1. The Plan
a. With the background of an undergraduate education in Art Therapy, I decided to plan a trip to Kingston, Jamaica. The plan was to work within the systems of a squatter’s community and orphanage, where I would lead a small group of students to help conduct group art therapy sessions. I received guidance by a registered Art Therapist, Geri Hurlbut (Coordinator of the Art Therapy Program, Assistant Professor of Art Therapy at Converse College), prior to the departure to Kingston. The goals and preparation for the group sessions were also set before the trip. I set the goals based on traditional concepts and research done in the field of art therapy, which included theories on group and individual counseling.
2. The Groups
a. Ferry Squatter’s Community
i. Ferry is a small community set on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica. The land is owned by a local Catholic Charity and is lent out to families who receive a small amount of help for living expenses. The age ranges of those who participated were from newborn to elderly. I was well aware of problems in the community due to five previous trips over the last 5 years. The children roam free and struggle with attending school. The women hold up the community while also having to be the sole breadwinner and supporter of their own individual family. Each family system struggles with adequate daily food intake and basic living supplies. Along with problems with food and living, there are rivalries among the women that cripple the community systems. Rivalries include differences in ideas on how the community should be run, religious conflicts, and problems with men.
b. Orphanage
i. This orphanage was not familiar to me. I did not know that this would be the place where we would conduct the sessions until we landed in Kingston. It turned out to be a much better institution than the orphanage with which I was familiar. The ages of the children with whom we wished to serve ranged from a few days to 12 years old. The age group that would participate in the session we planned to offer ranged from 5 to 10 years. The orphanage gave the children the proper food and living essentials, but due to a major problem with overcrowding, the children lacked the proper individual emotional care that is essential for development.
3. The Goal
a. Ferry
i. With the knowledge of the problematic areas within the community, I wanted to build a session that encompassed individuality and community. I believe in order to build a strong community the individuals would need to be able to recognize their own personal strength. When that goal was met, I wanted to focus bringing the individual strength together to build a stronger community.
b. Orphanage
i. The orphanage was a nice change from the orphanages with which I was familiar. They treated the children with kindness, which was not what I was expecting, but even with this change in attitude there was not a focus on each individual child. The orphanage was over-crowded. The goal was to incorporate the idea of a transitional object. A transitional object, as defined by Winnicott, “are the infant's first not-me possessions, like a blanket or doll. They are tangible--can be held onto, grasped, hugged. They lessen the stress of separation and soothe the infant.” (Daniels, 2007) They are thought to bring a maternal comfort to a child as they begin learning about separating themselves from the constant comfort of their guardian. I knew that most of the children had been deprived of the initial maternal comfort, so I wanted to think of a therapeutic art therapy session that could build on creating an object of comfort. I also wanted to think of something that each child could call their own. My plan was that if each child had their own object that would limit the chance of the objects being stolen.
4. The Projects
a. Ferry
i. I planned to have a two-part session. In the first part I asked the participants to create their own personal image. I explained that this image could be anything. It could help resemble what makes them strong, what motivated them, what they love, or a collage of images that encompass who they are. I wanted to give them the freedom to fully express themselves. In their everyday life, personal expression is a luxury, which is overlooked due to basic living needs. I initially thought I would give them about 30 minutes to complete this project, but due to the natural chaos in the community, we ended up letting the participants tell me when they were ready to move on. The individual drawings ended up taking about 45 minutes.
When the participants were ready for the next step, I asked each person to talk about their images. I wanted to give everyone the chance to be heard. We gathered into a circle, which began the second part of the session. Together as a group, we moved to a selected part of the Community Center’s outside wall. I explained here that the plan was to paint the individual symbols together on the wall where they have their community meetings. I knew that there was a large amount of tension between families and I wanted a permanent image to continually remind them of their individuality and what type of beauty can happen when they work together. I also hoped that creating a safe place for the participants to work together would allow for some positive group work and reconnect friendship.
Every Art Therapy session needs an ending part to help instill what has been learned and also help facilitate bringing ideas for the future. It is a way of moving from one mindset to another while still in a safe place. When the painting was complete everyone came back together back into a circle. Each participant was asked to recount the emotions and realizations they had come across while doing the project. This chance to verbalize her experience gave each participant the chance to once again have a voice. In everyday life “getting a word in” can be difficult if not impossible but it is essential for each individual be heard for growth in a community. Once every participant had spoken, I planned to thank everyone for joining and end the session.
b. Orphanage
i. Since I was planning to work with children who had no essential love from a guardian, I wanted to incorporate an object of love and comfort, as stated before. My goal was not religious based, but I wanted to create the idea of an invisible guardian for each individual child. Within the idea of a transitional object, I then wanted the children to create a physical object with which they could hold and feel comforted. I called this object a guardian angel. Most cultures and religions have created an idea of an invisible guardian, but I did realize that this particular orphanage was Christian based. That fact made me comfortable enough to bring this idea.
I began the session by asking the group what their idea of an angel was. I wanted to hear their individual thoughts and also wanted to allow the children to feel they were being heard. I then explained “my idea” of an angel. I asked the children if they ever felt lonely or like they needed a hug. I told them that for each child there was an angel assigned to fix their loneliness and give them that hug. Angels can’t be seen. This is when the helpers in my group brought out the “angels.” (Note: The angels were stuffed socks, which are soft to hold and have nothing to choke on.) I told the children that it was time to create their angel so they can hug it when they feel sad or in need of a hug.
We passed out paints and fabric pens (all hazard free) and allowed for creativity time. My group was posted up for problem solving, i.e. paint consumption, paint throwing, fights, and anything else that might go wrong. I planned to end the session when the children began to lose interest in the painting of the angels. When the children’s’ interest began to wane, we collected all of the materials, including the angels, to allow enough time to dry. I wanted to hear what the children’s ideas of angels were now that they had created their own individual one. After children had a chance to speak, I ended the session by explaining that now their angel could be hugged and loved.
5. Challenges and Resolutions
a. Ferry
i. Ferry from an outsiders view can seem very chaotic. The many children run free while the parents do daily chores. It is hard to find a quiet spot, which is essential for the group setting. We ended up having three group sessions- women, children/adolescents, and young males. Each group came with their own set of problem areas. We did have some universal challenges, though.
When arriving to Ferry, I was under the impression that we would be doing murals on a newly built house. The house belonged to Miss Kitty, who is one of the backbones in the community. She houses around 17 unofficially adopted children, and my plan was to conduct the sessions on her porch, which I hoped would be quiet, and paint on her bare walls. Upon arriving to the community with paint and materials in hand, I was taken aside and told that the house was far from done. The replanning took a full day, which had been planned for the women. We were told the community center was the second best place in which to paint our mural. We now had lost a day, so I had to plan on having two groups in one day.
Timing was also a constant issue. There is something called “Jamaica time” and it reins true in Ferry. I had planned to get to Ferry early each day to begin the sessions but it took up to a few hours to actually get everyone together. Once together, people, whether participants or not, were always coming in and out.
Which brings me to another issue, the lack of privacy. I did not want to get deep into issues. We didn’t have time for that, and I didn’t feel like I had the appropriate educational background. I did however want to create a safe and quiet space for each individual group. My group and I realized almost immediately that that idea was going to be difficult.
An issue essential to be addressed was the fact that we were American visitors in a third world country. I was well aware that this community consistently had visitors from America. There was a stigma on how these visitors treated and viewed Ferry. The way I approached this issue was explaining to each group that we were not there to pretend to understand what life was like for them. We knew that our daily lives were very different, but the reason we were there was to create a safe space and honor the work and lives of each participant.
ii. The Women’s Group
This was our first group at Ferry, so we were still figuring out how to work within their system. It took about three hours to get enough women together. They were interested in what we had planned for them, but they kept disappearing to find friends or deal with problems. We ended up starting the group only to have the other half show up about ten minutes into it. Once we had them together everything did end up moving more easily.
The next issue, which ended up being the hardest to deal with, was privacy and noise. The children in the community are used to having all the attention, so when they saw the visitors (my group) spending their attention on their mothers, they were less than pleased. A metal fence surrounds the community center, so the obvious choice at the time was to lock it. During the individual session, my group’s attention had to be on the children fighting to climb over the fence. Also during the painting of the murals we constantly had to prevent children from getting into the mural and paint.
I began to realize that I was trying to create a safe space to my standards. I had worked so hard to plan this trip but I had failed to remember that I was working within their life style, not my own. If I was going to ask the women to take time out of their busy day, then I had to accept that children were going to be in and out of the session. This was their natural life style, and asking them to change it would cause for results in the session that may not be authentic to them.
iii. The Young/ Adolescent Boys
This was our second group to work around and by that time we felt like veterans. We were allowed to move from the outside porch to the inside of the community center for the individual expression. Half of our group was given the job of keeping the younger children occupied, which kept the outside commotion down. We invited one of the main male mentors to help us and work with the boys, which allowed for more familiarity.
Our biggest issue was dealing with the few boys who didn’t take the project seriously. There were moments were I instructed someone in my group to cover up phallic symbols. There is a fine line between explaining that expression should be purely individual and having to tell a young adolescent that phallic symbols on a wall are not allowed.
iv. The Children
This was supposed to encompass ages from 3- 16 years old. We found ourselves in the small community center surrounded by children beyond that range. I found myself explaining the plan numerous times because it was so loud. We then found ourselves having to deal with the massive range of attention spans within this large group. We combated this by handing out more paper and different materials. During the painting of the mural we had to accept the flying of paint in the air.
b. Orphanage
i. Our first challenge came on our first of two days at the orphanage. We were not aware that we had arrived on a day where all of the children who were going to participate were on a field trip. This left us to the children in the nursery, which actually ended up being a good experience. We spent the day with crayons and helping the children explore the material and their fine motor skills.
The next visit we conducted the planned session. We had all of the children sit on two sides of a room with tables in front of them. The largest challenge we came across was the material. This was something that could have been avoided with the knowledge that I had gained studying Art Therapy. Judith Rubin wrote, “Each medium has intrinsic qualities, central to what it evokes, demands, and stimulates in the child.” (Rubins, p. 106, 2005) With this information it should have occurred to me that paint would bring energy to the children. This material naturally energizes the artist, due to it’s fluidity. We immediately found this to be true. The children began the session very well behaved, but after a few minutes of enjoying mixing the paint in the plates, we found ourselves dealing with increasingly energetic children. When we noticed that the paint (non-toxic) started going more on clothes and into mouths than unto the angels, we saw it was time to end the session. The next time I will use clothes pens, which allow for more attention and are less fluid.
The other challenge with the paint was the difference in artistic interests and abilities of the children. We did not know the personalities of the children and unfortunately didn’t have time to learn before we started the project. We discovered about half the children found catharsis in the mixing of colors rather than the actual painting on the angels, while the other half of the children found relief and joy. There was a conflict of interests when it came to this because the children who enjoyed using the different colors were unable to do so since the child next to them had mixed everything together. There was tension due to this so this is where paint pens would have come in handy.
6. Results and the Process
Note: Yes we had challenges, but the results made up for bumps.
a. Ferry
i. Women’s Mural
When I first gathered the women together I noticed they were hesitant to start their personal symbol. Their attention kept going to the on going ruckus that their children were creating. Within a couple of minutes, though, I noticed a significant switch- as the women became immersed in their work. Some chatted amongst each other about what was being created, but for the most part, the women appeared to be drawn into their individual worlds. When I called the group back together I noticed the women start talking more and more about their own pieces.
I began the circle by explaining my piece. I felt that if I started the rhythm the others would follow. I knew a few women were still hesitant about talking to the group and my example helped start the discussion. The women had very similar images in their artwork. In most of the drawings the women drew the sun (strength, brightness, and guidance), the cross (Christianity and strength), the ocean (calm, dangerous, and vacation), and their families (love and motivation). One woman had created an image of her son, who was sitting beside her. The son’s face consisted of many different colors, and she explained that it represented his strength and personality. After the women had described their pieces of work a woman named Lisa said,
“Sometimes it’s hard to express yourself in words, so your drawing can help express yourself. Some of us express ourselves in love, some in anger. If you keep it within yourself it is going to hurt more. Sometimes words can’t express what you need so you must find other ways. Like this picture I drew it but I didn’t know what I was going to say with it but then as I opened my mouth to explain it, it came out. The picture gave me the idea of what to say.
The women agreed, except for one woman, Sonia. Sonia explained to me that she had always found self-expression in poetry. The ability to write poetry helps her completely express herself. By writing poetry she finds that she can write free and use words for good. I told her that we could make a section on the wall for her poetry. She had never shared her poetry before, so this would be her first time for people to read her poem. I passed out a few more pieces of paper and explained that now it was time to think about the group mural.
As the women began to create the mural, I took note of how they were working together. They were recreating their individual images on a small wall together side by side. There were some images that were blending together, but there was a definite separation in each woman’s drawing. The notable part was that there was no tension or fighting. There was laughter and conversations amongst the women but there was also a strong sense of concentration on what was being created. They began the mural in a more individual sense but as the mural manifested we began to hear group singing and explanations of what they were doing. They had to share the buckets of paint, and just that fact brought the group together because they had to learn to work together. As stated before the community was suffering because the women were not able to work together to problem solve, so this was a wonderful sight to see.
As Sonia began to paint her poem on the wall, she realized that she was not able to paint the words well. She asked her daughter to try, but her daughter struggled as well. She then asked another member to help her, and Sonia read her poem as the woman painted it.
The paint began to go on more places than just the wall. The women began to paint each other’s faces, which they called warrior paint. They also began to gang together to tell the children to get out of their area. In the beginning they didn’t see the point in having just women time but by this point they were yelling at the children, “It’s women time! Get out!”
The result of this session was better than I could have imagined. Women, who work day and night to provide for their family, were able to take a small amount of time to honor who they are. Rivals became friends and even helped each other. They reported to me at the end of the session that their hope was to do this project again. We had sparked interest in the community, and they believed more group work would begin to mend the community.
ii. The Young Males
During the planning prior to the trip I wanted to have an all males session. I wanted to work with the males in hope of bringing up problems in the family systems. I was strongly advised by the sole male in my group not to do so. He brought up the points that we did not have enough time to gain their trust or deal with what might come up. I respected the wisdom that he brought and forwent the all male mural for this particular trip.
On the last day of murals, I had planned to divide the children into young and adolescent. I wanted to focus on the natural act of painting with the young children and I wanted to get into symbolism more with the adolescents. To my surprise though, I was confronted by a large group of adolescent and young adult males who were upset with me. They told me that they had been looking forward to their mural and expected the same treatment I had given the women. We had gotten used to thinking on our feet by this time, so my group and I quickly scheduled to have a male group first and an all age children’s group later.
I decided to structure the session similar to the women’s group. My goal was to focus on their strength in hopes that it would bring conversations about how to help in the community. I also emphasized looking into the future. I knew that many of the boys were struggling with motivation in school so I wanted them to take the time to visualize the possibility of a successful future. As the boys worked on their individual symbols, I noted the different attitudes that were being put into their work. I noticed some boys working quietly by themselves and others were working as a group.
There was a significant theme to the male’s individual drawings. The game of dominoes has been introduced to the youth earlier in the year, and it had worked as a positive tool to motivate and keep peace. I saw a lot of images with dominoes in them. These images and this game united the boys. I saw a mix of images alongside the dominoes that were truly individual. The boys were connecting as a group, while also focusing on themselves.
When we moved to the outside mural, they immediately went to work. They worked side by side, and for the most part they shared the materials. They recreated their images of dominoes and personal symbols. They were so immersed in their work that they still were not done when we left Ferry hours later.
iii. The Children’s Mural
When I introduced the idea of individual creativity to the children, I quickly learned that they were not familiar with the word “creativity.” As a group we figured out how to explain creativity by talking about different ways someone might express them self. The paper was handed out and the children got to work. My group and I were surprised at how diligently the children worked, but as expected the children began to get anxious to paint within about 15 minutes of drawing.
I brought the children back together so that they could show their images to the group. The children’s art was of their family, favorite sports and activities, and self-portraits. We had a wide range of ages within the group, so I saw a range of developmental stages. We had small children that were in the beginning stages of the pre-schematic stages. This was noticeable by the simple circular and linear shapes that were used to suggest humans. Some of the older children were trying to draw realistic and naturalistic images. The big range of ages made it difficult to set the stage for children to explain their work. I ended up opening the floor to those who wanted to talk while keeping everyone still.
I released the children to the mural. The older boys were still working hard on their pictures and more adults were picking up brushes, so it turned out to be an all member mural. I had planned to finish the trip with a community mural but I didn’t need to introduce the idea; it had already happened.
Little children worked on their paintings as their parents stood over them working on their own image. The final result was a mixture of images. Some related to each other while others were purely individual. I had anticipated trying to get the community to work in harmony but to see it actually unfold was amazing. When we had all of the members freely working there was moments of silence as everyone immersed themselves in their creations.
b. Orphanage
i. As stated before, we initially met the children the day of the session, which made it difficult to understand how the children worked within a group and individually. We were lucky because the staff gave us a section of the room to conduct the group work. Walls in the middle of the main room sectioned the working room off and on either side of the walls were tables in front of long benches. This gave me the opportunity to be able to see all the children, and the tables helped the children stay in their seats.
I began the session when we felt that the children were as settled as they could be. When I asked the children what an angel was, a few of them responded “Gabriel,” the arch angel in the bible. I went on to explain the idea of guardian angels. As we passed out the angels, I went around to talk to individual children. At first the children seemed hesitant to paint, but once they got their brushes wet they began to explore the medium. The once quiet children grew more and more energetic, as some mixed paint and others painted their angels. It went well for a good while. My group helpers did a good job of replenishing the paint and showing the children the skills needed to paint on an object. Problem solving skills were essential at this time. We had to separate the paint eating and mixing children from the children who were consciously painting faces and images on the dolls.
When we felt it was time, we picked up the dolls and paint. We were able to successfully sit the children back down, and as I looked at the once clean children, I was painted faces and dirty clothes. I did see, though, smiles and excited chatting. When we began the session, the children seemed to move as one entity, but at the end of the session each child seemed to want to talk and express themselves as individuals. One child, in particular, was excited to show me the face he drew on his angel. It was obvious that he had given a personality and spirit to his angel doll. I watched him as he cradled his new friend with care. While some children understood the idea of a comforting object, almost all the children enjoyed the act of expression and painting.
7. Conclusion
As a whole there were bumps and victories. I had planned this trip for a year, and I had felt the plan was flexible enough to handle “Jamaica time.” It ended up that it was essential to rely on thinking on our feet instead of sticking to a schedule. The results that came from this trip were unique and wonderful, and I could not have planned for what each individual took from the projects. I would like to give most of the credit to the individuals who joined me on this adventure. Without anyone of them, I would have not been able to pull this together. A video documentary of this trip is in the works and will be coming out soon.
As for the art therapy aspect, it is amazing what art can bring. A person can say only so much with words, but colors and images can bring a whole new conversation amongst individuals and groups.
Work Cited:
Rubin, J. (2005). Child art therapy 25th anniversary edition. New Jersey: Wiley & Sons.
