This new tagline I created from a Wendy MacNaughton quote should help readers (and Google!) better understand aws Studios. In her “Pencil Skills Part 1” post about drawing with healthcare professionals, MacNaughton declares, “Art and health. No. Brainer.” (Which I understand to mean how ones’ involvement in art or the arts strengthens an individual’s health.) Writer Austin Kleon’s recommendation from Steal Like an Artist, I was inspired to adapt her quote. It best communicates my aws Studios mission – “art and mental health.”
Click on Mr, Onion to get one of your own!
Yes, art is beneficial for social and emotional health. These include helping to manage stress and relieve anxiety, strengthen social skills, promote positive behaviors, increase cognitive abilities, practice mindfulness, etc.
Click pic to view aws Studios mental health resources
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)
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!
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.
