Recently, Art with Heart had the pleasure of working with Starlight Children’s Foundation of Canada to do a “Private Label” printing of both Ink About It and Chill & Spill books.

Yesterday, we heard back from them that they have distributed almost all of the 6,000 books they ordered to hospitals in their network, who, they tell us are thrilled to have this resource for the teens and tweens because this population often has less emotional support than the younger patients.

They have already received a letter from one of the teen patients, saying “Thank you Starlight, for  Chill & Spill and Ink About It. [The books] give me a personal place to put down my thoughts and feelings – sometimes that not always are easy when you’re sick or in the hospital for a long time.  My favourite part about Ink About It is it has places to get me going when I draw a blank. Also, [it] lets me think about things I would not have thought of normally. Thank you Starlight for letting me have these great books and for providing them for everybody else to!”

A Child Life Specialist at Grand River Hospital also wrote to say, “We just received the amazing boxes of Chill & Spill and Ink About It [journals]. It is just wonderful to receive them again – they have been so beneficial for our chronically ill teens as well. We have a Child & Adolescent Inpatient Program for kids with psychiatric issues and the books/kits have been extremely valuable for them, helping them deal with sometimes very overwhelming feelings.”

All winter long, Art with Heart gathered art supplies to support hospitalized children at Swedish Medical Center. The drive culminated this past Sunday with a great bunch of volunteers from Union Church in Seattle who helped pack the supplies into “heART Kits.”

Volunteers young and old helped to sort and package thousands of crayons, fun stickers, popsicle sticks, and loads of other goodies to help brighten the day of pediatric patients.

THANK YOU to the amazing volunteers at Union Church and to all who donated art supplies!

Art with Heart was thrilled to work on our newest publication Ink About It with over 25 foster care youth from Treehouse (www.treehouseforkids.org) this past week.  The youth were on their mid-Winter break from school and the Treehouse camp was a whirlwind of activities that included visiting Nintendo and Evergreen State College and cooking their own organic lunch at Green Plate Special.  Art with Heart was part of that exciting mix.

Each middle school youth was given their own Ink About It and a special artist’s pen.  Lead artist Wendy S.  led them in creating their own ink stamps and backgrounds, wire sculptures and loads of fun doodling techniques!  Each art activity was tied into an activity from Ink About It that allows youth to learn of where they are from and where they want to – an important process for foster youth.

Each youth experienced the workshop in their own unique way depending on where they were at.  One youth was processing a difficult death in her family and quietly worked and doodled on her Ink About It writing of love and hope.  Another  youth shared of her experience with Art with Heart by saying, “ I like art because it is messy!”

A fabulous team of Art with Heart volunteers helped guide the youth in the messy fun!  Thank you to all who volunteered!

Volunteer Maria said of the experience, “Volunteering with such amazing children, and not to mention like-minded people who are working for such great causes, really inspires me and gives me the courage to believe that we all possess the power to make a difference, and to change the world, in one way or another.”

We received this note from seven year old London today and we thought we’d share…

Written by Katy Bourne

After becoming depressed, lethargic, and losing grasp of her zest for life, Chanelle Felder knew that something wasn’t right. Because she was a lifelong dancer, she thought she was tuned into her body, yet over the course of a few months, she was beginning to notice that she was unable to move in the graceful and carefree way that she usually did. Her every step was slower, heavier, and—unbeknownst to her—a step in the wrong direction in terms of her well-being. Along with her labored movements, she also began to experience overwhelming fatigue, numbness in her hands and feet, hair loss, terrible acne, and a plethora of depressing ailments…along with actual depression! Next came weight gain and also “brain fog,” an inability to concentrate or even speak coherent sentences. She started having difficulty in some of her favorite classes. This was when her family knew that something was definitely wrong. After a long diagnostic process, an MRI revealed that Chanelle had a tumor on her pituitary gland and she was diagnosed with Cushing’s disease. She was just 16 years old.

Cushing’s disease is a condition in which the pituitary gland produces too much cortisol, a vital hormone that helps the body respond to stress, helps the metabolism of food, and even determines when you wake up in the morning, among other things. Cushing’s disease is usually caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland, which is located at the base of the brain. There are multiple symptoms: fatigue, weight gain, bone pain, stunted growth,  hair loss, muscle weakness, acne, confusion, depression and fatty deposits on the face and between the shoulder blades. Because symptoms mirror those of numerous other conditions, it is often difficult to diagnose, and the first line of treatment involves a special type of brain surgery to remove the tumor and, in some cases, the removal of the adrenal glands is necessary if brain surgery isn’t enough.

With the onset of her illness, Chanelle experienced a range of emotions. She was confused as to why this was happening to her. She was also angry and scared. She was worried for her parents and also struggled with the overwhelming new experience of hospitals, surgeries, medical procedures, complicated diagnoses, and the barrage of needles, IV’s, MRI’s and tests that were necessary to stop the madness that was tearing apart her body and her life. Because she had always been athletic and fit, the changes in her body were particularly distressing. She gained a significant amount of weight and developed “moon face,” a rounding and reddening of the face, which is a common symptom of the disease. “It was very, very difficult,” she recalls “and not being recognized by people that I’ve known my whole life is probably the hardest part of all of this”.

During Chanelle’s first hospitalization, a child life specialist paid her a visit and gave her a copy of Chill & Spill.  Being fiercely creative by nature, Chanelle took to it immediately. She says, “My first impression? I loved it.”

She was drawn to the artwork and liked the interactive quality of the book. She loved the quotes inside the back cover. “A lot of the quotes were so true and just helped me get through some things.”

The writing prompts were also very useful to her, especially when the brain fog made it hard to collect her thoughts. Chill & Spill became more than a journal for Chanelle; by adding her “own things” to it, it became a scrapbook of sorts, or a creative log of her experiences. “I took it everywhere with me, every doctor’s appointment and everything.” She invited people that she met along the way-nurses, doctors, friends and other patients- to sign the book and to write words of encouragement. “The book started out with being an outlet for me to get my thoughts and feelings on paper, but it really became a tool for me to connect to other people.”

Chanelle says that Chill & Spill reinforced that it was OK to feel whatever she was feeling. It also served as a chronicle of her strength throughout a very difficult ordeal. “You can use Chill & Spill as a tool to go back and look through your personal journey, and just see how strong of a person you’ve become out of your experiences.

Chanelle believes that anyone could benefit from Chill & Spill. “It’s all-encompassing. It can help you cope with something that you are going through, whether it is something that is a devastating event as in health problems or a death in the family or just everyday life. Everybody goes through a bummer day when they just need a place to chill and spill.”

Chanelle credits Chill & Spill with helping her get through her illness: “I am just so blessed and so thankful for what Chill & Spill has done for me and for all the things that have come out of just having that notebook. Chill & Spill helped me go from this place where there was nowhere else to go…to a place where now I’m just so thankful for everything I’ve been given.”

Ink About It helps Middle Schoolers

Yvette’s story was chosen at random among the many different stories of change and growth we received in 2011. As the grand prize winner, she received a $100 gift certificate to Target!

Art with Heart’s newest book, Ink About It, has been in the hands of middle schoolers around the city as part of our pilot program to discover best practices and creative ways that school counselors and therapists are using the books with high-risk kids. With feedback from these groups, our next step is to put together a user’s manual that will feature extension activities (art projects) to help solidify learning.

One Community Center has been utilizing Ink About It since late September. Once a week, a group of ten girls dealing with family dysfunction, detention, substance abuse, bullying and mental health challenges gather. Yvette, the group’s facilitator told us that the kids look forward to coming and getting their journal. Marie, one of the participants likes it because “You get to tell your feelings in a fun way!”

Each group meeting focuses on one exercise in the journal as a launching point for discussion and/or an art project. One week, the girls did the “Portrait of an Artist” activity where learning who you are on the inside is the goal. The youth answer a series of questions about what makes them unique, what they dream of and collect, and more. For this particular evening, Yvette had the girls bring in something special that they collected. One girl brought in necklaces that she had been given by her father who had passed away. Yvette told us that the powerful discussion that followed would not have happened without the Ink About It prompts which helped them talk about how to cope with losing a loved one.

Ink About It is showing great success in being an excellent tool for helping youth facing overwhelming odds process feelings – while having a good time doing it. One girl told us, “It’s like a coloring book – and you’re never to old to color!”

Gene’s Anger Chills

Written by Katy Bourne

Katheryn submitted this story, which was chosen at random among the many different stories of change and growth we received in 2011. As a winner, she won a limited-edition 124-page Oodles of Doodles activity book, not available anywhere else!

13-year-old Gene was having a rough time. With an absent father and a mother who was only in his life now and then, Gene was left to live in poverty with his grandmother. Although he was popular kid with a class clown persona, he had difficulty managing his anger. This resulted in discipline problems at school. He was kicked out of school several times. He began experimenting with pot.

Gene received his first copy of Chill & Spill while attending a summer program. He received a second copy through a boy’s group at his school. According to his caseworker Kathryn, Gene was not the type of boy who was usually open to therapeutic activities. He was a “cool” kid. These types of things were “stupid.” However, Gene was open to working with Chill & Spill.  The group dynamic and the presence of a trusted counselor gave Gene a structure for approaching the activities in the book. Within its pages, he found a creative outlet to express his feelings. He also found a quiet space to simply sit with his thoughts. Instead of deflecting with jokes and sarcastic comments, Gene started to develop positive coping mechanisms to help him deal with his emotions. Although he enjoyed all of the prompts in Chill & Spill, Gene found “How I See Myself, How I Want to be Seen and How Others See Me’ to be particularly insightful in helping him understand some of his own behavior.

During the time that Gene worked with Chill & Spill, his behavior improved and his school suspensions decreased. His new-found coping strategies enabled him be more successful and to pursue his love of basketball.

In the words of his caseworker Kathryn, “Gene learned how to not let his behavior interfere with his dreams.”

Ink About It and Chill & Spill help Ben Find His Voice

Written by Tina Anima

Dena submitted this story, which was chosen at random among the many different stories of change and growth we received in 2011. As a winner, she won a limited-edition giclée print from the original Oodles of Doodles activity book, not available anywhere else!

It’s snack time in Ben’s art therapy group for emotionally troubled teens, but while his peers are busy munching on chips and sipping juice, Ben clutches a glue gun and carefully maneuvers it around a cardboard box.

Ben, who came to the group as a 12 year-old boy with trouble expressing his feelings, is learning a new way of speaking. He’s using art in the form of pipe cleaner, felt, and glue to form the words he could never express out loud.

“If I follow the rules, I’ll get what I wish for,” he writes, so immersed in his project that he ends up skipping the coveted snacks altogether.

Rules and Ben didn’t mix well, and his low grades and lack of friends didn’t help him feel any better about himself. At home, he would stomp off in defiance and yell at his parents and sister, wanting to escape into his world of video games. His school counselor referred him to Dena, who runs an Art with Heart group for emotionally troubled teens at Sound Mental Health.

Ben, now a 14-year-old eighth-grader at a Puget Sound Middle School, has been a member of Dena’s group for two years. Art with Heart’s Chill & Spill and Ink About It books have helped the aspiring football player to tackle his anger.

Like a coach with a goal in mind, week after week, Dena led Ben through various pages in Chill & Spill. He completed the “Me, Myself and I” activity, which asked him to depict who he is and who he wants to be. The result was a painting showing him moving away from anger with a picture of open hands.

Weekly meditation helped him to envision a safe place inside his mind. Next, Dena led him through a collage activity in which he chose images that made him feel “powerful,” and others that made him feel “powerless.”

He was ready to combine his safe place with the images to create a box to symbolize what he discovered. That’s when Ben had his breakthrough, huddling in a corner using pipe cleaner and glue.

“It was the combination of all that, finding the materials that felt good,” Dena said.

To anyone else, the project looked like a simple cardboard box, with a clutter of magazine pictures, glue, and pipe cleaner. “To him, it was huge,” Dena said.

Ben started to listen to his parents at home, and was rewarded with more time to play his video games. Things started to improve at school as well. Ben’s poor grades improved so much that he was allowed to play football.

“He relaxed. He started to smile. He was starting to be not so uptight and edgy,” Dena said.

Once Ben gained yards toward his progress with Chill & Spill, he tackled Ink About It. At first, the words in the book intimidated him because of his low reading skills. But the art soon won out. Dena gave Ben a gel pen, and he spent one session carefully filling in some of the many blue-and-white sketches that pepper the pages.

From there, he used some of the blank spaces to mimic the art. Soon, he drew a huge football in one of the blank spaces. He doodled designs around the ball to create the same busy, cluttered effect of Ink About It’s art. “He had discovered another form of expression. In his language, he has no adjectives, no way to decorate what he’s saying,” Dena said. With Ink About It, Ben “took that example and ran with it. He literally began to decorate his language.”

“Now, he can communicate through art. His art is becoming his language,” Dena said.

During one session, he created an art piece called “Sad Hall,” after he’d been bullied and beaten up at school. Ben, who couldn’t express the helplessness, frustration, and anger he’d felt in words, sighed in relief when he finished the piece. “I feel better,” he told Dena.

It’s been two years since Ben joined Dena’s groups, and the 14 year-old has no immediate plans to stop.

“His mother begged me not to stop the groups because he’s happier,” Dena said.

Good Luck on Your Next Adventure!

Art with Heart sadly bids adieu to Program Intern Kelly Lissak.  Kelly dedicated 10 hours a week since August of 2011 to helping our Program Manager Nancy Stillger and all of the Art with Heart staff. The University of Washington senior who is majoring in English and European Studies and minoring in Art History is leaving to focus on finishing up her degree and traveling to Italy next Fall.

While at Art with Heart, Kelly worked on after-school arts programming and grant research, along with day-to-day duties of program management. She was instrumental in gathering data about after-school arts programming, which will be a key piece of knowledge as we create the upcoming Magnificent Marvelous Me After School Program and Kit.

Kelly’s background in teaching dance classes to youth and her academic skills all helped shape her internship experience. As Kelly said, “I love being able to experience how a young mind works, especially how they understand and demonstrate creative processes.”

In summing up her internship experience, Kelly says, “I have learned so much about the arts in our school systems and the impact art can make on young people. I now understand what a long distance we have to go before we can really cultivate and keep these creative processes in our lives as we grow older. It has driven me to become more involved in what I believe in and to be a positive role model for kids younger than me. This internship has also sparked my own creative interests again and I have started writing and drawing more.”

Keep on creating Kelly! You will be missed. All of us at Art with Heart wish you the best.

—————–

Art with Heart is currently seeking applicants for a new Program Intern. A minimum of 10 hours of week is required.  E-mail cover letter and resume to nancy@artwithheart.org.

Written by Katy Bourne for Art with Heart

Middle school is a challenging time for any young woman. However, when she comes from an impoverished, single-parent household, the challenges are even greater. Such is the case of sisters Sarah and Leah.

Sarah and Leah, ages 11 and 10 respectively, live with their mother and grandmother in an economically depressed neighborhood where the unemployment and crime rates are equally high. Because of challenges in their home life, Sarah and Leah were not getting the support they needed to be successful in middle school. Both struggled with self-confidence and had difficulty managing academic and social pressures. Sometimes, they didn’t even have the school supplies that they needed. Most of all, both Sarah and Leah felt ashamed and embarrassed about their situation.

Fortunately, a strong community center in their neighborhood provides refuge for the sisters; it is a safe place with a kind staff that cares about the girls. Sarah and Leah were first introduced to “Ink About It” through a girl’s group that they are part of at the center. With the help of a facilitator, the girls in the group work through the book together. According to the center’s director, “Ink About It” provides a great “jumping off point” for the girls to discuss their feelings. The group focuses on one page every session and the activities in the book often provide a springboard for discussions and other projects. For example, the “What Do You Value?” exercise prompted a show and tell session, where the girls brought objects from home and shared them with the rest of the group.

Sarah and Leah like it that there are no right or wrong answers in “Ink About It” and that they can draw or write whatever they want. They also like it that their copies of the book are theirs and theirs alone. By working through “Ink About It” with their peers, Sarah and Leah have learned that they are not the only ones dealing with issues such as body image, academic challenges and social pressures. By sharing “Ink About It,” the girls have become a strong support system for each other.

Sarah and Leah are still active participants in the girls’ group and their work in “Ink About It’ is ongoing. The positive benefits, however, are already apparent. Both girls have become more confident and also more comfortable sharing their feelings. A church group recently donated some clothing to the center. In the past, Sarah and Leah would have been too ashamed to accept any kind of charitable offering. This time was different. They eagerly looked through the donated clothing and picked out outfits for themselves. They even put on a fashion show for the staff. Because of their growing self-esteem, Sarah and Leah no longer feel embarrassed about who they are or where they come from. The center’s director sees a bright future for Sarah and Leah. She feels that “Ink About It” has helped the girls “learn about themselves as young ladies.” She optimistically adds, “They’re not going to settle for negative behavior just because of a rough environment.”