DIYHEALINGARTZ in ACTION: Part 1

DIYHEALINGARTZ in ACTION : Part 1


Two months ago I approached the Wichita Children's Home, inquiring about a potential opportunity to volunteer in their arts program? As of right now, the Children's Home has no established art program in place.  The staff members were excited in my interest and encouraged me to begin an arts activities program with teenage females in a temporary resident situations at the Home. I accepted the chance to do so and I now share up to 4 hours per week with the girls. I am now called "Miss Sarah."
Since I see new faces each night, I have designed projects that I repeat each time I am there.
There is an expressive and therapeutic art element to each project for the girls, myself, as well as the staff. I am thankful for having such an incredible opportunity to share my life with these amazing young teens.

Enjoy the post!
Sarah 

THE JOURNAL PROJECT at the WICHITA CHILDREN'S HOME  
EXPRESSIVE MARK MAKING
The first projects requires them to aggressively and expressively attack a large, 16" X 24" sheet of white paper that they have attached to a large, masonite drawing board, with a graphite stick and one crayon that is either their favorite color, or one that depicts the color of their mood. I give them 3 minutes max for this exercise. The girls then remove their drawings and are instructed to shred the drawing into as many pieces as they can within one minute. These shreds are kept in a pile and can be used in the final project.

POCKET-SIZED JOURNALS
The following images below are taken of journals created by the girls in the Children's Home.
We use chipboard from cereal boxes as our covers, collage the covers with inspirational images, text, and  and add little touches like ribbon bookmarks and velcro latches.

DIY HEALING JOURNALZ

 

 

 

DIY HEALING JOURNALZ

Step-by-Step Instructions to make your own journal at home.

 

MATERIALZ 

Chipboard into 3.5" x 7" pieces for journal cover.
Paper cut in 3" x 5.5" pieces
Stapler
Collage materials; i.e. old magazines, stickers, books, etc.
Glue stick
Scissors,
Exacto knife
Knitting needle, (optional for paper beads)
Mod Podge
Paintbrush

Make a Mark at 1" down from the top of your chipbord at 6" from the bottom
Fold Bottom of Chipboard to where it meets that mark and bend.
Now fold 1/4 of an inch on either side of the center fold to create a spine.
Bend the top of the chipboard at the 1" mark inward.
Bend once again in half. This creates the latch on the journal.

NOTE
When gluing in your paper inserts, do NOT glue in the spine section on the inside of the cover.
If you do, your book will not open or close properly.

DIY HEALING ARTZ POST #2

The following entry is about my daughter,  Anna Claire Kephart, who was born on September 9th, 2010 and died on October 1, 2010. Since her death, I have produced many new works and have exhibited in two galleries in Wichita, Kansas: Naked City and Steckline at Kansas Newman University. It wasn't until I came up for air from making the work for these shows that I realized how crucial the creative process had been for me to move forward in life as I tried to heal my heart over the loss of Anna. I began this blog nearly one month ago with enthusiastic intentions to detail the many ways that the creative process can be one of the most powerful healing agents available to us all. Unfortunately, I began to question my ability to accurately depict the functions and varying roles that art has played in my life, preventing me from opening up to you.  I am now greatly encouraged to try to pursue and to seek the benefits from telling my story and how I have become so passionate about the power of diyhealingartz.

Anna Claire, You Are Still My Sunshine

Anna Claire, my one and only child, passed away in my arms when she was three weeks old from complications from a condition call gastroschisis. During the growth and development of the fetus, there is a stage where the intestines and organs are initially developed outside the abdomen and are then pulled inside as it develops around them. Anna's case was worsened due to her liver being remaining on the outside of her body as well as her intestines. Most infants will survive the surgery that takes place within the first few days that they were born. This entails slowly inserting the intestines back into the body, while gradually expanding the abdomen wall to make room for it all. Anna was two months premature, which meant that her body could not physically house both the intestines and her liver, leaving no other option than to leave her liver out until she could grow and become more stabilized. In efforts to protect her liver from the elements that surrounded her, they decided to perform a rare procedure where they take a piece of skin from a cadaver that would be large enough to wrap the liver and to attach it to her skin in the hopes that she would accept the skin as her own. Doubt settled in as days went by and Anna had yet to accept the skin. Nearly a week later, I entered the NICU to find the surgeon and Anna's doctor at her bedside. They were there to tell me that Anna's new skin was circulating blood and that there was hope and a will to continue fighting for her life. Optimism was abound that morning, but would slowly drift away as time went on. Anna's need for oxygen to live was increasing at heavy levels, as her lungs began to fill with fluid. Her dopamine levels began to climb and her stats were indicating that my little angel was tired and that her battle was becoming too great to fight.

On the morning of September 31st, I signed DNR, (do not resecitate) papers on Anna. Once signed, every nurse who knew and aided Anna, all surgeons, doctors, and my mother, were there to console me and to ultimately say their "good byes" to Anna. Later that evening, after visitation hours were over and very few mothers in the NICU reading and loving their child from distance, I notified my nurse that I wanted to take Anna off her oxygen and let her dance with the angels in heaven. 

On October 1st at 12:30 am all alone with Anna, her nurse placed her in my arms for the first and last time. No tubes, monitors, or ivs came between us. At 3:30 am the doctor would notify me that Anna's sweet and precious heart had stopped beating. 

At 6am, I finally let her go. 

I gently laid her down back into her bed and walked away, never to see "My Anna" again.

As the doors shut behind me, I knew I would never be the same.

A lifetime's worth of dreams were to never be acknowledged again.

My spirit and faith had nearly evaporated and all I was left with was me.

There are two roads one can take when something so tragic and unexplainable happens to an individual, one that consists of fighting and the other to give up.

The day following her death, I decided to fight for life, much like Anna had fought for hers. 

I used art as way to fight. To find the beauty in her life and to memorialize her through works of art. 

If it hadn't been for art, I most likely would have given up. 

It is this experience in my life that brings me to share this with you today, how I am influenced and amazed at how powerful art has been to my healing process over the loss of Anna.

I promise not all experiences I detail on this blog will be as sad, but I can guarantee that this will reflect how the artz can provide a very nurturing and therapeutic outlet and release for all.

     

DIYHEALINGARTZ: VIDEO #1

Hesitating in my exhaustion.

DIY HEALING ARTZ POST #1

DIY HEALING ARTZ 
is dedicated to asking questions, (hopefully the right ones) about the power and consequences that our DIY mentalities dictate when it comes to our modern day survival methods and strategies. This is a story about how the creative process has managed to help me continue to ask questions about my own idea(l)s and thoughts about my natural(ized) existence. A platform to share DIY experiences that include, but go beyond reupholstering a fabulous, flea market find.  Ultimately to create a platform to where we can all share how we have progressed through the process of creating, volunteering, lecturing, DIYing, teaching, meditating, knitting, spellchecking, ctrl + alt + deleting, apple + v'ing.
 
So here's to the launch of DIY HEALING ARTZ , digital archiving on the web, and to all u-verse modems and installations teams out there, "thank you and good night."