Exercise 1: Dream Imagery
In process terms, this drawing served as an introduction to the session. The purpose of this first exercise was to loosen Kenley up, giving her both freedom to draw what she wanted, as well as encouraging her to stick to drawing something which she did not consciously come up with.
In product terms, the image itself seems to be much more subconsciously rooted than her explanation of the dream does. Kenley is seen standing in the middle of the page, amongst a forest of tall trees in a valley. It's raining and she's holding an umbrella. The raisin lady doesn't have an umbrella, but she does have a bike. Stuck in the valley between the trees she is trapped, and she stands there yelling for help. Psychoanalytically, I am not yet at a point where I can be confident in my interpretation of what might be going on here. But there is a clear sense of entrapment and fear from her location on the page in the drawing.
Exercise 2: Creating a Healthy Place
These are the three drawings from Exercise 2. The purpose of this exercise was to uncover suppressed feelings concerning Kenley's health. The second drawing in this series asked her to draw a place where she doesn't have to worry about her condition. She drew our grandmother's house because she doesn't have to do any treatments there. What I found most interesting about this picture was the fact that she wasn't in it. In her drawing of her safe place, she didn't include herself. This might be because she took my directions literally- to draw the place where she feels safe. Except she included Polly, a being separate from the house itself.
Exercise 3: Self-Portrait
The directions I gave Kenley in this exercise were to create a self-portrait. Immediately after she asked me for a mirror, and I expected this. I tried to stress the importance of the process of creating the painting rather than the overall result of what she was going to create. "You know your face," I said. "Close your eyes and imagine your face, then paint it." Three times during the exercise she told me how bad it looked. Again, I expected this. For the class at Longview one of the first activities I plan to do with the residents is for them to create a self-portrait, sans mirror. It will serve as an initial gauge of their self-perception. During the final week of the class, they will be asked to create another one using the same medium (tempera) as before. The idea is that through the fourteen weeks of creating art, personal growth will be evident through the changes in their artwork and will shed light on the changes of their perceptions of themselves and their feelings as a whole.
Exercise 4: Family Portrait
As a closing exercise, I decided to have Kenley create a family portrait. Again, striving for the most amount of creativity as possible, the only directions I gave her were to create a family portrait. At this, I was presented with an interesting request. "I'm not good at drawing bodies, can I put animal bodies on their heads?" I of course was thrilled at her suggestion, and reassured her that she could create this picture however she wanted. I think the substitution of animals for members of our family offers an interesting insight into her feelings concerning the family dynamics.
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