Art destruction...

I guess the theme for week two was personality. We were told to think up both positive and negative personality traits to describe ourselves and to write them on a small squares of coloured tissue paper. We were told also to include things we do. I carefully thought out my words and the colours they would match with. Next, she said to destroy the squares. I was the first to get up and I scrunched each square and threw them on the ground. Then I stomped on them with my wet boots and ripped each piece into to tiny pieces. I tightly rolled them into to a ball and thought about what to do next. Before I had the idea to take them to the sink she told us to stop. It was sort of a strange experience and I noticed the others had only neatly crumpled their squares. With the pieces we were told to make an art piece to represent ourselves.

I walked over to the table and saw this new wire mesh netting that hadn't been there last week. I put it to my face and shaped it to my nose with the idea of making a mask. Once again I started to sew each little piece to the base. I tried to make what was left of the words visible. Not long into the project I realized that I was missing part of my 'personality'. The red 'critical' piece and the 'yellow' teach square were still stuck to the bottom of my boot. Also in the process I noticed the last square I meticulously attached was called 'stubborn'. A piece of netting attached itself to my 'mascara' and I wove three coloured pipe cleaners around the edges.

After the mask was the task to make a treasure map. We were given a piece of paper to crumple and then draw onto it a map to a hidden treasure within ourselves. I was happy to be crumpling again and tracing lines around the paper a dove like hand emerged over a tiny figure in prayer. Next I drew some lighting, a river, a seashell, and a face. To me the message was peace and I liked the introspection the images suggested.

Camino interior

I signed up for an art therapy class this month called 'Creating Greater Self-Esteem.' It's put on by an Ursuline sister and there are three or four of us in the class. The first week I hated it, but this week it was okay. I guess I wanted to be doing real 'art' rather than 'crafts.'

The process is interesting and it is all about the process vs. the product. The idea is just to instinctively work on your art pieces and then to talk about them. The sister frequent suggests that everything has a reason and to look for metaphors and themes.

After making a name picture to present ourselves, the first project was to make a doll to represent healthy self-esteem. I didn't want to make a doll, and I also decided I didn't want to use any glue. In any case, I started my doll by sewing material onto popsicle sticks and the end result was very different than the glittery, smily people like figures my classmates made..

Makes sense?

This was one of my students new vocabulary words this past unit, so I've become more aware of when I use this expression. Things are starting to make sense by not making sense. I joined a group of 180 crazy people in the Ice-cycle bike ride on Sunday. Being part of a group seems to bring a sense of affirmation to the illogical winter sport. In the same spirit I left the house that cold winter evening to see the film 'Panique au Village.' It was a very cold walk and as I left I heard a father telling his son that that was the wierdest film he had ever seen. I really enjoyed the absurd story twists with subtle hints of Belgium coming through in the accents, the food and drinks. I guess I like contradictions and foreign films, so it made sense to not stay home.