New Workshop in the Fall
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| "Resistance Art " collage by Lani, textures by FlyPaper. |
10:00 am - 5:15 pm
Fostering Resilience & Inclusivity with Diverse Populations: Projects for Personal & Social Change
Pratt Institute - Friday
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn
Graduate Department of Creative Arts Therapy, Co-Host
Lani A. Gerity, DA, ATR
Susan Ainlay Anand, MA, ATR-BC, ATCS, LPAT
Jordan S. Potash, PhD, ATR-BC, REAT, LPCAT, LCAT
Drawing from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words and Edith Kramer’s teachings on being “maladapted” to injustice and oppression, the presenters will provide context and inspiration for using daily art and creativity to build social cohesion, resilience, and, ultimately, change. In this daylong master class participants will learn easy-to-follow instructions for creating non-threatening, resilience-building individual and group art projects. Consideration will be given to eliciting personal stories of cultural strengths and group resilience narratives. Examples of case material and arts from various communities experiencing stress will be discussed to illustrate the importance of fostering strengths, resilience, and sublimation in the art room. Through storytelling, deep listening, art exchange, and group creation, participants will learn how to support a culture of resilience, resistance, and inclusivity among the diverse populations they find within their art rooms and other treatment settings.
Eligible for 6.0 Clock/Credit Hours: NBCC, ATCB; ASWB, APA, MFT, Nursing; SWNYS, LCAT
Not eligible for APT Credits
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn
Graduate Department of Creative Arts Therapy, Co-Host
Lani A. Gerity, DA, ATR
Susan Ainlay Anand, MA, ATR-BC, ATCS, LPAT
Jordan S. Potash, PhD, ATR-BC, REAT, LPCAT, LCAT
Drawing from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words and Edith Kramer’s teachings on being “maladapted” to injustice and oppression, the presenters will provide context and inspiration for using daily art and creativity to build social cohesion, resilience, and, ultimately, change. In this daylong master class participants will learn easy-to-follow instructions for creating non-threatening, resilience-building individual and group art projects. Consideration will be given to eliciting personal stories of cultural strengths and group resilience narratives. Examples of case material and arts from various communities experiencing stress will be discussed to illustrate the importance of fostering strengths, resilience, and sublimation in the art room. Through storytelling, deep listening, art exchange, and group creation, participants will learn how to support a culture of resilience, resistance, and inclusivity among the diverse populations they find within their art rooms and other treatment settings.
Eligible for 6.0 Clock/Credit Hours: NBCC, ATCB; ASWB, APA, MFT, Nursing; SWNYS, LCAT
Not eligible for APT Credits
Information about The Legacy of Edith Kramer is up on the Routledge website. Very exciting for Susan Ainlay Anand and myself and all the wonderful contributors. (Feeling delighted and grateful)
https://www.routledge.com/…/Gerity-Ana…/p/book/9781138681248
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| "Always Going Home" collage by Lani, textures by FlyPaper. |
Mostly I do workshops on paper puppets, narratives, and collage, but I'm flexible.
When I
worked in NYC, with seriously mentally ill clients, I found creating
puppets with them was an amazing, engaging, and enlightening
experience. Folks created their own world, Puppetland, where anything
could happen. They created new histories for themselves, based on the
delightful interactions that their puppets had. It was truly life
changing for many people, but I thought at the time that perhaps it was a
little flukey, perhaps it was just the perfect combination of factors
that couldn't be replicated elsewhere. I decided to study the process,
and wrote my doctoral dissertation on the experience. It later became a
book published by Jessica Kingsley.
Even
though I figured out some of what went into making it such a
deceptively powerful experience, I still harbored the thought that maybe
it was a fluke because I had the luxury of working with group members
for years. Folks could really take their time and develop healing,
transformative narratives of strength around their puppets, the puppets
homes, and even backdrop collages that embodied the narratives in a
truly magical way, like an illustrated children's book that you
accidentally fell into.
I
started working in a workshop format, creating puppets with
grandparents and grandchildren in the Adirondacks of New York. Still
thinking that the success of these experiences must be due to the
specific make-up of the groups in the Adirondacks, I thought why not
take the workshop to other cultural groups and environments. While
visiting Susan Anand, art therapist in Mississippi, I suggested that we
collaborate on an intergenerational workshop with stressed communities
in the Delta region of Mississippi. Susan made it all possible and we
did many workshops together in a variety of settings, with a variety of
populations. We worked together, and we worked separately. We worked
with Vietnamese families devastated by the BP oil spill, with survivors
of Hurricane Katrina, a stressed Native American community (First
Nations), with cancer patients, and art therapy students. The results
are always new, unexpected, surprising, and always transformative and
animating!
I am beginning to think it's not a fluke. If you can, come to one of our workshops and try out the methodology for your self.
