols relating to the healing power of making art. And this is the first time I’ve made a diorama in a cigar box.
March 18 – May 6, 2016
Opening Reception: Friday, March 18, 7–9pm
Artists’ Closing Reception: Friday, May 6, 7–9pm
More information is on their Website.