The Institute of Mass Information’s Media Hub Cherkasy organised an art therapy workshop for local media workers where they painted on tote bags and socialised with their colleagues.
The attending media workers created their original tote bags and used art to unwind. Each participant came up with a design on her own.
“Any kind of painting is art therapy. Especially if there is no specific goal and the person can relax and do what they want. In our case it’s even more pleasant because we’re painting on fabric. The feeling is totally different, as the workshop’s participants have noted. One participant painted a sunset over the still Dnipro because she craves calm and comfort. By creating the painting, she is already ‘programming’ this state,” says the coach, artist Olha Kurska.
Even though the participants were skeptical about their own artistic skill at the beginning of the workshop, in the end each of them was happy with the results and with her own creation.
“Of course I will be carrying this tote bag around,” says journalist Tetyana Balyakina, who painted birds on it. “This is a real example of art therapy in action. My subconscious must have been at work as well, because I’d been wanting to buy something with this design for a while. Recently, our folk crafters had an exhibition ‘Birds in Folk Art’, which must have been why I felt drawn in that direction.”
Tetyana says she tries to attend every such event to pick herself up in this challenging time. “Workshops like this give me the energy I need to live on: write nice articles, do good, and just be active,” the media worker says.
Anastasia Neboha, Media Hub Cherkasy SMM
