Tag: social and emotional

Master Your Mountain™ — Empower Student Success and Get Student Engagement with Goal Setting

Published on by awsstudiosartLeave a comment

I Want to be a Doctor but I Don’t Think That Will Ever Happen!

One day, I asked two of my students who were buddies what they wanted to do when they were older. “Doctors — pediatricians,” they excitedly responded. They wanted to help little kids. But immediately after, they said they didn’t think it would happen. If kids don’t see a way, then we need to empower student success with goal setting…

Master Your Mountain™ For Student Success

Often young people haven’t had the opportunity to explore their future with guidance and information and opportunities to practice their goal setting and planning skills. That’s why I created Master Your Mountain™. It’s a fun activity that empowers middle school thru high school student success with goal setting.

Well Maybe I Can…

Master Your Mountain™ is an easy-to-use lesson plan for teachers, homeschoolers, or parents. The creative and colorful activity walks students through the process of planning for their future. First, students identify their dreams or goals. Then, the things they need to do to get there. In Master Your Mountain™, kids see how goals can be accomplished. By breaking down what seems overwhelming and impossible, they see the value of a step-by-step plan.

With Master Your Mountain™, you will see the lightbulbs go on and the wheels start turning! When the unattainable fog lifts, clear possibilities shine 1

A Great Classroom Management Tool

Master Your Mountain™ settles students into their own world and space. The resource also provides community building with peer to peer and group tasks. The activity can be accomplished in 1-3 classroom periods. All required materials are provided — just three fun worksheets— and scripts for teachers/parents, if needed.

Additionally, Master Your Mountain™ can be used in any classroom and with any subject.

This Won’t Work with my Students

And it won’t if you don’t follow up. But follow-up is easy. Once a month (though the more the better) check-in with your student or have them journal an update.

Boost your middle school, junior high, and high school students’ confidence and engagement with  Master Your Mountain™!
Click here to Find out more!

The “Power of Permission” Slip™ – a Mental Health, Social Emotional Learning Resource Every Teacher Should Have

Published on by awsstudiosart1 Comment

Unlock Mental Health and Empowerment

When handing out the “Power of Permission” Slip™ you may notice a collective sigh of relief. Along with a room full of relaxing shoulders. Giving people permission to practice positive, safe, and healthy self-empowering behaviors is powerful. It reminds recipients of their obligation to their mental health and social emotional learning. Instead of the inhibiting mantra “How dare I?,” the “I owe it to myself” self-care refrain empowers.

What is the “Power of Permission” Slip™?

The “Power of Permission” Slip™ is a small, 3” x 8” slip that gives the recipient permission to do something that would improve their mental health. The small and easy-to-give resource generates transformative feelings and change. It’s an easy way to make someone’s day – giving them “permission” to do that thing that keeps them from feeling good.

Give students the power of permission slip for their mental health and social emotional learning

Solves Mental Health and Social Emotional Learning Problems and Enhances Learning

The …Slip solves the problem of people feeling they shouldn’t or can’t do something. But, if done, it would improve their mental health and social emotional learning. The “Power of Permission” Slip™ is a simple prompt, a mild nudge that motivates inaction into action. The resource enhances learning by making the connection of getting or giving permission. This allows the practice of a positive mental health skill. It is also a great behavior management tool.

But what about…

Don’t worry that it’s simple. Be glad that it is and it works! There’s not much to understand. Fill in the recipient’s name on the …Slip or have them fill in their name and either suggest something they need permission for or have them come up with their own. The “Power of Permission” Slip™ can be given over and over again. There is no limit to how many times someone has received a …Slip.

Features include:

  • The simple, all-inclusive permission slip is all done for you, just print out, cut out, hand out, and start making your students’, staff’s, family’s, friend’s, or even YOUR OWN day! Yes, you can give yourself permission! It’s the best kind.
  • The “Power of Permission” Slip™ gives its providers easy access to providing their constituents with joy and builds trust and relationships. What could be better than that?

The “Power of Permission” Slip™ is FREE!

To celebrate the remodel of my Teachers Pay Teachers aws Studios Store, I am giving away The “Power of Permission” Slip™ for free!  Once you receive it, make a lot of slips because once you start your students, staff, family, and friends will beg for more!

My Future Story Documentary, a fun and inspiring goal setting and planning activity

Published on by awsstudiosartLeave a comment

A Favorite Goal Setting Activity

A picture of the My Future Story Documentary goal setting worksheet

One of my favorite mental health/social-emotional learning activities I developed is “My Future Story Documentary.” It teaches a goal setting and planning skill I wish I had learned when I was in grade school.

My Future Story

Back then, my future story was to sing, dance and act on stage. My mother pointed out New York City was probably the best place to pursue these goals but she didn’t think I should go. In her mind, NYC was a scary place and that was enough to stop me from moving forward with my idea.

In the “My Future Story Documentary” goal setting resource, one crucial step is for the “filmmaker” to identify their “Supporting Film Crew.” These are friends, family members, teachers, coaches, and clergy, etc. who support the maker’s future story, an important part for turning dreams into reality. And, like in my case, they may not always be a friend or a family member.

An aws Studios.art illustration of a adolescent ballerina - if only they had a goal setting activity like My Future Story.

Goal Setting and Support

My mother (whom I love dearly) may not have embraced my dream, but Marion, her best friend, did. Marion, who herself dreamed of performing and later became an award-winning ballroom dancer, noticed my talent. Though, I never shared my dancing and acting dreams with her. The “My Future Story Documentary” activity prompts students to identify supportive adults and share their dream with them.

It’s tough when immediate family are unable to be supportive. Nevertheless, there are many success stories where dreamers found support elsewhere.

Get the “My future story documentary” activity here!

Now as a picture book author/illustrator and mental health curricula supplier (with no regrets!), my supports are everywhere —family, friends, and colleagues — and it’s great!

What about you? What is your success story and who was your supportive “crew?”  

Give them a shout out in the “Comments” below!

Reframe It!™: A Game for Parents Looking to Solve Behavior Problems

Published on by awsstudiosartLeave a comment

Reframe It!™ game reduces anxiety and boosts social emotional mental health!

Reframing is a social-emotional mental health tool or strategy that helps to understand the function of human behavior. The American Psychology Association defines reframing as “a process of reconceptualizing a problem by seeing it from a different perspective.” This, then, creates possibilities for parents and others to solve child problem behaviors. Reframing shows how to foresee behavior and bypass it while building empathy and reducing anxiety.

As a parent, I loved learning about reframing. It showed me ways to try to get to the source of my child’s behavior problems. I was able to predict what might happen and diffuse their triggers.  It also helped me improve relationships with family members and friends. Reframing showed me how by to see behaviors from another’s perspective.  I enjoyed learning and teaching reframing so much that I developed “Reframe It!™,”* a game that teaches reframing. It shows a way to see why children or adults behave the way they do. The games also helps to build compassion for others and ourselves.

Reframe It!™ is a fun game!

“Reframe It!™” is a game for parents and others who are parenting to help them understand child behavior and behavior problems. The game can also help parents understand their own behavior, building self-compassion.  With reframing, we gain an understanding of “the function of behavior,” or why people – children and adults – do what they do.

An aws Studios.art cartoon illustration showing a bunch of celery reframing two onions with behavior problems

Reframe It!™ offers players:

  • A chance to think about ways to modify their reactions to challenging or problem behaviors
  • Ways to predict difficult behaviors and then
  • Make changes to the environment or situation to bypass potential problems.
  • For example:

A parent learns that sibling conflicts often arise from children seeking attention or they are bored or jealous. The parent sees the connection and plans ahead to give each child positive attention regularly. Or they change the environment by helping the child engage in a personally stimulating activity.

Reframe It!™ objectives include helping parents:

  • Learn about reframing.
  • Learn how to reframe behaviors to understand the function of behavior.
  • Begin a practice of reframing to help plan for and modify behavior/reactions and the environment.
  • Build empathy.
  • Build an understanding of personal behavior and “why we do what we do.”
  • Enter into discussions about behavior, stress, family roles, tasks, conflict or anger management, etc.
  • Increase comfort in communicating with each other.
  • Improve parent-child communication.

More about reframing here, here and here!

Click here to purchase Reframe It!, a downloadable pdf for $12.00

* Reframe It!™ is a trademark of aws Studios and was developed using the child and parent behavior reframes in Intervening with troubled families: Functional family therapy and Parenting Wisely. D.A. Gordon, author. 2003.

Picture Book Boosts Disabled Children’s Mental Health

Published on by awsstudiosart1 Comment

From art to mental health and back

When I first started this blog, I mainly wrote about my art – how I made it and why. Then, as I tried to find a publisher for my picture book Adventures with phearnik!™, I learned the importance of building a platform to help launch my books and curricula into the market. That’s when I started to post more about how most of my work is about boosting mental health skills. Today’s post has a little of both –art and mental health skills.

Most of my picture books so far, I wrote for my granddaughter, Fia.  One Christmas, I made her a pillow out of a coat that had been her great-grandmother’s, my mother, Lucy. I wrote Lucy’s Pocket to tell the coat story and how it became a pillow. The following year Fia wanted a rag doll like the one I had made for myself. I made her a matching doll and wrote Adventures with phearnik!™ to explain the meaning of the doll and gave it to her for her birthday. The book giving is now a tradition where I try to make one a year for her birthday.

JP character sketch for a book about children with disabilities

Picture books in the making

This year I had two book ideas – one a pastiche of the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (more about this later) and a book about her Uncle Peyton. She doesn’t see him often, so I wanted to tell her more about why he drives a power wheelchair and how he’s a power soccer athlete.

When I started writing about “Uncle Peyton,” I couldn’t stop! I wrote pages and pages – many more words than a picture book. So, I thought I had started a chapter book. But after getting feedback from my critique group, I got the manuscript back to picture book size. This week, I sent the “Uncle Peyton” story, JP Wants to Play Sports, out to a publisher looking for stories about disability, diversity, and inclusion!

JP Wants… is a somewhat fictionalized story of how Peyton (“JP” in the story) looks for sports to play as a power wheelchair user. I hope the book is published so that non-disabled children like Fia learn about their disabled peers and see how, in many ways, they share the same desires. Plus, the book provides a way for disabled children to see characters like themselves in picture books, an essential mental health booster for their social and emotional health!

New character sketch

I submitted the manuscript without illustrations but told the publisher that, if interested, I would be happy to do the pictures. I did do a character sketch of JP, though. I like how it came out. I think he looks a lot like the young Peyton – happy, confident, and full of life!

So, fingers crossed that I get a positive response from the publisher. In the meantime, I’m working on the illustrations for the pastiche (I’ll tell you more about that later)!

If you know a publisher who is looking for picture books about children with disabilities, contact me here!

A Mental Health Toolbox for Social and Emotional Health and Well-being

Published on by awsstudiosartLeave a comment

Even if you are at risk for mental illness, you can maintain your social and emotional well-being by learning and practicing mental health skills.

At the 2022 Mental Health America conference last week, “Forward Together – Recovery, Healing, Hope,” Kristen Harootunian, a young adult from Minding Your Mind, told a powerful and hopeful “story” titled, “Changing Minds: Stories Over Stigma.” Kristen related her experience with health, mental illness, substance abuse, and her subsequent recovery.

Mental Health Toolbox

  • First, young people should connect with 1-3 trusted adults. They could be parents, teachers, counselors, clergy, family members, or friends.
  • “Letting people in and meeting help halfway”:  Kristen talked about how she thought she had to do things on her own and was alone in her struggles. When she opened up to her friends, she wasn’t expecting their support. Instead, they listened and gave her love and compassion. In therapy, Kristen found she wasn’t alone – that many young people deal with struggles similar to hers. Getting help with her emotional health or “letting people in” was what she needed to survive.
A grumpy onion. He could use a toolbox!

Five positive coping skills

  • Kristen’s five positive coping skills:
    • Exercise,
    • Walking,
    • Reading,
    • Connecting with family and friends
    • Journaling: When asked how she was doing, Kristen usually responded with, “I’m fine.” But actually, she was hiding or masking her true feelings. Writing or journaling helped her express her feelings, including guilt (of her mother’s death), shame, substance abuse, pressure, isolation, emptiness, trauma, anxiety, sadness, guardedness, grief, and tiredness. Getting these feelings down on paper helped her work through them and, for the most part, out of them.
Looks like a trusted bunch of celery?

How about you?

Creating a toolbox of mental health skills isn’t difficult. It’s easy and can be a fun use of time. How about you? Do you have a toolbox of skills to help you maintain your mental health? Are they like the tools in Kristen’s box, or are they different? I would love to hear about what’s in your toolbox in the Comments section below!

Thanks for tuning in, and feel free to share this post to help boost mental health skill-building everywhere!

“Square breathing or box breathing,” a technique to help calm our bodies and brains down when starting to feel anxious:  4 beats inhale, 4 beats hold, 4 beats exhale, 4 beats hold, and repeat.

Kristen says these tools help her maintain her recovery, but, as she alludes in her presentation, they would have been helpful to know at an early age to provide strategies to protect against mental illness. 

Chill Kits! Helping kids and adults develop mental health / social emotional skills

Published on by awsstudiosartLeave a comment

Have Fun while Boosting Mental Health

aws Studios is all about helping kids and adults build mental health skills (often referred to as social emotional learning [SEL] or skills)! This past Saturday, at the Golisano Children’s Hospital Run and Stroll fundraiser in Rochester, NY, I picked up the University of Rochester Medicine’s Pediatric Behavioral Health and Wellness “Coping Kit.”  It was full of excellent mental health skill-building resources meant for kids, but adults can use these kits too or get ideas of what they would want or need in their kits. They are guaranteed to add fun and easy ways to build your mental health.

(I like “Chill Kits” instead of “Coping.”  I think “Chill” is a little more fun and not as “heavy” as “Coping.”  Heaven knows, we need to make mental health skill-building as fun as possible!)

Coping or Chill Kit contents:

  • A cute, small vial of bubbles and a “Bubble Breathing” handout teaching the skill of deep, slow breathing to help us calm down when feeling upset using the bubbles.
  • A colorful handout of fun and easy yoga poses for kids from “Kids Yoga Stories.”
  • Another handout explaining the four (4) benefits of physical activity for kids’ mental health or “emotional wellness”:  1) Exercise fights depression; 2) Decreases stress; 3) Increases self-confidence; and can 4) Improve sleep. Who doesn’t need all of this?! So, to help kids get out there and move, the kit also included:
    • A fun, colorful jump rope
    • A Stress ball
    • A Mini plastic frisbee and a foldable fabric frisbee (or cooling fan)
  • And some sports stickers to top it all off.

Thanks to UR Medicine

Thank you to the UR Medicine’s Pediatric Behavioral Health and Wellness department and their “Coping” or “Chill Kit”! I made my granddaughter get her own! I wanted mine all to myself!

Easy DIY Kit

Everyone needs a “Chill Kit”! Do you have one? You could make your own. What would you put in yours? (I was thinking for adults, crayons and a coloring book!) Tell me what you think in Comments below!

Do you like what you are reading? Do you think someone you know could benefit from this post? Help me spread the word about boosting mental health skills!

Another Why “There’s a Mental Health Crisis Among American Children”

Published on by awsstudiosart2 Comments

Something’s Missing

In the NY Times article, “There’s a Mental Health Crisis Among American Children.  Why?: And the pandemic is not the only reason,” I noticed a missing “why”, a big one.

Tingley lists many reasons why we have a mental health crisis in this country. These include issues with data collection, the ability for more children to receive adequate and early mental health care. She also points out how the pandemic has added to  the crisis. But, she adds “rising numbers” of children and youth with mental illness was happening before Covid19. Less than 15% of these youth received treatment. 

A Lack of Mental Health Education

A picture showing to little girls hugging to emphasize the need for more mental health education.

As a mental health educator, the “why” there’s a mental health crisis in the US that I see missing is the lack of mental health education.  The NYT article and others about the state of mental health in the US usually  emphasize the issue of accessing treatment as the number one reason.  But treatment for mental illnesses is a “downstream” strategy, a way to administer to those who are ill.  They are often emergency life-saving measures.  On the other hand, mental health education is an “upstream” strategy.  Its purpose to arm individuals with the things they need to know and do to maintain mental health and prevent mental illnesses and the need for treatment as much as possible. 

Making Mental Health Skill Building Fun and Easy

Because of the lack of mental health education, states like New York and California have made or are making it a law. These laws work to ensure mental health education happens in schools.  It’s too bad we need laws to make mental health education take place.  Teaching and learning the skills of mental health isn’t hard.  And it can be fun!  In my last post, I talked about learning the social and emotional skill of acknowledging fear. Embracing a “little fear” helps us move beyond anxiety to a place of thriving.  For all healthy skills, it helps to understand why we need the skill and why it works.  To learn the skill of acknowledging fear, it helps to understand how our brains work when we’re experiencing it. 

Fear is a powerful emotion.  In its basic form, it keeps us safe.  And in our early human development, tuning into fear was essential for survival.  The thing is, even now hundreds of thousands of years later, fear still wants to react in its primal way.  A lot of fear we experience isn’t a life-or-death. Because of this,  we need to embody the skill of calming our primal brain areas down and tune into the areas that provide a more modern, logical and practical  approach.

I like how Dr. Steve Peters explains this in a simplified and fun way. Helping to clarify the complexity of brain science, Peters breaks it down. He conveys how our “emotional thinking machine” “The Chimp” needs to placate “The Human,” the area of thinking and planning. Says Peters, “You are not responsible for the nature of the dog but you are responsible for managing it, keeping it well behaved.”  Just as “you are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp but you are responsible for managing it.” And that’s a mental health skill! 

So, yes, we may be in a mental health crisis. But we don’t need to wait for laws and our schools to put a dent in that crisis. Mental health education can be provided now.  As parents and adults, we can help build the skills of mental health in our children. And, more importantly, for ourselves – in fun and engaging ways.  That’s what my picture book, “Adventures with phearnik!™”  is all about.  It’s a fun way to learn how to keep your social relationships and emotions healthy! 

What about you?  Could you use a fun way to help your child not be so fearful or anxious?  Could you yourself use the same!?  “Adventures with phearnik!™” can help! 

Art, Artists, Anxiety and Overcoming Fear of the Blank Canvas

Published on by awsstudiosart5 Comments

New Way to Handle Fear

Image shows a collage illustration of a man sitting in front of his easel looking unsure of what to paint like he can't start his painting.

My picture book, “Phobe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears,” is a story about a way for children (and adults!) to deal with fear and anxiety.  Compared to how fear presents in other children’s books, my book introduces a new and, may I be so bold to say – revolutionary – way to handle fear.

As an artist, I suffer from what’s called “blank canvas syndrome.”  It’s like “fear of the blank page” that some writers experience or stage fright that actors might encounter. 

Artists + Fear

We fearful artists have the expertise to do our jobs. At least we have enough to produce a piece of (art) work. But fear holds us back from tackling  the canvas, page or stage.  While experiencing this, I feared the outcome.  Would my picture come out as I envisioned it?  I feared my work would be judged by others negatively. When the artist accepts the outcome of their work, they more readily dismiss negative judgements. They then see it as a mismatch between the art and viewer.

Building Confidence

Having these fears mainly shows a lack of confidence. Confidence comes from artists doing a large amount  of work. With this comes the faith that the outcome won’t be so bad. Granted, not all art outcomes are accepted, even by the confident artist.  Doing scores of work – making lots of paintings – might become garbage. I wonder how many artists out there have a fear of wasting materials like me?!  I am a child of parents who grew up during the depression.  People like us don’t waste things!  We eat everything on our plates!  We use and reuse things repeatedly and rarely buy new!  Cheap artists like me want the work to come out the way we wanted it to the first time. Or else we’re wasting materials!  Yes, sad but true.

Studying Fear

For years, I “studied” what I could do about my fear of the blank canvas.  I read books like “Art and Fear”, “Affirmations for Artists” and “The Artist’s Way” and kept them for reference.  But none of these helped me break through my fears until I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic: Creative living beyond fear.” 

Take Fear with You

In the book, Gilbert offers a new way for artists to deal with/confront their fears in a now, well-known vignette titled, “The Road Trip.”  In it, Gilbert suggests artists accept and acknowledge their fears instead of trying to ignore it or get over it or, somehow, get rid of it.  She uses the metaphor of taking a road trip as a lesson in acknowledging fear.  On the trip, you bring your fear with you but it must sit in the backseat and it doesn’t get to control anything.  It doesn’t get to drive and it definitely doesn’t get to control the radio!

An illustration of a seated woman with a very frightened look on her face but you don't see what is frightening her.

Revolutionary Strategy

This idea of acknowledging fear but not letting it take control was, for me, revolutionary.  It makes so much sense.  Fear is one of our most powerful emotions.  It’s part of us.  It cannot be willed away.  It’s always there but we can learn to control it.  And, as a mental/social and emotional health educator, I know that’s a skill.  Having an understanding about a health topic and learning the skills is how we are healthy.

A picture of the "Phoebe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears" a picture book that helps kids reduce their fear and anxiety.
Book cover

Picture Book Explains Strategy

In “Phobe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears,” I’ve created a picture book using Gilbert’s idea. I take it one step further. I help kids and adults learn the skill of acknowledging fear. In addition, I want them to not let it take control of the things they want to try or need to do.  It’s worked for me and I bet it can work for you too!

How about you?  Are you an artist that has experienced fear of the blank canvas or page?  Or maybe even fear of wasting material!?  Or maybe you are someone who would like to of make art but is afraid of what people would say about it ?  I would love to hear about it in the “Leave a Reply/Comment”.   

And, if you’d like to  be one of the first to get a copy of the “Phobe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears,” picture book, click on the picture to place your pre-order! After your info, type “Pre-order” in the box!

A picture of the "Phoebe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears" a picture book that helps kids reduce their fear and anxiety.

Overcoming Anxiety During the Pandemic

Published on by awsstudiosart2 Comments

sunrise in the preserve

My 2020 and 2021 collages, “Sunrise in the Preserve” and “Sunrise near Bellacina” are currently showing in the Venice (Florida) Art Center’s new “Near and Far” show (running now through February 11, 2022).  The two works together in a series of three (including “Sunrise on the Bay”) tell the story about how creating art during the confines of the covid19 pandemic helped me maintain and, possibly, strengthened my mental – social and emotional – health. 

Isolated in the first many months of the pandemic in 2020, I found solace in my small studio.   The unassuming, demure space provides me with plenty – the secure comfort I desire for my creating.  Ever since I was a little kid, I have always enjoyed the confines of small, big-enough-for-only-me spaces.  The enclosed spandrel (the space underneath the stairs leading up to the second floor of our house) was my indoor playhouse.   Every morning after breakfast, I couldn’t wait to play under the stairs with my dolls, in my own private, cozy representation of my family’s kitchen, complete with a 1950’s toddler sized white metal kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator.  It was the safe sanctuary that my natural introversion craved.

Like the enclosed spandrel, my two, small, big-enough-for-only-me studio spaces (one in upstate NY and the other in Venice, Florida) provide me with the safe and secure calm I desire for my creative focus.  In this soothing space, I  relax and, along with my collage practice, destress.  It was in my Venice studio where I “got through” the early pandemic months (and the later ones too) with peace and relaxation. 

sunrise near Bellacina

Creating collage – the cutting and securing paper or fabric to a ridged surface – helps me manage my mental wellbeing.  Scissors and X-Acto knives (slim, small knives with similarly slim razor blades for cutting my materials) are, for me, therapeutic.  The concentration and attention required to accurately slice fabric or paper flows through my body. It calms my arms, hands and fingers down into a focused peacefulness.  Again, the concentrated practice allows me to exhale my stress and tension.

sunrise on the bay

Collage also satisfies my desire for a challenge. It provides me another way to take care of my mental health.  Stimulating our brain with challenges and problem solving helps to improve our  mindset. This helps to make us feel more positive about the future.  It helps to build confidence and gives us something to focus on. Problem solving takes our minds off the things that cause anxiety.  Creating a picture that represents a story with Impressionistic-like simplicity is my challenge and goal.  But the pandemic in early 2020, created an additional challenge. The challenge of trying to find materials needed for my collaging (remember, at first, stores closed completely)! 

my work desk in my demure studio!

One of the reasons I made pictures of a sunrise was because the only ridged surface I had at the time to build my collages on was a piece of florescent orange cardboard leftover from another project (I totally can’t remember what that was)!  The bright orange became the  perfect background to represent the dramatic streaks and peaks of the morning’s rising sunlight.  Another challenge was obtaining colored paper to cut and collage the sky and foreground.  Again, the only thing I had on hand were magazines.  Even though magazines are not the best choice when considering a picture’s longevity and its archivalness,  the “Venice Magazine” about Gulf Coast living,  provided me with a broad selection of colors; the heavier cover paper becoming my favorite choice to weave into my sunrise representations.

Many artists relate their practice to helping them with strengthen their mental health. During the scariest early days and months of the pandemic, my “art saved me” (as it often does).  It provided me a way to escape from the worries of what the virus.  My secure and safe studio gave me focus. It illuminated a silver lining to my isolation – that of creating three related collages.  Even the show’s opening night helped me grow my social health. My husband and I met another artist and his wife who also live in Venice.   The four of us closed the reception down. We were the last to leave. We enjoyed a conversation of getting to know each other, exchanging numbers and promises to get together again.

How about you?  Did/do you find solace  during the pandemic creating art and or crafts?  How does art or craft making affect your mental health?  Have you noticed ways art helps to strengthen your social and emotional health? I would love to hear from you in the “Leave a Reply” below.