Arts in Human Development - Creative Practice - Week 1

For many years during Christmas time, I create ornaments out of clay for my family and friends. A couple of weeks ago during my self-care creative time the idea came to me to make clay ornaments for my patients to paint during my bedside art visits during the holiday season.  The idea was inspired by the white cardboard 3 dimensional butterfly ornament project on my art cart, that the patient paint and color.  Many female patients, I have discovered, really enjoy this project because they like butterflies.  I do too and how they are slit to become 3 dimensional (see picture).  As I was making the flat clay ornaments with cookie cutters, for my patient art cart, the idea came to try making some of the ornaments 3 dimensional like the butterfly project.  So I tried it with a few different shapes: angel, tree, star and heart.  The concept worked however clay is much more pliable then cardboard; soon my 3 dimensional Christmas ornaments became healing angel sculptures. 

For my creative practice blog assignment this week; introduce myself through a work of art, I really felt since I was all ready in this creative flow, I was to make a healing angel reflective of me.  I started contemplating on what would this healing angel look like, what did I want this angel to express about me and what shape would I use to create the angel.  I knew I did not want to use a Christmas ornament shape.  The butterfly came to mind because they are similar to angels, I love butterflies, but why are they special to me? What is it about them that reflect me?

 

I began reflected on all the things I knew and liked about butterflies and what they represent; new beginnings, life transformation and hope. I remembered once reading the Greek myth definition for the butterfly: hopelessly in love with the other.  I started thinking about my patient bedside arts in medicine practice and realized all these things, I aspire to be. To transform the atmosphere when I enter the patient’s room, to bring life transformation and hope through art and creative activity.  I want to be that butterfly/angel of hope that walks into their room. That watches their pain leave, blood pressure and breathing become normal, smile return, all while their engaged in creativity, painting their butterfly.  New beginnings and hope restored.  I am so passionate about this, because just like the butterfly I too am hopelessly in love with the other.

Final Creative Practice Blog

The final art piece I created is a reflective collage of my creative practice blogs for each class and my recent pastel landscape piece which is a culmination of my journey in the Graduate Certificate program. Blogging was brand new to me when I started my first class, Arts in Medicine in Practice. I quickly discovered that I enjoyed the creative practice blog assignments and began to create blogs reflective on the material I was studying and learning. The ceramic healing wall projects began during my creative practice blogging while I was learning about healing environments. I began creating the ceramic healing tiles for my blog which eventually led me to propose to the hospital, a ceramic healing wall project, Tiles of Compassion, for my practicum. During my practicum I was inspired to draw healing angels for my blogs which culminated into sculpting out of clay the healing angels during my Professional Seminar blog assignments. Creating my work on a consistent basis helped me to stay in a creative flow with my work, which became a means of self-care for me which in turn helped me maintain the creative flow in my practice during bedside art. I learned during blogging and discussions, reflection, which aided my writing and deeper sensitivity in my own work and arts in medicine practice. This week I am on a cruise in the Caribbean, while packing for the trip I realized I needed to pack art supplies so I could engage in creative activity during this time. My desire for creating art has increased. While in Labadee Haiti, I was sitting on the ship deck looking out at the landscape and the desire to engage in creative activity with the oil pastels and paper I brought, came upon me. This was very different for me because I usually create in 3 dimension with clay, but I have found a new freedom and release from what I have learned and experienced in my Graduate Certificate program. I realized that I could try this pastel drawing, because for me it was not about a great work of art, it was about engaging in creative activity, just like I do with my patients in bedside art. So I did it and what was really great was the whole time I was drawing, a group of local Haitians were drumming so I created to the rhythm of their culture, I loved it! I have only worked with pastels 3 times before so I was pleased with the time I spent creating and my result. I am finding a new found interest these past few days in creating landscape drawings with pastels, which flows with my arts in medicine practice. I plan to introduce landscape drawing at the patient’s bedside. I realized through this experience that I am excited to try new mediums of art for my own art and in my practice. I feel so liberated and new confidence in my practice which I realized has developed from all that I have learned and experienced in my practice from the Graduate Certificate program this past year. The program has been life changing for me. I have so many new creative ideas for my arts in medicine practice and my own art. Most of all I have learned in the Graduate Certificate Program is that I am determined with all my heart to pursue my calling as an Art in Health Practitioner so I can help to enhance others quality of life.

Professional Seminar - Creative Practice - 4

I have been sculpting/cleaning up “Angel of Serenity” for a couple weeks and I still have at least a week more of cleaning and sculpting on the water in particular, the leaf wings are fine, I have not needed to touch them.  This cleaning/sculpting process had been a time of patience, slowing down and reflecting. The water clay strips I feel have messy edges and small globs of clay all over from my finger prints when I first formed the water and the clay was sticky.   It does feel like the water to me because everywhere I look it needs cleaning, I just keep cleaning and cleaning, never ending like the ocean. I have not been in a hurry because I know in order to capture the expression of peace I have to encounter every inch of the creating experience. What has made this process challenging is that I left my pottery/sculpting tools at home in AZ while I am here in FL.  I literally have hundreds of these tools so my thought has been to get creative with other tools that I do have access to here.  At first after many hours and it still looked messy to me, I realized that I just needed to go buy the right tool so I could get it done quicker and correctly. However as I have been engaging in the process, I noticed that even though everywhere I looked it still needed to be cleaned, the angel was progressing to a more finished stage.  I also began to brainstorm on what tool to use to get it cleaned up how I wanted, and I decided to use a small dry semi stiff paintbrush to brush crumbs off, smooth the small globs and rough edges.  The paintbrush works well it adds softness yet cleans and because of its flexibility I am able to actually begin sculpting the edges and shapes within the clay strands.  I had a breakthrough in the sculpting aspect while using the paintbrush, I was reminded of what the waves look like when they peak and crash and I began to capture similar shapes and the feeling the waves have as they move within the ocean.  I am now seeing every nuance of the piece as I continue to go around smoothing and sculpting each shape of the water/body of the angel.  The angels character, expression is starting to come forth as I continue to mold and shape her.

Here are some creative pictures of the Angel of Serenity.  I also have included some pictures of a second angel I recently began and it’s process thus far. It is in its beginning rough awkward stage before it is shaped and leaves added.

Needing to be cleaned and shaped.

Top view of the back

Professional Seminar - Creative Practice - 3

“Angel of Serenity” has all its parts; water, leaves on wings and hair, so it is now time for me to sculpt. Basically I need to go around every part and sculpt it until it looks just right. Some reflections while I was adding the different parts were on how quickly the rings I made went on to the body of the angel to represent the water. However the small leaves that I cut out with a tiny leaf cookie cutter out of a thin slab were slow and tedious to make. While pounding the clay really thin to cut out the leaves I noticed how my hand marks made a natural impression on the clay that looked like the print on a real leaf. This reminded me of other times when I recognized how when creating with clay I catch a glimpse of how the actual object in nature was created.

I also noticed how I was in a hurry to try to make the leaves quickly so I could get them onto the wings and move onto sculpting. I was reminded that when real leaves were created that each one was slowly and carefully made just right. I could feel how I needed to slow down so I could embrace the creative process, not just for the leaves but for every aspect of the creation of the angel. So I slowed down and really began to embrace the process and began to bond with creating the angel of serenity. While in the flow of bedside patient art I realized how easy it is for me to embrace the creative process, but in my own creative experience, I was in hurry and rushing through the creative process trying to make the most of my time. The creative flow, embracing the process is just as important in my self-care as it is in my practice.

While embracing the process I started to place the leaves onto the body and onto the wings. It felt like I was placing a covering, clothing onto the angel. This reminded me of how leaves are a covering on trees, and how they were used to cover Adam and Eve for clothing in the Garden of Eden. I also reflected on how leaves and feathers look alike and are both coverings.

The pictures are of a test pinch pot I created out of the same clay the angel is created from. I plan to fire and glaze the angel in my own kiln using my underglazes that I am familiar with, so it was necessary to test the clay with my underglazes, glazes and fire in my own kiln. My shell pinch pot test turned out good, so now I know how to finish the angel. The other pictures are of the angel getting ready for its final sculpting, and then it will dry out and be fired and glazed.

Professional Seminar - Creative Practice - 2

This week I was so excited and thankful to have found 2 blocks from the home we are renting in Florida, Kricket’s Old Village Pottery Open Studio! I have been concentrating on my self-care and to find an open pottery studio that I can walk to each day and sit down at the pottery wheel to throw and sculpt my angels is just what I have needed. (see photo) So I joined the pottery studio this past week and began to create my “Angel of Serenity”. I decided since I now have access to a pottery wheel to first create the angel in 3-dimension instead of on a tile as originally planned. I still plan to make the angel on a healing tile by creating it in 3-dimension and cutting the angel in half for the tile, however for right now I am really enjoying working in 3-dimension again. During my practicum, making healing tiles I had been only working in 2-dimension. So first I worked out the construction of the angel in a drawing and realized I would need to divide up my lump of clay into 3 sections (see photo). I have place placed photos in the order the creation of the angel took place. The angel is just in its beginning stages because when throwing the forms and then sculpting, the form has to firm up some before I can begin to really sculpt the wings and parts so it won’t collapse. I will continue to post photos as I continue to sculpt the angel.

Professional Seminar - Creative Practice - Week 1

The Angel of Serenity Ceramic Tile Art Installation. For my creative practice blogs I plan to sculpt the healing angels I was inspired to draw, during my practicum. Reflecting on two scriptures that say: The Son of righteous will rise with healing in his wings and the leaves are for the healing of the nations, I am reminded of the idea that healing angels may have leaves instead of feathers on their wings. Also how feathers and leaves are very similar to each other and are both coverings. I want to make clay relief tile art installations. The first relief I will make is The Angel of Serenity, which was inspired from the peace released from the ocean. I desire for that same measure of peace to be released to a person when they view the ceramic angel relief. Often I meditate on the ocean and how the waves cap into glistening angels. I decided to draw the angel with oil pastels to get an idea of the colors, textures and how to break up the angel into six tiles. I chose to use calming peaceful colors; blues and greens. The 2-dimentional pastel drawing was not able to capture the actual 3-dimension relief that the clay tiles will have but has helped me to work out some of the details needed to begin sculpting the angel.

Creative Practice 1 - 10.21.13

Four Healing Angels - I am learning about compassion during my practicum time facilitating art at the patient’s bedside at the hospital. I find myself going to new levels in compassion each time I enter a patient’s room while at the same time staying within my arts in medicine practice boundaries. So during my times of reflection and journaling I have been contemplating on the act of compassion. For my creative practice I felt I would like to explore the idea of healing angels. I love sculpting angels and have created out of clay many different angels through the years, however I realized I had not created a healing angel. So I started contemplating who are these healing angels and what do they look like? The first one to come to mind was, “The Angel of Compassion”. When I thought about what this healing angel would look like, I began to draw it. These scriptures, that speak about “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings…” and the one about the tree of life “the leaves are for the healing of the nations….” came to me. As I was drawing the Angel of Compassion’s wings I decided the wings should have leaves instead of feathers, for the healing. Next I realized that leaves and feathers actually look very similar. I had not thought about this before. As I was drawing, two more healing angels came, one the Angel of Transformation which looks like a butterfly and cocoon. It speaks about emerging and transformation and the second one the Angel of Mercy, I am still learning about this one. There is one more that I still have to draw; it is the Angel of Serenity which speaks about peace. I plan to sculpt each of these four angels onto four healing tiles to create one clay sculpture relief wall installation.