Teaching Art to Community Groups
Art, Therapy, Community Facilitation or a Combination of All
Jun 29, 2007
Community Artists are skilled at dealing with fuzzy boundaries!
When a community group coordinator contacts an Artsworker she may not be sure exactly what type of artistic activity would be appropriate for the group.
The Community Artsworker will talk through the needs of the community with the coordinator and make suggestions about processes that might work in this individualistic setting.
Particular types of communities may need to be approached in entirely different ways.
Here are some options that have been successful for communities. There are so many ways to go about using artistic/therapeutic process with groups of people that this description can only begin the process of brainstorming for ideas.
Art Therapy.
- involves working with the group through the Visual Arts
- it does not necessarily need a lot of expensive material ...some groups stay with drawing in a journal
Multi-modal Creative Arts Therapy
- is broader allowing the Artist to work in a multi-literate way using all creative potentials and possibilities (article Multiple Literacies and The Arts: More Than One Way To Be Smart!!!!!)
- this is called multi-modality (article Butterfly Released From Cocoon)
Self Directed Learning
- community groups contract a teacher to come into the environment to discern the needs of the members through a process of consultation
- she will then facilitate a process of personal self exploration and self directed learning
- an essential part of this process is the provision of an environment conducive to learning partnerships
- this may or may be careers oriented, therapeutic or recreational in context or a mixture of some or all.
Therapeutic Styled Art
- classes are dovetailed into already existing therapeutic context
- these types of classes take place in rehab type settings
- the community may already has access to groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous and various other self help approaches
- there could already be a structured therapeutic workshop that can be depthed by exploration and personal inquiry, experientially or artistically
- some of the programmes that work well when dovetailed with an Artistic Experiential Approach are Programme Achieve, The Language of Letting Go Thought for the Day and Domestic Violence Workshop Manuals. (article Programme Achieve - Art Classrooms)
- topics such as bullying and dependency are often approached in this manner.
Method
There is a variety of ways that an Artsworker might come into a community and conduct workshops.
- The group might set out to create an icon, an avatar or a mascot
- They might set out to create a book that tells the story of the community Examples..... Zillmere Story Book (article The Zillmere Story Book Project) After The Party (article Scripting Comics: Youth Speak Out About Addiction)
- They might make a banner or a flag or a wall intended for signage
- They might set out to create a product such as clothing , cups, satchels, labels (article How To Make A Label For A Product: Making Labels Can Be Inexpensive) etc and the money raised may be channelled back to finance further artistic exploration of community image.
- They might set out to create promotional literature such as brochures, websites etc. This process could be used to take ownership of identity and the way the group is presented to the community.
Some groups look to Art Teachers to help them create and construct liturgical happenings. This may be through the Visual Arts or Multi Modal in nature
The teacher may be employed to
- Workshop and explore with individuals
- Conduct class explorations and projects (usually the maximum would be 15)
- Run Therapeutic Group Workshops usually 10/12
- Remain as Artist in Residence to conduct ongoing ‘check ins’ with members who make appointments to talk about self directed projects
- Some projects are large and require more than one Arts Practitioner these projects are often co creational and collaborative in nature.
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