This entry is for "Healing With the Arts" Class with Mary Rockwood Lane, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Michael Samuels, MD, offered through the University of Florida. I highly recommend this invigorating course for anyone looking into using the arts as a form of healing and therapy.
Marisela Oropeza
Healing With the Arts
October 27, 2021
Art Heals Me
This course came at a very opportune time for me. It has helped me slow down, think about my passion for the arts and retake charge of my time to dedicate myself more to what I love to do, and that is, to create art. With the guided imagery and insights by Mary and Michael, I have been able to regain a sense of creativity and inspiration that may perhaps have been dormant for a very long time. Over the years, I have fully dedicated my time to family, friends, finances, work, setting aside my passion for the arts. Now, I feel the need to re-encounter myself with that creative child within me, and this is the time to do so. Thus, this course has paved the way for this to happen and I am very grateful to have come across this opportunity for it sparked a light of renewed interest within me as I indulged in creating some of what I think are my best pieces; an original oil on canvas with sand texture “Quetzalcoatl” and two skeleton dolls made from scratch representing Frida Kahlo’s painting, “Las Dos Fridas”.
The first project that I chose to do for this final assignment is “Quetzalcoatl” or “The Feathered Serpent”, one of the most important deities of Mesoamerica. The reason why I chose to paint “Quetzalcoatl” is because of its significance to the arts. According to Mark Cartwright’s definition of “Quetzalcoatl” in the World History Encyclopedia, this deity is “considered the patron god” of “learning, science, agriculture, crafts, and the arts”, which I find to be of great relevance to me at this point in my life. The image of this beautiful creature encompassing the body of “quetzal (the emerald plumed bird) and coatl (serpent)” really speaks to me. I want to nourish this aspect of inspiration within me so I have found this image to be representative of that longing to once again connect to my creative intuition. It is important to show the magnificent duality of this creature so I used sand for exaggerated texture in bringing each feather to life with tones of greens representing life and delineating every aspect of its serpent body with vivid colors. It is a beautiful creature with the ability to create and make things flourish, so I want to express this notion within the painting, bringing it to life like the rebirth of my passion for painting.
The second project that I chose to do is a representation of “Las Dos Fridas” by Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) in skeleton sculptural form. “Las Dos Fridas” is one of my favorite pieces by Frida because it represents the duality of the different cultures that she was born into, one being her father’s European side and the other being related to that of her mother’s Mexican side. In this painting, she also expresses her great turmoil after her divorce from Diego Rivera in 1939. Aside from this turbulent divorce, Frida Kahlo undergoes various painful experiences throughout her lifetime and she uses art as a form of healing. This pain is evident in many of her self-portraits as she uses her self-image to express the moments of despair and agony, confronting her cruel reality with brushstrokes on the surface of a canvas. Frida is a great inspiration to my life because of this; she never gave up and followed her passion even during the worst of times. It reminds me of my innate need to release and set free from the stressful situations and burdens that I often carry; and what better way to do so, than through art as an outlet.
I have chosen these two projects because they are representative of what I do as an artist; I paint and I create things from scratch. This has been my passion and my form of healing ever since I was a child. I grew up in a very dysfunctional household, with very little income and a single-parent family in which my mother had to raise my sister and me by working in the fields and frequently migrating to different places. I ended up going to seven different elementary schools and oftentimes, we had little money for food and necessities, so we couldn’t afford toys to play with. What I did instead, was create things to play with out of paper, cardboard boxes, scraps, and anything that I could find outside on the streets or from nature. Thankfully, this hardship may have led my creative intuition to expand within my life as an adult.
Now, I still like to explore, create, experiment, and invent new things that are soothing in the process and that ultimately bring ease to my mind and sight. Every time I create something new, it reminds me of why I’m here in this world. I believe that if we are destined to have a purpose, then making art would be my calling. I feel alive and free in the process. There are endless and boundless possibilities with so many different approaches to be discovered; the gratification and satisfaction of creating something new are very rewarding and therapeutic.
Along these lines, this course has also broadened my vision of using the arts as therapy for my students in the classroom. Just as I feel that art heals me, I’m incorporating new strategies inspired by this course to help heal my students. The singing bowl, for instance, is something new to many of my students. They had never even heard of or seen one before, so this is very interesting and inspiring to them. As I play it, they close their eyes and focus on their breath, clearing their minds. To most, it is a very gratifying experience listening to the singing bowl just before starting our art lesson. They feel relaxed and inspired.
All in all, I feel blessed in taking this course. It is helping me see my life from a bird’s eye view and slow down, taking one step at a time, focusing on myself and what greatly matters to me, and eliminating the self-judgment, which in turn, allows me to focus more on what I want to do with my time, for time is all we have.
Sources:
Cartwright, Mark. "Quetzalcóatl." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 01 Aug 2013. Web. 26 Oct 2021.
Healing With the Arts
October 27, 2021
Art Heals Me
This course came at a very opportune time for me. It has helped me slow down, think about my passion for the arts and retake charge of my time to dedicate myself more to what I love to do, and that is, to create art. With the guided imagery and insights by Mary and Michael, I have been able to regain a sense of creativity and inspiration that may perhaps have been dormant for a very long time. Over the years, I have fully dedicated my time to family, friends, finances, work, setting aside my passion for the arts. Now, I feel the need to re-encounter myself with that creative child within me, and this is the time to do so. Thus, this course has paved the way for this to happen and I am very grateful to have come across this opportunity for it sparked a light of renewed interest within me as I indulged in creating some of what I think are my best pieces; an original oil on canvas with sand texture “Quetzalcoatl” and two skeleton dolls made from scratch representing Frida Kahlo’s painting, “Las Dos Fridas”.
The first project that I chose to do for this final assignment is “Quetzalcoatl” or “The Feathered Serpent”, one of the most important deities of Mesoamerica. The reason why I chose to paint “Quetzalcoatl” is because of its significance to the arts. According to Mark Cartwright’s definition of “Quetzalcoatl” in the World History Encyclopedia, this deity is “considered the patron god” of “learning, science, agriculture, crafts, and the arts”, which I find to be of great relevance to me at this point in my life. The image of this beautiful creature encompassing the body of “quetzal (the emerald plumed bird) and coatl (serpent)” really speaks to me. I want to nourish this aspect of inspiration within me so I have found this image to be representative of that longing to once again connect to my creative intuition. It is important to show the magnificent duality of this creature so I used sand for exaggerated texture in bringing each feather to life with tones of greens representing life and delineating every aspect of its serpent body with vivid colors. It is a beautiful creature with the ability to create and make things flourish, so I want to express this notion within the painting, bringing it to life like the rebirth of my passion for painting.
The second project that I chose to do is a representation of “Las Dos Fridas” by Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) in skeleton sculptural form. “Las Dos Fridas” is one of my favorite pieces by Frida because it represents the duality of the different cultures that she was born into, one being her father’s European side and the other being related to that of her mother’s Mexican side. In this painting, she also expresses her great turmoil after her divorce from Diego Rivera in 1939. Aside from this turbulent divorce, Frida Kahlo undergoes various painful experiences throughout her lifetime and she uses art as a form of healing. This pain is evident in many of her self-portraits as she uses her self-image to express the moments of despair and agony, confronting her cruel reality with brushstrokes on the surface of a canvas. Frida is a great inspiration to my life because of this; she never gave up and followed her passion even during the worst of times. It reminds me of my innate need to release and set free from the stressful situations and burdens that I often carry; and what better way to do so, than through art as an outlet.
I have chosen these two projects because they are representative of what I do as an artist; I paint and I create things from scratch. This has been my passion and my form of healing ever since I was a child. I grew up in a very dysfunctional household, with very little income and a single-parent family in which my mother had to raise my sister and me by working in the fields and frequently migrating to different places. I ended up going to seven different elementary schools and oftentimes, we had little money for food and necessities, so we couldn’t afford toys to play with. What I did instead, was create things to play with out of paper, cardboard boxes, scraps, and anything that I could find outside on the streets or from nature. Thankfully, this hardship may have led my creative intuition to expand within my life as an adult.
Now, I still like to explore, create, experiment, and invent new things that are soothing in the process and that ultimately bring ease to my mind and sight. Every time I create something new, it reminds me of why I’m here in this world. I believe that if we are destined to have a purpose, then making art would be my calling. I feel alive and free in the process. There are endless and boundless possibilities with so many different approaches to be discovered; the gratification and satisfaction of creating something new are very rewarding and therapeutic.
Along these lines, this course has also broadened my vision of using the arts as therapy for my students in the classroom. Just as I feel that art heals me, I’m incorporating new strategies inspired by this course to help heal my students. The singing bowl, for instance, is something new to many of my students. They had never even heard of or seen one before, so this is very interesting and inspiring to them. As I play it, they close their eyes and focus on their breath, clearing their minds. To most, it is a very gratifying experience listening to the singing bowl just before starting our art lesson. They feel relaxed and inspired.
All in all, I feel blessed in taking this course. It is helping me see my life from a bird’s eye view and slow down, taking one step at a time, focusing on myself and what greatly matters to me, and eliminating the self-judgment, which in turn, allows me to focus more on what I want to do with my time, for time is all we have.
Sources:
Cartwright, Mark. "Quetzalcóatl." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 01 Aug 2013. Web. 26 Oct 2021.