Allowing sand to slip through your fingers can conjure many thoughts and emotions. Carving patterns, pictures or just feeling the texture in a two-foot square tray of yellow sand are just a few of the options available to North London Hospice’s patients using art therapy as a means to understand and manage their feelings and emotions.
Art Therapist Christina is based at our Health & Wellbeing Centre, surrounded by rich paints, pastels, brushes, clay, polished coloured stones, beads, and an array of canvasses on which patients can ‘find their voice’.
“Art therapy can bring a lot of understanding to things that have often been unspoken for a person,” says Christina. “Working with sand, paint, clay or pencils can enable a patient to find their voice through art. To create something visual can help them make sense of things they’ve found difficult to face or explore.”
Christina initially trained as a social worker nearly 40 years ago and found art has been a useful tool throughout her career. Her own artistic development led her to train as an art psychotherapist, which she completed eight years ago.
“Patients are free to work with whatever inspires them. The work is theirs to keep and is often never seen by anyone else. The creations are personal. Words come and go and can easily be forgotten but artwork stands alone. It can become an anchor from which to explore and return to when needed. Making art can shift perspectives, and the creativity it releases can be playful, insightful and mindful of the present moment.”
Ann-Marie Wilson is supported by the team at our Health & Wellbeing Centre and found art therapy extremely helpful. “After chaemotherapy, I knew I had lots of seemingly inaccessible feelings – and I wasn’t sure how to get to them. Christina helped me initially move from controlled art to playful expression, safe content to raw vulnerabilities. I moved from 2-D painting through collage to 3-D claywork. The whole experience was more cathartic and healing then I could ever have imagined. I will always remain grateful for the experience.”
