HopeWorks – Healing Through Art
6/17/2016 – HopeWorks: Healing Through Art
Michael Caine once chastised an actor who had delivered a particularly wooden performance by saying, “Acting is about emotions; why don’t you show some?”
Poetry is also about emotions. Last night I attended an outstanding poetry reading at the monthly meeting of the Howard County (MD) Chapter of the Maryland Writers’ Assn. The poems read had appeared in the Dragonfly Arts Magazine, a publication of HopeWorks, Howard County’s sexual assault and domestic violence center. The poems are reflections on life, love, trauma and hope, and submissions to the magazine are open to anyone. They don’t necessarily have to be survivors. I felt it a privilege to be at this reading.
I am also impressed that HopeWorks would take such an innovative and visionary approach that goes beyond providing the usual services to people shattered by rape and domestic violence. HopeWorks uses the arts in three important ways to accomplish its mission: to support survivors in their healing; as a vehicle to increase awareness; and to imagine creative solutions to bring about social change. Dragonfly allows for artistic expression of the emotional response to savagery.
According to the HopeWorks philosophy, the creative arts act as a way to help people improve and enhance physical, mental and emotional well being. The creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people in a variety of ways. When we create art and reflect on it, the processes increase self awareness, initiate awareness of others, and help us cope with stress and traumatic experiences. Creative expression facilitates ending or finding solutions to conflicts and problems.
The HopeWorks brochure quotes from a National Institutes for Health report that through the arts people can ease pain and stress and improve the quality of their lives. “…there is evidence that engagement with artistic activities, either as an observer of the creative efforts of others or as an initiator of one’s own creative efforts, can enhance one’s moods, emotions, and other psychological states as well as have a salient impact on important physiological parameters.”
The HopeWorks artistic programs are open to the public and include:
* Poetry N2 Wellness and Action Workshops that use the power of words to encourage healing, community-building, cultural shifts, liberation and celebration. In a small group setting, topics such as stress, gender roles, trust, joy, justice, stigma, and relationships are explored through expressive activities like writing, collaging and music.
* The Women’s Circle that is a roundtable activity group that often features arts-based workshops.
* I CAN We CAN Workshops that are modeled after the national campaign called One Billion Rising. During the workshop, participants talk about what they can do to end violence at home, in the workplace, or at school. Then using their hands as a canvas, they create artwork to inspire peace and healing.
Eileen McIntire
Eileen has ridden a camel in the Moroccan Sahara, fished for piranhas on the Amazon, sailed in a felucca on the Nile, and lived for three years on a motorsailer, exploring the coast from Annapolis to Key West. Eileen has many years experience writing, editing and designing all manner of publications for nonprofits and professional associations. She is now co-owner of Summit Crossroads Press, which publishes books for parents, and its fiction imprint, Amanita Books. The inspiration for her 90s Club mystery series springs from meeting a slim, attractive woman at a pool party who was the only one actually in the pool swimming laps, and she was 91 years old. Since then, Eileen has collected articles about people in their 90s—and 100s—who are still active, alert and on the job. She often speaks at retirement villages on “Old Dogs, New Tricks.”