HeArt & Healing*

All of my life, I have loved  art, creating, making things with my hands. Art for me is spiritual, sacred,  healing.  All of my life,  I have loved stories, written stories, and visual ones.  Stories that are told  with images, collages, photography. I have loved book art, making books, little books and large ones. As a child I was drawn to the expressive arts:  drama, music, dance, poetry, art,  and later in my life, visual journaling, mixed media and digital collages. I feel blessed and fortunate to teach Arts Interventions in Social Work Practice at Touro College Graduate School of Social Work.

This site  is for everyone who passes by, and particularly for social workers and mental health professionals who are drawn to the arts as a therapeutic method and a form of healing. If you have happened to stumble upon this site, and you are here right now reading these words, it is because destiny brought you here. For some reason, you and I and these words, and this page were meant to meet. Maybe I am a reminder of your need for adventure, and these words a call to do the things you want to do because they bring you joy and peace.

Buy a journal today if you don’t have one. If you do, find it now. Any old notebook will do. Get some pens, pencils and crayons, whatever media you choose is fine. The visual journal is both a journey to the self and a way to be mindful of life’s precious moments. Art opens our eyes to new possibilities. We do not have to be artist to love art. I have realized that we are artist in our own way, creating life with every breath we take. If you are too focused on the past and the future, take a breath, inhale and exhale slowly, sit and focus on your breath. Allow your self to be. The point is to create what surfaces from a place that is old and wise within you. The place under your belly that is calm, curious, compassionate and courageous.

The image you see here is my first digital collage created in Adobe Photoshop. I created it from a poem I wrote. The poem is there in the background. I created this collage using favorite art work and then manipulated the images in Adobe Photoshop. I than transferred it to water color paper. It always reminds me why I love art, and creativity, and creative communities.

It reminds me that to create is to be free.

So, be free. Breathe. Create. Play – Take time right now and relax. 

Sit quietly and allow whatever images surface to surface. You can cut out images from magazines, words too. Collect items that represent your day. Place them in the journal. You can add other found objects on your journal pages too. You can write ideas about future stories, or write the beginning draft of one or you can sit quitely in the morning and write a poem from your dreams. Dreams hold our truth, and in images they are the stories we have been wanting to tell ourself.

Be friend them. Listen to them.

This is a time well spent journeying deep within to your heart. Your body is the vehicle to take you to places you have not allowed yourself to explore. Do this every day, be gentle, even if it is for five minutes. Then see a theme develop, as it tells you a story like a dream. You can share it with me.

Please remember to seek professional support as this is an informational site only and it does not substitute the therapeutic support of an expressive arts therapist, or psychotherapist.

Báez, A. (2019). HeArt & Healing 1. ChinChinPress, 6(1).