Go For It! There's a rainbow waiting

At Wednesday's art therapy group we began by doing a simple warm-up. She called it a "graffiti" drawing whatever that meant to us individually, but she asked us to focus on letting go of the day. I drew a wall and sketched statements about all the worries and frustrations from my day then drew pink wings attached to the wall and wrote "take them away on angel's wings".

Next we picked a haiku poem and were to do an art project in relation to it. I chose two. The first was "A summer shower - a woman sits alone gazing outside." I think I liked that one because I have so often sat and watched the rain or people pass out a window with a cup of tea and got lost in contemplation, daydreams and such. I did a sketch with pencils, some graphite and some coloured, of a large window and sill. A tea cup sat steaming on the sill, an empty chair sat in front of it. In the window hung a green branch, a red house beneath, a blue sky, and a warm yellow glow. I remembered that the poem had mentioned a shower but I felt like making it sunny. I then skethced a figure of a naked woman on a magazine page with the pattern of a cloud studded sky then cut her out and placed her on the chair. She had a round bottom and her back was to the viewer, half facing the window. When I was cutting I accidentally ripped her feet off and just left them. Later as I was puting some materials away I reached into a bin and felt sand. It seemed right to have the ground be sandy, as if her feet were stuck in there. Unfortunately when I felt the sand I didn't realise it was red sand but I used it anyway even though it ended up different than I expected. I completed that piece quickly and moved on to a second poem, "A nightingale's song Brings me out of a dream: The morning glows."

I chose to do another collage with magazine images as I did last week, and similarly the page was divided only this time I let the division find itself rather than drawing it in. On the right was a girl with a not so happy face covered by a blanket. A blue bird shape hung above her, pointing towards the division. Below her was a picture of a man at a desk covered in papers and one of a red fox. There was also a picture of deep blue water to her right. On the left side of the page I chose very colorful pictures of plants and animals, of swirling skirts and people smiling, trees flowers, faces. It was full of life and joy.

After we completed our works the facilitator asked us to ask our image(s) "What does the image want to do?" we were to use our non-dominant hand and answer this and then write out as many questions as we would like to ask the image as if we were getting to know it. I can't remember all that I wrote but I think both women were waiting and watching, wanting to go outside, participate, etc. but neither had feet! Later we asked is there any message for me now? Does the image have something to say to me? I wrote quite a lot on the page but at the end came, "It's sunny outside, find your feet and go for it!" "There's a rainbow waiting" Interestingly two other women in the group wrote very similar things. One woman's said "Go For It" and spoke of having trust and another woman's said, "Just do it" and also spoke of trusting. So I suppose that was the message for the week. To trust (I like the word faith better) and go for it! There is a rainbow waiting!

Love and Peace
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