Art

Chantal – What is art therapy?

Chantal explains how art therapy helps us express in ways that words can’t

Chantal – Giving space

Chantal discusses how it is good and honouring to the one you’ve lost to give space and feel everything

Kristal – Poetry, Comedy, & Art for Grieving

Kristal discusses using poetry and other forms of creative expression as a distraction from her grief and to disassociate in a safe and productive way. She discusses grief being love with nowhere to go, so she puts it into art.

Jackie – Expressive arts and grief

Jackie talks about expressive arts as systems of support

Jackie – Warming up to do art

Jackie explains how warming up is a way into expressive arts

Claudia – You do not have to be an artist to do art therapy

Claudia explains why you do not have to be an artist to benefit

Saved by a Unicorn: How I Found the Positive in Grief, One Stitch at a Time

Looking back, I had no idea how to even continue to live. A simple attempt at something therapeutic sent the negative bereavement energy into a positive direction. It made me realize my strengths, at a time when I felt I had none at all. It provided a space where I am now better able to manage grief when it hits.

Tending to My Garden of Grief

So long as I remember the lives of those I have lost, honour their presence and impact on me and celebrate their spirit, they will continue to live with me and the pain will feel bearable. It will no longer stop me in my tracks. Instead, it will encourage me and propel me forward through the transmutation of that grief into something different, something more nuanced and fluid. I’d like to share a practice for processing grief which I have found to be especially helpful.

Carrie – Grief and creativity

Carrie talks about creativity and expressing grief and loss… that in many ways can offer insight and comfort for those who are grieving

Jackie – Expressive arts and my grief

Jackie talks about not needing art skills to use expressive arts and how it helped her with her grief

Claudia – Art in community versus art therapy

Claudia explains how art therapists are trained and how what they do is different that doing art in community

Doodles

On the first anniversary, I invited people who would understand – friends who knew Marshal’s love of art, and his creative spirit. They all came.

I had copied several of Marshal’s doodles of incomplete characters and creatures, with some finished for the kids to color. I eagerly watched to see which doodle or drawing each person chose.