Designing my art therapy workshop

Preparing for my class with the yr ones

my class with year one art students is approaching and I feel it would be best to design a range of activities that aim to accumulate the research I require.

Potential activites:

-draw your traits and feelings -abstract ideas these through visual form and colour on paper
-draw yourself as a tree, animal or colour.
-connect words and colours – create an emotional wheel
-continuous line drawing – automatist technique
-use pebbles
-poetry – cut up activities

update 2/12/18

I have decided to postpone this class for my following project as I feel it is important to consider the ethical aspect of this session, I would have liked to portray some of the students within my work as well as directly use their outcomes therefore this could raise a variety of issues such as false portrayl or copy right. This could be resolved by supplying paper work and organising supervision however I don’t have the time at the moment to organise this. To ensure I still gain in depth research around mental health and outsider art I have arranged a similar workshop with two individuals suffering from mental illness.

I felt it was ethical to speak to them in depth about what my activites involve and what I will use the work for so they are aware of what will happen with their results, each individual asked if they could be kept annonymous for personal matters therefore I will ensure all work is kept incognito. I feel it is best to use this material as a source for inspiration and development to avoid complications.

Planning the course

I want my art therapy workshop to involve a variety of processes that will mostly be undertaken in an automatic approach exploring first thoughts and expression through: poetry, drawing, sculpture. This research will provide me with an array of individual outsider art that relates to mental health issues, I have decided to create a questionnaire and inkblot test to futher research here.

Session One – colour wheel and automatic drawing

My first activity will explore what I like to call an emotional colour wheel, here they will attatch particular words to colours and create automatic drawing using the wheel as a emotion key creating visual poetry or colour poems.

emotional colour wheel

Session Two – Cut up poetry

Next we would explore the cut up poetry task, creating writing inspired by Fokkina Mcdonnells poem’s ‘sunday mornings’ and ‘whitby scenes’ as well as a key page of Carl Jung’s book about dream analysis and the unsconcious, I will also ask the individuals to bring any desired text with them to futher their place in the work.

Session Three – Ekphrastic poetry and inkblot test

in this session we would continue writing poetry by responding to artworks with an Ekphrastic poem and then I would conduct an inkblot test with them.

Session Four – Visual Questionnaire and Ceramic Sculptures

visual questionnaire where the individuals outline shapes and images that stand out to them, lastly we would produce some automatic ceramic sculptures.

I will store their findings in my contextual studies folder, divided from the rest as critical primary research.

Trip 30/11/18

I visited Northenden after my presentation to gather a range of photography for the rest of my project development and my photobook, I feel the weather and timing of my visit have a negative impact of these visuals therefore I will return back on a sunny day – I will do this by checking the forecast or heading down there when the weather shifts.

 

 

 

Due to the onset of winter, I feel this may be tricky as I would like light spring weather to compliment the style and lighting of the images.

I am still pleased with my trip as I was able to aquire some reference images for my final works these were:

Automatic Writing Activites

I have been exploring the book In the palm of your hand: a poets portable workshop by steve kowit, as recommended by Fokkina McDonnel. I have been utilising a range of the workshops as Fokkina explained writing and poetry are fundamental forms of visualization, I am exploring myself and these psychoanalytical processes to gain research and visual results exploring the unconcious and visual language.

I have responded to the cross-out activity here , generating 6 poems by selecting words and phrases in newspapers and magazines without thought while blacking out the rest of the text, the book explains how poet Mark Melnicove utilised this method, playfully presenting his poetry in original form so the reader can view both the poem and initial text.

 

Cross-out Poetry – needed: newspaper, magazine or book and dark sharpie

 


Soldiers

soldiers in the shape of sandbags
war recruits force
silent years mark remembrance
a performance of the bloodiest army
Grim battle. The future never forgotten

by Faye Tikic

 


Carla

Carla stars in the show
your fans, mind you.
I’m a celebrity, said Carla.
Cover gigs, festivals, show biz events
hit snapper didn’t build a male dominated industry
types of fashion have your own ability mode

By Faye Tikic

 


Night-time

Night- Time
water, present.
Architects drawing a positivity blueprint
water, asked to collectively guide our future
now look forward
inform our future

By Faye Tikic

 


Councils made profit

councils made profit
councils increase charge
Monday, Sunday, Monday Saturday
enforcement reinvested

By Faye Tikic


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Vibrant world awaits

Vibrant world awaits you
naturally no luggage
no sleep
pampering excitement of a golden ship
taste something

By Faye Tikic

47319257_935565439959400_4755204558236418048_n.jpg

Dramatically, dedicated streets

Dramatically, dedicated, streets
revealed
changes against
sense

By Faye Tikic

Design development

Planning album content

Since my last post I have been developing the concept of my photo-album. I wanted to strengthen the collection of images my illustrations will be based on so I created a list of potential ideas:

 – Travel through the village capturing images every few moments to gather an illustrated experience of Northenden – A walk through

– Replicate the online archival records of northenden, visiting the same locations and recreating the shots

-Explore northendens key features through close up cinematic illustrastion

I felt the archival album could be a great twist to my concept so I began exploring the online gallery further. My only issue was, I couldn’t recognise all of the places on the online images and some I was certain were areas in disdbury,  I did however find some photos with a road name and some with an address which I found promising.

I have decided the best solution is to produce an illustrated trip through Northenden village, reproducing the images that I can in order with my walk through illustrations.

Interview: Dr M Alborz – Literature

Meeting with Dr M Alborz

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with psychologist, Dr Alison M Alborz. We discussed a range of topics such as my art theory and her views on art therapy and psychology. She provided me with a reference from one of her students previous works that she thought would help me, this was the book Visual Methodologies: An introduction to research with visual methods, by Gillian Rose as well as a copy of Man and His Symbol by Carl Jung.

 

Visual Methodoligies: An introduction to researching with visual methods

This book begins by discussing the concept of culture in relation to visuals and meaning, exploring the concepts and distinction between vision and visuality expressing how vision is what we are capable of seeing but how visuality refers to how a vision is constructed, how we see. I was unsurprised to spot John Burger’s input, suggesting ‘seeing comes before words, the child looks and recognizes before it can speak’ I was pleased to read this as I have been a fan of Bergers books and work with the BBC so it was great to find in theme ideas, I feel visual language is its own form of communication, not only with each other but ourselves and our world therefore I feel this book will provide a great foundation to build on existing debates.