Messy Hands Art

05/03/2023

☆ New Office Locations ☆
Now in centrally located office suites in Greenwich and Stamford, with flexible scheduling options.

02/14/2023

☆ Connecticut Pediatricians! ☆

I will be doing a brief virtual information session for Connecticut pediatricians and mental health professionals to learn about my practice. I want to support your patients through fun and engaging art making experiences!

☞ Visit messyhands.art/workshops to register!

Please join me on Monday, February 27 as I introduce myself and can answer any questions you might have.

02/13/2023

I've opened my Medium blog about art therapy and art materials. Look forward to seeing more posts about how different materials affect art experiences! These posts will include the posts from my website, but for now I have my introduction up and will be adding more soon.

Introducing a new blog on art materials and their effects on therapy and art experiences.

02/06/2023

One of my favorite projects to do with groups of children is to learn how to use line, shape, and color to show different emotions. This is a long process over several weeks involving movements, sounds, and finally putting pencil (or oil pastel) to paper.

An important component of this work is seeing how different people express their emotions differently. Before making art, we did a little exercise: I created emotion dice and gave each child a set of different colored cards. I'd roll the dice, and when an emotion came up they had to hold up which color they think of when they hear that emotion. It was interesting to see even in this brief exercise that there is a pretty wide range of responses! Depending on the emotion and comfort level of the group, we might have a short conversation about why each person chose their color.

Finally, we used the emotion dice paired with the shape dice to create small illustrations. "Mad Triangle," "Worried Square," "Sad Triangle," and "Excited Circle."

After each week's lesson, the children made an illustration in their journals that represented how they felt that day using only abstract line, shape, and color. My goal is for these journals to be quick non-verbal check-ins as we move deeper into our process.

01/25/2023

Teaching Empathy through Stick Figures
a FREE virtual workshop for student support professionals

Wednesday, March 1 @ 8pm

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The humble stick figure, a misunderstood tool for quick visual communication, is revisited in this workshop on teaching empathy with children and adolescents in school settings.

Join me as we discuss ways to use simple drawings to create a rich environment for exploration of empathy and the ways our actions affect others around us.

This FREE one hour workshop will include information about using art as a technique to enhance challenging verbal discussions and to promote insight. We will draw terrible stick figures together as we experiment with showing and understanding how deep emotions can be conveyed in the least complicated ways.

No art background is required. Please bring a pencil, paper, and willingness to look a little silly.

This workshop is designed for student support professionals such as guidance counselors and school social workers who work with students of any age.

FREE workshops for student support professionals.

01/21/2023

I am an artist and art therapist and I would like to work with you or your family to help you achieve your goals. Art therapy provides an opportunity for you to express yourself and bypass the filters we sometimes have when trying to put an experience into words. No previous art experience is necessary!

Sessions can take place in the studios at the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, or in your home.

Please visit my website www.messyhands.art for more information about me or art therapy in general. I look forward to hearing from you.

12/08/2022

Beading can be a deceptively easy project to do, either alone or with others. As someone who has an admittedly love-hate relationship with beads, I find myself turning to them time and again for work with clients and students as well as in my own art making.

First, beading is generally a low risk and high reward activity. It is almost instantly accessible to most artists with a relatively high degree of fine motor control. For those who may have some fine motor challenges - a younger artist, for example, or someone with a history of stroke or injury - there are relatively simple accommodations that can be made to support their beading. For instance, some artists might enjoy beading with wire instead of string because the wire will be easier to control, and then the wire can be mounted to a surface, or can be used to scoop beads from a dish.

Without much instruction, many participants are able to finish a beading project in a short amount of time. But because beads can be added to string so quickly, some artists are tempted to finish the task without intention. Thoughtful beading requires planning, discussion, and perhaps even sketching or drawing the desired finished product to provide direction for the work.

Additionally, in my experience, the less often a group or class has met, the messier the bead making experience tends to be. For example, if beads are a one-time activity, students were more likely to leave loose beads on the table and floor, or mix the beads in the different containers. If we had already an established relationship and routine of cleaning, what I like to call the “bead-splosion” was minimized. (If you’ve ever done beading, you will have an idea of what I mean by “bead-splosion.”

The joy of quickly completing a project that can be immediately given as a gift is unusual in many art making experiences. As opposed to a painting, which must be laid flat to dry before it is enjoyed, an artist can immediately use or wear their beaded project as soon as it is complete.

So why do I have the love-hate relationship with beads?

As a teacher, group leader, and art therapist, I find beads to be extremely challenging to execute to my standards of programming. There is of course the temptation to “just let them do beads,” as if that is an easy activity. But “just let them do beads” requires set-up, planning, and careful consideration of the participants. It can take hours to properly prepare for even a short beading program: organizing beads, pre-cutting string or wire, anticipating accessibility requirements, testing the materials, and so on.

If I am the lone facilitator, tying the finished products at the end of the activity becomes a harrowing experience. The number of strings of beads that have been dropped and destroyed in the simple process of transferring hands is too many to report. Participant tears have been shed with only minutes left as they watched pieces of their careful work roll across the floor with no time to start again.

This often creates a chaotic conclusion to what feels like should be a calm and relaxing “easy” activity. Even if everything goes smoothly, there is the anxiety of potential “bead-splosions,” either from dropped projects or hurried last-minute finishing. And what of the participant who has taken the beading process so seriously that they have spent their whole time allotment on planning, who insists on staying until it is finished, who continues working through the chaotic ending where everyone clamors to get their bracelets tied before it’s time to go?

Finally, when presented with beads, in my experience many participants tend to begin collecting and hoarding materials in ways unlike most other art media. To manage this I try to give participants smaller containers for holding their collections and encourage returning to the supply area instead of trying to get everything at once. Even still, there is a strong urge to collect and store the “coolest” or “best” beads for no reason other than to have them. There can be a reluctance to return unused beads, to instead try and invent a purpose for them in order to keep the beads in the collector’s possession.

Clearly, I have some strong feelings and past experiences with beads, and yet I return to them. I believe they have so many potential benefits that it is worth continued experimentation. And if I figure out a solution to minimizing the “bead-splosions,” I will be sure to write about it.

11/23/2022

Thanksgiving is a holiday that happens during the transition from Fall to Winter. Many religious traditions have harvest festivals that mark this time, but Thanksgiving is unique in that it has no official religious affiliation and can be adapted to fit into any culture or community.

Transitions are a time for us to look back and think of what we have accomplished, as well as look ahead at the work to come. The focus often is on the time spent together with others, the MEAL itself, but there is so much more to think about this weekend than simply that. In fact, sometimes this focus leads us to feel the stress of perfectionism, the stress of creating a social-media-worthy gathering, the stress of doing it right.

If this stress is feeling overwhelming, we can take a moment and remember the important 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique.

5: Recognize FIVE things you can see in this moment.
4: Feel FOUR things you are touching right now.
3: Pay attention to the sounds of THREE things around you.
2: Smell TWO smells without moving your body.
1: Become aware of ONE taste in your mouth.

Once you've become fully aware of your senses and in your body, your stress level is reduced, and you can be thankful for your life in this very moment. If it feels right, you can then bring your mind to what brought you to this moment, who or what supported you and continues to support you. You can think of what you are hopeful for the weekend, the season, or the year to come.

Wishing you a Thanksgiving that restores you and makes you feel ready to dive into winter. 🍂☀️❄️

11/18/2022

This weekend I'll be running an adult education workshop inspired by the work of Marc Chagall. Join me as I unbox my supplies and test my project for the first time. 😊

11/16/2022

WHAT IF....
..the most important - measurement of whether or not you are a good artist is the quality of your stick figures. If you can make good stick figures, you are an Artist. If you “can’t even draw stick figures,” then you must never touch art materials again.

If this sounds ridiculous to you, then we agree! Yet, drawing (especially, bafflingly, stick figures) holds this power over us: the ability to discern who is an Artist and who is Not.

Drawing can be a very powerful tool. Even stick figures can communicate deep meaning! Every medium has its qualities, for better or worse, that affect the art that is produced. And there are so many positive influences that drawing has over our art!

First, the materials are familiar. Most of us have been drawing since we first held a mark-making device in our hands. Maybe it was chalk on a sidewalk, or a crayon; we discovered we had power over the world and made our mark in it.

These also tend to be the cleanest and most portable of the art materials. Most drawings are easily contained to the intended surface, pencils and crayons don’t dry out, and paper doesn’t get brittle in the air. You can pack supplies in a bag to take anywhere, and the drawings themselves can be stored or even folded and sent in the mail.

Drawing materials are easy to control. They leave a mark where you want a mark and don’t where you don’t. When you draw a line with a pencil, it stays exactly where you put it. Because of this, you can use drawings to illustrate a point or to create diagrams. It’s easier to make details or write letters and numbers because the lines stay exactly where you want them; you don’t have to worry about the materials misbehaving and so your focus can be on what you want to communicate.

But of course, there are drawbacks to such precise, controlled media. The first being the echoes of classrooms and homework that come along with using a pencil and paper. The memories of the stress of years past whisper in our ears. We want to do it “right.” We want to be “good” at it. We want others to understand what we are trying to communicate. We want that check mark on the top that says, “Good job!”

The pressure to do a good job sometimes makes it hard to feel free to experiment. Drawing can feel like a skill to be developed before it can be used to express ideas and feelings. Unfortunately, many people stop developing this skill sometime in adolescence, which can leave adults feeling like what they want to express is too big or mature to be put into the drawings they are able to make. The desire to make illustrations and diagrams can be too intrusive for sharing difficult or traumatic experiences. And many teens and adults shy away from certain media (crayons, I’m looking at you!) because of the strong association with childhood.

This doesn’t make drawing a “good” or “bad” method of expression. Every technique and material has its own benefits and drawbacks, so it is important to choose the right one for the job - or at least to have reasonable expectations of yourself while using it.



More posts coming soon!
www.messyhands.art/blog

Resources for this post:

Orbach, N.; & Galkin, L. (2016). The spirit of matter: A database handbook for therapists, artists, and educators. Kiryat-Tivon, Israel: Ach Books.

Seiden, D. (2001). Mind over matter: The uses of materials in art, education, and therapy. Chicago, IL: Magnolia Street Publishers.

11/14/2022

Early childhood is a challenging time for both children and caregivers. Most communication is non-verbal, so it is up to the caregiver to learn and respond to those cues. These private, in-home sessions are designed to help primary caregivers bond with their young children with the goals of creating stronger relationships and more confidence in their abilities.

Please contact me for more information and pricing.

messyhandsart.ct@gmail.com
914-418-4644

*These sessions are offered only in Connecticut.