Crocheting and Store

You know what would be the coolest?

If everything we did could earn money.

I think about this sometimes as I am doing a morning run, making some art, taking a bath...  Why won't someone pay me to mow my lawn and brush my teeth? These are the things poor people think when student loans are high and the chosen profession is notoriously shit pay. At least it is what I think. I have been teaching yoga 4 days per week, which is awesome, because it feeds right into that fantasy. I should do yoga anyway, so why not talk through my practice and get paid?  Plus, it's true that we really know a subject through teaching it. Now if I could just supplement my income through riding my bike and going on my morning run.

Artwise, I taught Mallory to crochet and we have been crocheting felted yoga bags.

My yoga bag in progress

 This thing takes forever! So, in the meantime, I also made Mallory some lobster amigurumis.  Get the free pattern here. 

There's something about mindless repetition of stitches that is soothing to me and when I am stressed or undergoing life changes as I have been recently, it's a sure way to manufacture calm.  I have a couple of kids I would like to introduce to crochet.

In an artistic attempt to pay off my massive student loan, I also reopened my etsy shop: Punky Monks, where I am selling my sock monkeys very cheaply right now in order to strum up some business and get rid of my stock.  I still have more finished items to add over the weekend and will likely add some photography soon as well with other items to follow.  My etsy store includes a twitter account and a blog. Right now I am hosting a free monkey give away to subscribers: go here for details.  Not a lot of success in sales so far, but I feel good about it. There is something about feeling kicked down that makes one find solutions.  I'm not starving by any means, but my new debt makes me creative in the methods I will take to get rid of it. I have claimed Sallie Mae as Enemy Number One and am determined to wipe that bill away. These are my current rookie problems.

Sock Monkeys for Sale!

Money Box

Oh my goodness, life is tough lately. Full of happiness and progress on one side and intense stress and change on the other. I have not been a "good" artist under these conditions and by good, I mean at all. I haven't done much. It's sad, because I could use some quiet creative blowing off of steam now as much as ever.

However, I have not been a complete slacker, because I did make my girlfriend a money box. She is a runner and had the bright idea of paying herself a dollar for every mile she runs this year (which I immediately imitated). She had her cash in a bucket, which is perfectly fine, but called out for something more. I wanted to make us both something that fit the money right, so I built her this box out of foam core and covered it in paper mosaic and a little paper filigree. 

Outside of Box

Inside with false bottom that opens to a note.

Bottom with little filigree legs.

Group Intervention and Other News

Successful intervention of the week is Play Doh Charades. Once a week I try to give my guys a group that is just about self regulation and integrates some sensory work. Last week's sensory group was a success. I brought a small Tibetan Singing Bowl from home and had the guys start by listening to me ring it 3 times and pay attention to the point they noticed the sound vibration stop. This "mediation" technique was a success. The guys were mellow, but alert, which is my favorite of their states. They were very interested in the bowl, so I allowed them to pass it around and have each person ring it once. To my surprise, they were appropriate with my bowl and passing it to their peers. They had lots of questions about it and I was impressed by their attention and interest in the new object.

Next I passed out small containers of Play Doh and had written random nouns on index cards which they took one at a time. I asked them to shape the clay into what was written on the card and the other guys had to guess. No prizes were offered, but they loved it. The only problem was they got a little too happy. Some of my guys are easily dysregulated and potentially dangerous and at one point one of them screamed with excitement and brought staff running, thinking something was wrong. It was good to see them all taking turns, enjoying group and feeling happy though. I had them settle down with some ending yoga postures and they all left feeling positive and saying they liked group, which makes me feel good.

And last weekend I finished my table.

Paper Mosaic Table

I am between projects now. I want to mosaic my dresser next, but feel a little overwhelmed with the thought of it. I may just revive my etsy site and make a few monkeys for a while between furniture projects.

I have been dealing with one of the stresses of being a rookie, which is cash. My student loans have started coming in and therapists really don't get paid so well when the cost of being one is factored in. It's freaking me out. So I have been exploring money-making options. I have a few ideas in mind to supplement my income, but I have one thing I can check off my list: I will be teaching yoga again. So far I have been offered one night a week, but my schedule may be rounding out over the next couple weeks as I am going into a large gym chain desperate for teachers and different locations are currently working on their spring schedules.

Lastly, my girlfriend and I have started a new blog about all of our adventures with some very cool stuff planned for this summer. If there is no chance you are a client past or present and would like to see it, email me or comment and I will send you a link.

Sometimes I am a Music Therapist

Things I hate about my job: Catching every weird illness kids get, my loans are bigger than my paycheck and doing groups.

Things I love about my job: I love those kids individually and I love that I get to work with them individually and see amazing things happen sometimes.

I find that on this job I am not exclusively an art therapist. I am a whatever-works therapist. Sometimes play, movement, music or just talk. I know art best, but I follow the lead of whomever I am working with. The most recent dramatic success has been in music and it was the simplest, most natural, easy thing that led to a great opening of one of my guys.

Photo from another career.

One guy got a keyboard as a gift, so for a couple of sessions, I taught him how to read music. Nothing miraculous, just middle C and the surrounding keys so he could play basic songs. He started making up his own rhythms, just playing around, and we would talk about what kind of emotion the sounds portrayed or movie scenes we could imagine played out to his sound effects. Then one day I asked him to sing along and give words to his sounds. Suddenly, a kid that has kept it superficial for months cracked wide open and told me about his life, his hopes, his emotions and he loved doing it. It could be the saddest thing that ever happened to him or something horrible he regretted doing, and he was so proud to put it to music. It made talking easy. It immediately carried over into other aspects of his treatment: he became more engaged, more motivated, more positive, more focused and he started having conversations with his family that required a lot of courage. It was seriously amazing. Sometimes I don't know where individual sessions are going, but just going with the flow has been showing some good results and makes this job worth doing.

And my table is coming along...

INTENSE!

This week I had one of those days. You know, the kind where one wonders what the hell one was thinking when choosing a career path. I consider myself pretty tough, but an event in group shook me up pretty badly on Monday. Hello Rookie, this is your wake up call -- you're not as hardcore as you think and (bubble burst) your job is actually a little dangerous.

Often when my guys are less than perfect in group, I feel partially responsible. I think if only I could find the right directive, the right level of energy, the right pace, they would be too interested in group to act up and just maybe they would learn something. So, today I came with a racing heart, shortness of breath, sense of terror, props to engage them and a bag of prizes to bribe them. I hoped for the best, but had a big male staff, an intern and new respect for the paging system to back me up in preparation for the worst.

I started with the warning of prizes: participation, respect and safety would result in a prize at the end of group. The guys know my basket of prizes. Hot Wheels and notebooks are big motivators for short term good behavior. I don't use bribery often, but you know what they say about desperate times. Then I showed the guys a modified version of an old mindfulness group. They named off the five senses and I had a prop and activity for every one.

Touch - One object for each kid (stress balls, Play Doh, beads, Slinky, for example) and asked them to spend a few seconds with each one and share what they notice. They passed all the objects around so everyone had a turn with each object and could name their favorite.
Taste - One Swedish Fish (Thank you Mallory). They were asked to become connoisseurs and smell, feel, describe before eating in one minute or more. Then say something about the taste.
Smell - A small drop of lotion on their hands. What does it smell like? Does it remind them of anything?
Sound - I had them draw abstractly to music and then discuss what they noticed in the sound.
Sight - They held up images and had to say what they noticed about their own and what they noticed about each others.

Every kid was fantastic in group today. I don't know if it was the prizes or the engagement of their senses, but today was better. Something worked and they noted improvement to their moods and learned a little about using their bodies to pay attention and be connected to themselves and their environments.

In personal art news, my art life has been very slacky and that makes me feel a little brain dead, disconnected from myself and like a craptastic art therapist. Life is busy! But, I have been working on the long term project of paper mosaicing my bedroom furniture. This is great for someone with small moments for art making, because I have slivers of paper and everyday I sit down and glue a few onto my nightstand. It makes me happy. My mind wanders to combining this with sewn papers... quilted furniture... hmmmm....

The top of my nightstand, in progress.

Rapping with Teens

This past week was rather casual around my workplace, because my guys were on "vacation." Since I work for a residential treatment program, that means they were at the residence, rather than the school where I have an office. Although I went to the residence as usual during the week, I gave my guys the freedom to meet with me or not, work on something or not and since there was no school, we didn't have any groups. 

When I arrived one day, one of my guys had created a positive rap about himself and the program to share with me. Since we have started working on a video for groups, I gave my guys the option of filming something during their vacation and I encouraged this boy to use his rap as his video to share with the group. The guys I work with have "developmental delays."  This translates into several difficulties, including being a few years behind grade level. Reading and writing is often a big struggle for many of my guys. Writing a rap is an advanced skill with my kids; reading, memorizing, presenting it could be even more tricky. So, here's what we did: we went over each line and I had him practice and repeat, choose an appropriate space, camera angle and movement and we filmed it one line at a time, so he sounded his best with each line. I think we created something he can be proud of. Plus, it is a positive reminder to stay on track in his own words.

Coincidentally, one of my other guys wanted to write a rap with me. He rapped and I wrote. He was so proud of his work and showed all of the staff his rap collection. I photocopied his work and I am thinking about helping him make something with his rap hits like a book or c.d. Any creative ideas for translating written word to another art form?

As for my own goals and self-care. My book of the week is Art and Yoga by Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa and I have been doing a simple DVD practice at home from Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga along with listening to the lecture. Both are highly recommended. Here is some fast art in response to my practice.

Chakras, watercolor

 

Silence, watercolor

Blog Restart and Updates

One of this year's birthday resolutions was to blog every Sunday and three weeks later, I am making that happen for the first time. One of the tough things about starting over on this blog is organizing my thoughts and having a coherent topic, so screw that. Here are some random updates.

First of all, as my graduation gift to myself, I went to Kripalu for an Art and Yoga Teacher Training with Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa, which was fantastic. I was initially intimidated by the traditionalness of Kundalini Yoga, but Hari Kirin has a certain glow or an aura or something of welcome and kindness and I loved it: chanting, meditating, yogaing (kundalini is really hard, by the way), singing (!!!) and art-making. On the last day we made our 40 day art and yoga plan which I have tried and often slacked on, but it is in my heart and I will keep working at making art and yoga a regular part of everyday. Expect to read more about this. Here is some artwork...

Painting from the workshop: "A New Relationship"

From my Art and Yoga Sketchbook

Watercolor after a yoga - run - yoga - meditation combo

My art life has been slacking recently and my physical life has been intense. There was a time before grad school that I was pretty hardcore into my physical life and that must be some sort of natural part of who I am, because now that I have the time, it's back. I am training for a half marathon and a trapeze show! Yes, a trapeze show! I am the least experienced person in it, so I feel compelled to work extra hard to get things as right as possible and not look like a big goober. This is not quite getting things right, but it is so fun and freeing and I cannot get enough of swinging and flying. This is my idea of self-care.

 

Back End Straddle

Work continues to go well. I've had some learning opportunities and successes to share in future posts. Currently, my guys are working on a strengths-based film. We just started, but they seem pretty interested so far, as is my director, so I hope that intervention goes well... More on that later.

I made my resolutions for this year of my life and the list is ridiculous!!! I was looking at past lists and I normally hit almost all my goals each year. I am okay with having intentions that aren't quite reachable, because even if I only get to 50%, I'm still growing. Even as I write this, I am trying to decide how much I should make my goals public, because it's a pretty demanding list I have created.

Alright, this is the gist:
1. Keep space neat.
2. Be proactive about getting things done on time.
3. Organize the basement (I'm still working on that studio space and it is in bad shape right now).
4. Take counseling exam.
5. DBT training (if I can afford it; work doesn't pay for trainings they don't provide).
6. Read at least 20 of the books I own.
7. Practice yoga at least 6 days per week.
8. Get job teaching yoga again.
9. Run 20 miles per week.
10. Art (visual, music or writing) daily.
11. Fly unassisted.
12. Develop a budget.
13. Pay off my credit card.
14. Clean up my etsy shop and try harder to sell stuff.
15. Donate an afghan in my mom's honor.
16. Write in my blog every Sunday.

This was my birthday list and I am making progress so far and feeling good about hacking away at this thing.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my update. Next time I hope to make the post more relevant to art therapy. Please stay tuned.