Welcome our new expressive-arts interns!

Wan-li

I am Wanyi, a second-year graduate student studying Art Therapy at Lesley University. Having grown up in Taiwan, I had the chance to learn fine art for my bachelor’s degree and was fortunate to have lived and taught in three different countries. During those time periods, I found the therapeutic power of art through leading art-making sessions in my communities. To further my knowledge in using art as a therapeutic medium, I came to the US to learn from the best.

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Weaving a Farewell Tapestry

I am thinking of endings today as I recently announced to the community that I only have a short time left at common art. I expressed my gratitude to everyone and told the community how much they have helped me grow. I shared with them the site where I’ll be going for my second internship and explained how my experience with them helped me get this opportunity.

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Trading Cards

This week I really felt my growth as a facilitator. Over this past year I have worked on building my confidence and my ability to identify what art activities will be well received by the community. While I can come up with many ideas of art to make, not all of them are going to be of interest to the artists. So, in order to lead a successful art-making idea I need to have built my own confidence as well as an understanding of what the community enjoys. I also need to know what small challenges could be embraced.

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Identifying Strengths

This winter at common art we have had a lot of staff and volunteers away, whether for just a week or for some months. Missing so many people really showed me how much each person brings to common art and how strongly I feel their absence. I was able to really test my growth last week as our resident artist Allie took a much-deserved week off. Her absence gave me a clear picture of just how much she does for the program.

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Give and Take of Creativity

Last Wednesday I was able to return to common art with a lot more energy after a week’s break. It reminded me how important self-care is when it comes to being able to care for others. That day we began working with clay in order to make beads for jewelry. Each week we normally have volunteers who lead beading up on the stage in our space. They will be away, however, for a few months. In their absence we are working to provide other activities for the community, especially for those who would normally engage in the beading. Continue reading

Just Being There

Leading up to the holidays was a very fun time at common art, of making festive art and talking about plans and memories. Having these things to look forward to helped create an uplifted spirit in the community, even with the weather getting colder. Coming back after the holidays, however, I could definitely feel a slump among everyone in the community. Many of our staff and volunteers were away last week and will be away for a little while for varying reasons. COVID also hangs very heavily over me and the community at this time. So, I felt a little overwhelmed, in addition to feeling that lull myself, I also felt that I had to make myself bigger and have more energy to fill the spaces that were now empty. I know these coming months will be a challenge to bring excitement and art making to our community because of the winter lull.

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Thanksgiving Table

Before fully jumping into this next part of the holiday season I want to write about the great success that was common art on Thanksgiving Eve. As I had wanted to take on a bigger project with everyone for a while, I challenged myself to come up with an art activity that would engage almost the whole community around thanksgiving. While I have led one or two tables in artmaking and pulled community members in, I had not yet attempted to engage as many people as possible. This was also a good challenge for me as one of the biggest things I am continually working on is “pulling people in” to the artmaking process. I feel joy when I am able to have someone who doesn’t often engage in the art, create something.

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Pulling in New Participants

This week went smoothly. Monday at the prison, I chose to have the women attending Art & Spirituality share a word they felt drawn to. I spent the evening writing them in script. I am thinking that I may add more words over time to build some kind of collage of them. I think it would be nice to set it up each week for the women to see, especially as it grows with more words.

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A Rainbow of People

This week started off really well with my Monday group at the prison. For the opening I suggested the group share a color that we could feel connected to that day. It was an unusually small group, and so, before everyone shared their colors, I had an idea. I wrote down each color mentioned and then, as I sat with the women chatting, I colored a piece of paper in a gradient of the colors and cut it into strips to make little bookmarks. Before making the gradient, I had found each color and then laid them out in an order that looked nice. While doing this and chatting with the women, I made sure to notice their process and reflect it back to them. The two women mentioned that this time was very calming and quiet for them and that just being there felt therapeutic.

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Engaging Participants

This week at Boston Warm was slower. Everyone seemed a little tired and unmotivated, which made it difficult to get them to feel engaged. On Monday, however, at the Suffolk House of Corrections program on art and spirituality, I had some positive interactions that gave me a glimpse of the small ways I could be a positive presence at my sites. Continue reading