Blog Posts

Conversations at the Upstream Gallery

11/25/2016

Noe Kidder, filmmaker and Mia de Bethune will exhibit together in this group show from Dec 1 to Jan 1 in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, in anticipation of their collaborative installation "The Dark Door" in 2017.

"Gulf Stream" - ribbon sculpture by Mia de Bethune

From "A Paradise of Children" by Noe Kidder

The Upstream Gallery, 8 Main Street, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706 914-674-8548
Conversations - Group Show
Hours 12:30 to 5:30 Thursday to Sunday
Opening December 4, 2016 from 5 to 7 pm

1 Comment

The Kobbe Project at The Expressive Therapies Summit

11/25/2016

0 Comments

November 13 in New York City - Nelly Edmondson and Mia de Bethune, two members of the Kobbe Project team, worked with a group of 15 creative arts therapist to explore narrative threads, try easy, affordable methods of weaving with recycled materials and build a communal web.

0 Comments

New Workshops for Fall 2015

9/6/2015

0 Comments

The Kobbe Project at Catwalk Art Residency

9/6/2015

0 Comments

Part of the "Art from the Site Lines of Nature," Exhibit at Catwalk Institute on Sat, Sept 12, The Kobbe Project weave installations will be on view to the public from
2 to 5 pm. 4 Rt 385, Catskill, NY.

0 Comments

Doll Making Workshop

10/23/2014

3 Comments

Doll Making was the project today and there were five of us around the table busily stitching, stuffing and creating soft dolls and other creatures with playful intent.

Participants were asked to bring in a picture, memory or actual doll from their childhood. Lively conversation ensued about Madame Alexander dolls, Swiss Sasha Dolls, Trolls, Barbies, Raggedy Ann, Tiny Tears and Tommy from the Rugrats. We talked about the role dolls played as transitional objects or comfort objects for kids in all circumstances, but especially in the event of a death in the family, divorce or other disruptions in childhood. Dolls were recognized to be important to identification in childhood and for practicing behaviors and working out problems through play.

The goal of the workshop was to learn several simple doll making techniques that did not require expensive or extensive materials and could be made easily with a child in one or two therapy sessions.

Tongue depressor puppets, pipe cleaner dolls, yarn wrapped "worry" dolls, felt dolls, sock dolls and dolls made from old nylons were on the agenda.

The simple acts of repetitive stitching a felt doll or stuffing its body or winding yarn to make a "worry" doll can be biorhythmic and soothing activities for children or adults. This is not even considering the great value as a comfort object to a child when they go to sleep or are distressed and need a reminder of safety.

Pinterest has many good demonstrations for making soft dolls, but I recommend buying some felt, polyester batting, a few buttons and some thread and trying for yourself. Cut out a large 8.5 X 11 size gingerbread shape from paper and use that as your template. The other way to go is to buy brightly colored socks, toe socks and stockings at the dollar store and see what you create from these using buttons and beads for eyes.

Here are our creations:

3 Comments

Welcome to Fall 2014

9/22/2014

0 Comments

It's been a long and busy summer. I've been busy writing and weaving at an artists' residency in Catskill, NY - the Catwalk Institute. This silver curtain is made of deer fencing and recycled plastics.

We have an exciting line up of workshops for the fall - come and try one out or sign up for a series.
The following are art journaling offerings. We have raised the price to $40 at the door, but you can still attend for $30 if you sign up for a series of four or your choice.

Playing the Cards You Are Dealt
Sunday, Oct 19, 2014
1:30-3:30

Life gives us all different challenges and opportunities. Do we accept them? Do we compromise? How do we manage? A chance to explore through writing and art making as we move into the challenges of Fall.

$40 including supplies - or $120 for a series of 4
Please specify which session.

As of April 1 we have raised the price to $40 at the door. Buying a series is still $30.

Coming up!
Conjuring Creation
Sunday, Nov 16, 2014
1:30-3:30

When are you at your most creative? We will look at ways to spark and conjure creative moments.

Then we will be making dolls in early October. Come join us!

Simple Doll-making
Sat October 4, 2014
2:30 am to 5:30 pm

For mental health practitioners - or anyone else!
Learn to make simple soft dolls with your clients and
explore the beneficial use of dolls in therapy.

$60

As always there is our peer supervision group:

Art Therapist's Peer Supervision Group
On Monday per month from 7 pm to 8:30 pm

Next group Oct 6, 2014

RSVP to mdebethune@gmail.com

0 Comments

Edith Kramer's Memorial: Several Generations of Art Therapists - April 26, 2014

5/30/2014

9 Comments

Edith Kramer 1916-2014

Edith Kramer, the "grandmother of art therapy" died this past February in her home country, Austria, but we all gathered at NYU on a sunny Saturday in April to commemorate her life and work.

What an event it was to see my teachers and my teachers' teachers and my students, now going back almost ten years (some of whom are teaching and mentoring current students) and to feel part of the great legacy left by this tiny woman with apple cheeks and braids on her head.

The event was held at the NYU Art Therapy Department, which Edith started now some forty odd years ago. Ikuko Acosta, Program Director of the department hosted the event with Marygrace Berberian, Program Coordinator, along with help from current students and faculty.

As I like to tell my students, "You are going into a profession where you can still 'touch' those who founded it - literally." Aside from Edith many of the writers and theorists, to whom we often refer, were present in the auditorium to give testimonials, view film footage and view previously unseen photographs of Edith in her youth and throughout her life.

Psychoanalyst and art historian, Laurie Wilson, known for her biographies of sculptors Alberto Giaccometi and Louise Nevelson, helped Edith Kramer found the NYU program and was its first director. Laurie started off the program on April 26 and spoke about Edith's childhood in Vienna.    Edith trained as a teenager with Friedl Dicker-Brandejs, an artist and teacher, and contemporary of Johannes Itten of the Weimar Bauhaus school. In David Henley's film "Honoring Edith" there are several quotes which seem to capture her outlook on art:

"There doesn't need to be a secret language for art."
"Making art esoteric makes it less art."

These reflect the influence of the art vs. craft debate of the early twentieth century in the Bauhaus and the Arts & Crafts movement of the 20's and 30's when the world was enmeshed in war and economic crisis. But it gave birth to a philosophy largely born of Edith Kramer's intellect that art should be a tool or avenue for healing and emotional functionality and should be accessible and not elitist. She learned what healing with art could look like from Friedl Dicker in Czech refugee camps for political prisoners and traumatized children.

Judy Rubin - the "art lady" on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood (known to many of us from childhood) is a major contributor to the field as well as an active filmmaker. It was because of her book Child Art Therapy, which I picked up at B&N many years ago, that I decided to become an art therapist.

As an art teacher in the 1950's and 60's, Judy sought out both Edith Kramer and Margaret Naumburg (the other grandmother of art therapy) because she saw that they were approaching art with children in a different way and she wanted to learn from them. Both Edith and Margaret were art educators who had some alliance with psychoanalysis. Edith was indeed born in Vienna to the social and intellectual circle of Sigmund Freud.

Judy compares Edith to Erik Erikson and Anna Freud for her clarity of intellect. Her psychoanalytic training was largely self taught, which gave her an "intellectual freedom" and originality of thought. Edith invited Judy to observe her work with blind children at The Jewish Guild for the Blind in NY and this is where Judy's education as an art therapist and career as a filmmaker seems to have been born. Judy showed footage of a young Edith working with blind children to create clay sculptures. Edith explains in the film that with the clay these children are free to express their "vision" of life without any imposition from the sighted world; giving them a sense of agency and empowerment.

David Henley, well known for his book Clayworks in Art Therapy and his work with children in the autistic spectrum, was Edith's personal assistant for several decades and said of her that, "She took so long to read my thesis that [I would look for things to fix in her studio and] I became a handyman for her." He had "literally thousands of anecdotes" about her and described her abhorrence of anything opulent, her disdain of air conditioning - "chemical air" - and her constant maxim, "The figure must be grounded," - a lesson he seems to have learned well as he has taught us all now for decades how to work with clay in a therapeutic manner. He told hilarious anecdotes of accompanying Edith to national art therapy conferences where she seemed confounded by all the formalities, which were arising in the field which she helped to found. David shared precious footage of Edith, shot by filmmaker James Pruzniak, during her last months in her New York city studio before leaving permanently for Austria.

Martha Haeseler referred to herself, and several of her classmates from the early years of the NYU art therapy program, as Edith's daughters. She and Lani Gerity and Susan Anand and Robin Goodman would accompany Edith to conferences and take care of various chores that needed doing in the program or her studio. Martha quotes Kathy Bard, who now practices in Zurich: "Edith saw us as the future and she shared the actual art she had done with clients in classes with us." Martha told us how Edith taught her students to close their eyes and feel their own face with their hands and then shape it in clay - just as her blind students at the Guild had done. I still remember standing in the darkened studio on Stuyvesant Street doing this exercise. My clay head still sits on my studio shelf as a concrete reminder of my training. Martha said Edith used to have very few teacups in her Van Dam Street studio. If she were serving tea she inevitably would have to clean one out. She told Martha, "I am married to art! What do I need with more teacups?"

I had the extraordinary experience sitting in the audience of watching Martha speak about Edith, while watching Anni Bergman (legendary child psychoanalyst and close friend of Edith's) play with her grandchild on her lap! Anni Bergman described Edith maintaining her connection to the Viennese intelligensia even while living in NY. They shared a love of hiking and Edith with visit Anni at her summer house in New Hampshire where they would hike in the mountains. "Hiking," Anni said, "conjured up anxieties about nature, about being alone and perhaps in danger," but both women found it exhilarating; the challenges of the trail being a way to find one's way in life.

Herschel Stroyman, another lifelong friend of Edith's, brought with him from Toronto a whole lifetime of beautiful B&W photographs he had taken of her over the years. Edith with Eleanor Roosevelt at the Wiltwyck School for troubled boys in the 1950's; Edith with several of her classes from the early years at NYU, Edith in her studio and painting in nature. He described her as a "wordsmith par excellence" and spoke of her masterful article on the unity of process and product and how one cannot exist without the other.

Here is his galllery
http://herschelstroyman.zenfolio.com/p1024744045/h6DF8EFEF#h6df8efef

Lani Gerity spoke last and most eloquently of Edith as foremost a storyteller. She spoke of Edith's loft as being the "transitional space" referred to by D.W. Winnicott as the source of creativity; the place where stillness and possibility give rise to a permissiveness of original ideas - a place where original thought comes from.

She said what she learned from Edith most of all was to, "be inventive and open to the unexpected."

Here is her own tribute:
http://lanipuppetmaker.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-tribute-to-edith-kramer-1916-2014.html

The presentation was followed by a luncheon where these many generations of art therapists were able to catch up and share their favorite memories. Then NYU's Bobst Library offered a tour of the new Edith Kramer Archive organized by archivist Nancy Cricco. Here they are currently preserving her papers, original works of art from her studio and her clients, and other intellectual property. Conservation Librarian Laura McCann showed us around and gave a glimpse of the restoration process with some, by now, very well known works of art - at least to art therapists. The very drawings Edith used as examples in her seminal book Art as Therapy with Children lay before us on the tables. The archivist and her assistants handled them with gloved hands. Discussion ensued about what to do with art products made with "less than archival" materials used in classroom and school settings. Should the tape Edith presumably had placed on a drawing to repair it remain or be removed? A debate ensued among the art therapists in the room. "It should be preserved as part of the third hand technique espoused by Edith, where client and therapist sometimes act as co-creators of an object." I have paraphrased here as I do not have the direct quote nor remember who said it. During this discussion Herschel Stroyman, ever the documentarian, asked if anyone was recording the conversation for posterity. I agreed to turn on my voice-recorder. Another discussion involved whether or not researchers visiting the archive should have access to the back (or verso) of a drawing if a name was written on it. All unanimously agreed that this should not be allowed and violated patient privacy laws even if those patients were long dead and gone.

Laying on a side table was the very whale image drawn by a young boy in a small art therapy group on which Edith famously wrote about sublimation in art making. This was particularly moving to me and reminded me how effective a story teller she had been; how clearly she was able to get her point across about the importance of this image to transform a child's more aggressive urges. Yet the image created on two delicate pieces of cardboard was decaying. Laura was unsure how they were going to approach preserving it. This made me think about all the art I had made with young at-risk boys. Much of it involved things being taped or covered with glitter or other transient, fragile material. I asked Laura what the best method for preserving former client art work was. Her answer was complex and it begged the question: What is our responsibility, as art therapists, to properly archive client work that remains in our possession? The many gathered art therapists considered that the American Art Therapy Association's Ethical Guidelines do not specifically tackle this issue. With the work of the foremost founder of our field now being archived, it does seem a discussion to pursue. I agreed to type up the audio recording of this impromptu debate and write up an article for the AATA Journal to begin the dialogue.

As always, I am learning, and forever admiring of the great minds and creative spirits of the women and men in this field. We owe so much to Edith Kramer. She will be greatly missed.

The Edith Kramer Archive
http://edithkramer.com/UART%20Edith%20Kramer%20Ad.pdf

Edith teaching at NYU. Photo H. Stroyman

Edith painting a portrait in her studio. Photo H Stroyman

9 Comments

Announcing New Workshops for May and June

5/6/2014

1 Comment

From the “Writing for the Soul”
Art Journaling Series

Transformation
Thru
Alteration
An Altered Books Workshop

Saturday, May 10th
10:30 to 1:30

$60 – Registration required
Bring a book to alter – or we will supply

Writing for the Soul” Art Journaling Series

Expanding Into The
Moment

Prepare yourself for summer

June 1, 2014 10:30-12:30
$40 at the door

Mandala and Energy Healing Workshop

A great way to start your summer!

Basic concepts of energy healing and mandala creation combined in a restorative meditative process

Saturday, June 14, 2014

9:30 am to 5:00 pm $120 (student/new grad rate available) Beverages provided – bring a bag lunch

Registration required

Simple Doll Making For Mental Health Practitioners (or Anyone Else!)

Learn to make a simple “soft doll” with clients; how and why doll-making can be useful in therapy.

June 28, 10:30 am to 1:30 pm $60 – registration required

1 Comment

A brief moment in Spring

5/6/2014

0 Comments

So much has occurred in the past month that there hasn't been time to catch up and report on goings on in the studio. With flash floods and tornados in the news it seems we are having the briefest window of Spring before Summer descends with all its glorious sun and warmth as well as its potentially ferocious weather.

We have lots of new workshops on the horizon for May and June before we close up for the Summer months. I wanted to report on two events at the end of March before moving forward. I have just uploaded the pictures and am delighted to share. Somehow April got in the way: papers and thesis projects to grade as well as the momentous occasion of Edith Kramer's memorial at NYU. At least four generations of art therapists in one room! Lots of photos, film, moving and wonderful testimonial as to Edith's strong personality, eccentric sleeping habits and love of art and children. More on this later...

On March 29 and 30 here at Art Therapy on Hudson we held two workshops. Both were both enormously successful and a great learning experience all around.

The Group Weave

The Weave of Life Workshop
March 29, 2014

Six women convened at Art Therapy on Hudson Studio to spend the day weaving, writing and exploring the metaphors inherent in the feminine arts.

We began with a powerpoint and lecture given by Valeria Koutmina, ATR-BC, LCAT, describing the history of weaving, the relationship between text and textiles and the rich myth and folklore tradition associated with these crafts.

Group members engaged in an "unraveling" exercise and then journaled about what it meant to become "unraveled." Supplied with a variety of knitted squares, group members were asked to unravel their square following a breathing meditation. They then wrote about the experience.

Reflections varied from "having a few knots" that had to be worked through, to a piece of mohair, which was so sticky it created a tangled mess, to a piece of chenille which unraveled almost too quickly because of its a silky and slippery fiber.

The group explored the possibility that the tangles, though frustrating presented unseen opportunities to try something new or to work with what you've got. The knots encountered in unravelling brought up issues of dependence and whether one needed help or support to accomplish the task. The slippery chenille though easier to work was almost too easy and provided too little resistance. All of these experiences seemed metaphors for our struggles and coping in real life.

The members then worked together to create a large weaving, with the intention of creating a supportive network within a group of relative strangers. When the weave was completed all had to work together or "dance" really in a choreographed way to hang the weave on the wall so that we could move onto other projects.

Moving together to hang the Group Weave.

A personal weave/nest among the rest.

A swaddled cocoon.

It was a surprise to everyone what occurred with this weave. Small sections appeared in the work representing the individual mark of the members. A nestlike tiny weave amongst the rest, a tiny swaddled cocoon - like a chrysalis - a tangle of blue thread hidden against a blue strip of paper, a bouquet of dried flowers and leaves. It was as if everyone needed to create an individual "safe" space within the network before being able to complete the whole. Perhaps this group was not yet ready to weave together??

The relating of weaving and fabric arts to our own life stories seemed to bring up very deep personal material.

A bouquet of dried plant matter.

A hidden tangle of blue thread.

After a brief lunch the group reconvened and took up the yarn they had unraveled in the morning meditation. All were asked to imagine this thread as a timeline of their own lives - like the golden thread of Odysseus and Ariadne: the thread, she gave him which lead him out of the labyrinth and to safety from the minotaur.

The group first wrote about the idea of the lifeline, timeline, thread or text of one's life and then visually created a timeline using their unravelled thread with a base of foam core and colored pins.

Journal writing and timeline.

Tangled timeline and alternate paths.

The ups and downs; important events and people.

Timeline as the protective structure of one's life.

The embryo or nascent self.

Timeline where pictures tell the story.

Sometimes our narrative is not so linear or straight forward.

Inherent in the construction of our timelines - which we dubbed the "Linear or Newtonian" conception of one's life, seemed to be the be the need to transcend the linear and go straight to the complex dimensionality of life - the complex weave of connections we have to our past, our present and to our future.

The next project then was to make a weave of any kind that represented a more multi-dimensional model of life. We dubbed these the "Quantum or String Theory" model's of existence.

The multi-dimensional weave - modeled on the holographic concept of the universe.

A weave as a lifeboat - a support in the storms of life.

The weaving process evoked memories of loved ones who had passed.

The complexities of life.

Creative connections and possibilities.

None of us quite knew what would come out of this workshop. We were all quite surprised by what did. The power of the metaphor was stronger than anyone anticipated for looking at our connectivity and threads that bind us to one another.

We will run this one again in the Fall for those who are interested.

"Moving Beyond Stuckness" A Mindfulness Based Creative Arts Workshop - April 30th, 2014

Re-imagining and lifting away the painful rage.

The following day Art Therapy on Hudson welcomed Michelle Maidenberg, PhD, who introduced the basic concepts of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to a mixed group of social workers, psychologists, art therapists and a psychiatrist.

ACT, as it is known, was developed in the late 1980's principally by Dr. Steve Hayes when it was referred to as comprehensive distancing (Wikipedia). It combines aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy or applied behavior analysis and concepts of mindfulness.

Unlike other forms of cognitive behavioral analysis, ACT does not try to get people to change the ways in which they think and behave, but rather encourages them to notice how they are feeling - and sit with and accept difficult feelings - such as "being stuck." In keeping with mindful practice, ACT participants are welcomed to just accept their feelings and not immediately try to change them. They are then asked to identify what they consider to be their core values in life - from spending time with family, to having a better job, etc. Within the functional contextualism or Relational Frame Theory of ACT, participants are then asked to reconsider their feelings of "stuck" or "bored" or "angry" and to re-imagine them in accordance with their values. They are then asked to consider a plan, which might allow them to accomplish their new image of these emotions. Its seems too simple and very theoretical, but it was surprising to see the basic, or in some cases dramatic shifts, that occurred for the participants.

This process was of course enhanced by the wedding of ACT concepts with the use of art therapy and expressive writing techniques. After hearing a didactic, but highly entertaining presentation on ACT concepts, Michelle lead participants through a meditation after which they visualized and created what their feeling "stuck" looked like. They were then asked to write about what their core value system was in a timed journal exercise. They then revisited the image and adjusted it, altered it, cut it up or added to it in a way which accommodated their values and allowed them to feel the "stuck-ness" could move more in that direction.

ACT and art therapy seem a natural fit as both use distancing as a method for reflection. Both use metaphor and call for subtle, less conscious, change, which comes out of an individual's own reflective process. As a structured "technique" ACT can give form to the fluid, amorphous aspects of art therapy and art therapy/expressive writing can enhance the depth of processing, which can occur when employing ACT.

Look for more ACT/Art Therapy Workshops in the Fall.

0 Comments

Edith Kramer Memorial

3/27/2014

0 Comments

Please join

the NYU Graduate Art Therapy Program

to remember the life and work of our founder and art therapy pioneer,

Edith Kramer

Saturday, April 26th

10 am to 3:30 pm

New York University

Barney Building Auditorium

34 Stuyvesant Street

New York, NY 10003

For more information, please contact:

art-therapy@nyu.edu

Open to the Public

Please reserve your seat at:

http://goo.gl/Q2YYVt

More details are included in the attached invitation.

Please note that space is limited so reservations are needed to accommodate those interested.

0 Comments

<<Previous

Forward>>

Conversations at the Upstream Gallery

"Gulf Stream" - ribbon sculpture by Mia de Bethune

From "A Paradise of Children" by Noe Kidder

The Kobbe Project at The Expressive Therapies Summit

New Workshops for Fall 2015

The Kobbe Project at Catwalk Art Residency

Doll Making Workshop

Welcome to Fall 2014

Edith Kramer's Memorial: Several Generations of Art Therapists - April 26, 2014

Announcing New Workshops for May and June

A brief moment in Spring

"Moving Beyond Stuckness" A Mindfulness Based Creative Arts Workshop - April 30th, 2014

Edith Kramer Memorial

Author

Archives

Categories
General
Art Therapy
Art Journaling

"Gulf Stream" - ribbon sculpture by Mia de Bethune

From "A Paradise of Children" by Noe Kidder

"Moving Beyond Stuckness" A Mindfulness Based Creative Arts Workshop - April 30th, 2014

Author

Archives

CategoriesGeneralArt TherapyArt Journaling

Categories
General
Art Therapy
Art Journaling