This past year, just before I was getting too pregnant to leave town comfortably,
I was given the opportunity to teach a collage art therapy
workshop for 30 grieving parents. It was in Idylwild at Camp Ronald McDonald and the group I was working with was a very nurturing group for parents who had lost children to brain cancer. Talk about wanting to be prepared to say and do the right things as I led. I felt like my own (lesser) experiences with grief and loss over these past few years and how art and collage had helped me to work through a lot of it - gave me a place to work from as I instructed these families. I brought in a couple of my own works - specifically ones that showed my healing process over losing baby G and prepared a mix of music to work with that was both thoughtful and cheerful for promoting the creative process.
It was a very moving and precious afternoon.
It was also the largest group I've taught and some of the participants
had to be won over to the activity as it wasn't really something that
they had specifically paid for or signed up for. In fact, some of the dads were really skeptical at first and attended a bit begrudgingly, but as the afternoon progressed, they were the ones that got the most out of the experience (at least from what they told me).
They loved it and the time went quickly. There
were tears and laughter and at the end, I received many hugs and thank
yous. If I were able to post the un-cropped versions of these pics,
you'd see the huge smiles on their faces. To know I was even a small
part of bringing that was really special.
I love sharing art with others and these people deserved those moments of joy so much.
I've taught a bunch of collage, art, drawing, and silk painting classes to groups now, and I have to say that this was definitely the most challenging and rewarding class I have ever taught. I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity.
