The concept that art can provoke healing led to the creation of The Backyard Mosaic Women’s Project in Madison, Wisc. It was founded by ELCA pastors Mary Pharmer and Julia Weaver, as an art program for women who are being released from jail and want put their lives back together in a sober, spiritual way.
The choice of mosaic as the group’s medium is not accidental. A mosaic is a surface decoration made by inlaying small pieces of various materials, usually glass, often broken. These varied pieces are put together to form pictures or patterns of beauty. Weaver notes, “So too, our lives are often broken. Our life work is putting the broken pieces back together in an image of beauty.”
What if we began visiting art museums and concerts when we feel bad instead of resorting to less healthy coping mechanisms like overspending, overeating or binge drinking? Why don’t we try taking out our pencils and crayons, yarn and whittling knives, paints and beads, and make something? Would channeling our energy in that way change us, our relationships, our world?
This message is excepted from “Art as healing” by Susan Schneider in the January 9, 2023, Café online magazine. Today we commemorate Albrecht Durer, 1528; Matthias Grunewald, 1529; Lucas Cranach, 1553; artists.
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