Arts and Compassion

Week 1 Creative Practice

Reflecting on Marc Chagall’s stain glass, The Good Samaritan, and how he illustrated compassion through a strong use of blue which he believed was the color of love, I was reminded of a what color(s) represent compassion for myself. This week’s creative practice was inspired by the two colors, indigo and white, that I discovered represented compassion in a dream I had several years ago. I never fully understood the meaning of the dream until I began to contemplate this week about the colors of compassion and study the Good Samaritan parable along with the compassion articles and radio talks.

In the dream a friend who I had not seen for many years phoned and wanted to come visit me. When he pulled up in his car and got out I could hardly recognize him, he was very sick and looked like he had leprosy. At first I was frightened by his appearance and thoughts of escaping this uncomfortable situation flooded my head, but compassion from my heart quickly began to consume me along with a strong desire to help him. Earlier that day I had been sewing prayer blankets so in my dream I told my friend I would be right back while I ran to my closet to retrieve one of the blankets for him.  Suddenly I heard a loud deep voice tell me, “No, give him one of these to wear,” and I looked down at a stack of thin indigo blue and white lace pattern garments. After peeling the top garment from the pile I handed it to my friend and instructed him to wear it because in the dream I believed it was going to help him become well again. Since my Good Samaritan compassion dream I’ve had an intense attraction to the colors indigo and white but never understood until now how they represent compassion.

While contemplating what I should create using the colors indigo and white for my creative practice a vision of a smaller white heart within a lacey white heart on blue emerged. This image represents compassion for me; it shows how within my heart I carry my AIM patients’ hearts.

I’ve been designing a painting on canvas, stencil, mod podge and sand art project for my weekly creative aging workshop and was inspired to explore this technique for creating the heart within in a heart idea. Here are some images of my creative process and the Colors of Compassion sand painting.