Learning to Deal With Loss

An impromptu project inspired by Maya Stein led us to make these adorable tiny flower boxes complete with inspirational messages this morning before we got started on our planned projects... 
DREAM BIG 
LIVE LOVE LAUGH 
HOPE
 Then the girls and I sat down to talk about how our ability and desire to create would be changed by loss. What if we lost one of our senses? We would certainly still be able to make art if we couldn't taste or smell, but what if we lost our eyesight? How would we create? Would we still have the desire to be creative? 
So we experimented. I blindfolded the girls and set them up with canvases on the wall. They were excited to help each other by holding the plates filled with paint. I cranked up the music (because we also know that our other senses become heightened when we lose one, so maybe some good tunes would be helpful if we could no longer see...) and the girls painted with their hands. Feeling the page on the wall, feeling the paint squishing between their fingers, feeling the music. It didn't matter the outcome, just the way it felt to be in the moment. To be in the dark and still feel motivated to make art. The girls discovered they could still mix color and they could still make something beautiful. The texture on these pages is what is amazing. Pretty powerful stuff. 

 
Next we discussed what it would be like to  lose the use of our arms and what we would have to do in order to find new ways to be able to paint and draw. The girls tried drawing with their feet and then painting their sketches using only their mouths. They found out how hard it is to control the paintbrush or pencil, but how incredibly satisfying it is to make marks on the page, to learn how to create something without their hands, even if it is abstract or silly. They were amazed that they could still be so creative without using their hands or fingers to make it happen. Ella had fantastic control with the paintbrush in her mouth, Madi and Abby mixed gorgeous colors on their paper and made beautiful brushstrokes despite being "paralyzed", and Grace laughed when she saw she could actually paint with her mouth, although she had to sit on her hands to keep them from jumping up to the paintbrush!

We also spent some time today writing circle poems and making totem jewelry. I thought the necklaces and bracelets would be a nice way for them to remember this week we have had together. I want them to always remember. 

I want Abby to remember sometimes you make a "mistake" and the thing you are creating turns out even better than you had imagined. I want her to remember how wonderful it feels to learn how to do something you've never done before and actually be great at it right away.

I want Ella to remember the joy of discovering something new. I want her to remember how generous she is, how she is encouraging and kind-hearted, and brave for taking risks. I want her to remember how it feels to leave the comfort of home, to meet new people and make new friends wherever in the world she goes. 

I want Grace to remember freedom. Play. Self-discovery. Laughter. I want her to remember how it feels to do something on her own, independent of her sisters, just for herself. I want her to remember how funny she is, how she lights up a room with her smile and how infectious her enthusiasm is. How good she makes everyone feel.

I want Madi to remember not to worry so much about rules--to let loose, let go of frustration, stop thinking so hard, have fun, and create from her heart. Giggle instead. Use her instincts. Trust them. Because when she creates from her heart, she creates beautiful masterpieces. Every.single.time.

I want them all to remember even in the face of loss, you can still have a brave heart.

Crossing the Finish Line, Part II

I'll begin with our field trip last week. The girls came back to the studio after lunch and we drove over to Montclair to meet Jennifer at her studio. She was waiting at the door to her building when we arrived and she was laughing. A small glitch--the elevator had stopped working two minutes before we got there so we would have to walk up the five flights of stairs. No problem! The girls were so excited to meet her and see an artist's studio that they were walking on air at that point! They practically ran up five flights. Jennifer and I had never actually met each other before. I admired her work from afar and we had exchanged emails, but it was our first time officially meeting. She was everything I expected and more. She was gracious and welcoming and kind and ridiculously talented. In fact, I began to feel like she was a plant. What I mean is, I felt like someone was going to think I paid her to do and say all the right things. She had a cat (who loved the girls and they loved him), her studio was bright and sunny and full of pieces of her work--even the furniture is covered in beautiful colors, and her amazing paintings surrounded us. She began to show them some of her commissioned pieces and to tell the girls exactly how she created them. She showed them her kitchen table, which was painted to look like it had place settings on it, and she told them about the materials she uses to collage in her paintings, including pieces of her daughter's artwork.

Then I asked her to tell the girls how she got started. I knew she had not been painting for very long, but her story is amazing. She told them how she won an art contest with one of her paintings when she was 8 years old. How she was such a shy young girl that she turned down the prize because she was afraid. Her painting would be hung in a museum in NYC and she would have to go to a ceremony where there would be a lot of people. And she might have to do another painting. She couldn't do it. So she said no. And she stopped painting. Just like that. She stopped doing something she loved because she was afraid. And then she went on with her life. She grew up. She became a teacher. She did lots of other things, but she didn't paint. Until a few years ago when, due to a variety of circumstances involving her job and a puppet show she had created, she was painting sets for the show when someone asked her why she didn't paint. Actual paintings. On canvas. Or wood. Or anything, but real paintings, not just sets. And so she found an art teacher and signed up for a class, and then she picked up her brush again and realized what she had been missing all those years because she had been afraid.

See what I mean? I couldn't have scripted it better. There were 7 sets of eyes glued to her 7 sets of ears listening carefully to her story. And she was telling them not to be afraid. She was telling them even if they are afraid, just do it. Do what you love.

Because that's what really matters. And when you do what you love, it doesn't seem like work. It's fun and fulfilling and amazing and doors open and your life is your own. (Well, maybe she didn't say all of that exactly this way, but it's what I believe and what I have been trying to tell them for the 8 short weeks that they have been a part of my life.) So thank you to Jennifer from the bottom of my heart for being brave and sharing your story and giving the girls such an important gift!

And then it was time for the coolest part of the visit, when she said she would take them to one last place, a place she likes to paint when it is warm enough. So we walked up one more flight of stairs to the rooftop of her building. You can see the whole town of Montclair and the surrounding area, and in thedistance you can see the skyline of New York City where her journey as an artist began when she was 8 years old. Life sure is a circle....

Tomorrow a finish line of sorts will be crossed. Our last class for the first session of BraveGirlsArt will end. I know I'm not moving across the country. I know I'll see the girls often at school or around the neighborhood. But our official time together on Saturday mornings as a group will end. I also knew when we started that they would teach me. I knew they would get under my skin and change me. I just had no idea how much. I love them fiercely, and like your firstborn child, there is something special, something magical about being the first. Because it's all new and fresh and like nothing you have ever experienced in your life before.

I just want to thank this group of girls for sharing themselves with me. For being brave and reminding me how it feels to create without inhibitions, without fear; to discover new things and to bond with other girls who want to do the same.

I hope they always remember our time together, how incredibly special each and every one of them is, and most importantly I hope they never forget how to be brave.

I know I won't!