I to We

The Magic of “I” to “We”- an application of EXA methods to community Mosaic Art

 In this paper I will discuss specific elements of the artistic process and social context that contribute most clearly to the ‘magic’ experienced in a my application of  Expressive Arts (EXA) methods to community mosaic art .  I will briefly highlight each stage of  my application process below and then later expand upon each component in more detail weaving together other critical elements into the overall picture. I am working to explore and expose the intricacies and subtleties that make up my application of EXA methods to community mosaic art.  These elements form the following acronym:

M–Materials; 

            O–Outline; 

S–Shaping; 

A–Action; 

I–Inclusion; 

C–Ceremony; 

S–Surprise

I to We

Sensitives and sensitivity: the psychology of “artists”

poetry

my life as a poem

today

tomorrow

returns

I work as a licensed professional clinical counselor. I work using an expressive arts methodology of resource building and decentering.  I work as a board certified art therapist teaching my supervise’s ways to facilitate expansion, surface, and resonance through art making with their clients.

I was taught at Southwestern college in Santa Fe, NM that the clients you are supposed to work with, will find you, and flourish your private practice. I find that “sensitives” find me and I find great joy in working with them.  Some of my “sensitives” identify as artists, some are hidden artists easily revealed, and some would not identify as artists, but do resonant with being a sensitive.

The needs of a sensitive: ” time to reflect, nature, art making, relationship harmony”

The reactions of a sensitive: “to hide”

a sensitive in denial of being a sensitive: “feels inadequate”

A sensitive : ” sees the beauty in the dark”

Mosaics

Writing about the magical heaven and earth qualities about mosaics.

Here are some quotations with which I resonate:

“There are few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” Anias Nin

As Mother Teresa said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act.  If I look at the one, I will.” (Williams, 284)- I am relating this quotation to the process of being daunted looking at a large blank wall, and then one tesseara at a time art emerges and the wall is covered…..

Mosaics can be a metaphor for many things.  Mosaics are seeds.  Mosaics are memories.  Mosaics are bones.  Mosaics are light. Mosaics are stories.  Mosaics are dreams.  Mosaic making is an art that can provide space and order to re-create.- me

Mosaics

Writing about the magical heaven and earth qualities about mosaics.

Here are some quotations with which I resonate:

“There are few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” Anias Nin

As Mother Teresa said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act.  If I look at the one, I will.” (Williams, 284)- I am relating this quotation to the process of being daunted looking at a large blank wall, and then one tesseara at a time art emerges and the wall is covered…..

Mosaics can be a metaphor for many things.  Mosaics are seeds.  Mosaics are memories.  Mosaics are bones.  Mosaics are light. Mosaics are stories.  Mosaics are dreams.  Mosaic making is an art that can provide space and order to re-create.- me

“Art in Action”

Inspired by the Poetry Therapy described in Art in Action, chapter 8, From Private Pain Toward Public Speech

“Not all that a person desires does he or she obtain

The winds blow without regard for the wishes of the ships”- (Al Mutanabbi, 915-965)

MARCO DE LUCA, MOSASIST

“The extremely antique art of mosaic has given me the possibility to fuse history with my expressive and aesthetic needs in a contemporary context”.

” I want each mosaic to have maximum liberty to be itself “

Self Portraits as Expressive Arts

phenomenology , as dicussed by Husserl, is describe by “what shows itself, and what appears.”

phenomenology wants to understand something from the point of view from the art

art is the making of something not emotional expression

poetry vs justice

thinking and truth going beyond body experience

knowledge transcends experience

“Theory of intentionality paying attention to something, attention is the natural prayer of the soul

the arts as modes of sensory experience,” Paolo Knill

Terry Tempest Williams and Expressive ARTS

The below quotation from Terry Tempest Williams reminds me of the gift Expressive Arts give us/me. For me I learned to trust the surface as the blank canvas, open stage, where the surface is the now and the now is always ready to share and unfold its abundant connections. Something is always there I said during my first philosophy EXA class. Something is always on the surface.

Similarly my love of mosaic and poetry is the surface with depth. Grounded and inspired.

“I used to believe that truth was found only below the surface of things.  Underground. I was a discipline of depth. What was hidden was what I desired.

But something changed.

It’s the dismemberment of a territory

I am interested now in what my eyes can see, what my fingers can touch, what my hand can know by moving slowly across flesh, or fur, or feathers, or stone.

I trust what I see. The surface of things is what we see.

I trust what I touch.

The surface of things is what we touch”

photo is :

Light dance I saw on my ceiling

 

From Broken to Beautiful: Mosaics as an Expressive Arts Therapy