what is it about the arts that make them
so relatable to us I think we look at an
artists work what we’re seeing as a
representation of an ability we all
share and that’s our ability to create
an artist takes thought and translate
that into something tangible and in that
we can see a piece of ourselves along
with the artists ability to realize
their full potential and this has the
power to inspire and bring people
together as an artist I was used to
working on projects alone but as a
musician I was constantly collaborating
and this pushed me to ask the question
what would happen if you got a group of
people together and had them more
collaboratively on a painting so with
the help of some local artists and
musicians we decided to open up my
basement and give it a shot the initial
idea was to approach painting the same
way musicians approach a jam session as
musicians improvise they communicate
with each other through the music
when this generates the support of an
inspirational atmosphere which
perpetuates the motion of the jam and
this is something we thought we’d be
able to accomplish in the visual arts so
we set up a large-scale canvas that was
big enough for several artists to work
on along with an area close by for
musicians to jam in this way as the
artists were painting need be able to
see the interaction between the
musicians and have that influence their
work then in turn the musicians could
see the artists work and have that
influenced them creating this exchange
of energy which we were calling a
creative vortex when I looked up the
definition of what a vortex is I came
across the Cambridge dictionary
definition which described it as a mass
of air or water that spins pulling
objects towards it’s empty Center in a
creative vortex we would be pulling
inspirational ideas towards our
collective Center and this would push us
to generate something larger than any
one of us could come up with on our own
that first night it didn’t take a lot to
get things started
as a musician started playing one of the
artists a woman named Michelle got up
and she started to paint and she
encouraged the rest of us to join her as
each one of us stepped up to collaborate
the lines of communication open right up
we were sharing our ideas our styles and
our techniques we came up with a rule at
night that may seem kind of scary or
counterintuitive but really set the tone
for the entire experience and that was
everything was fair
to be painted on or over this really
allowed ego to be out of the equation
and also let everything that was
inspiring us just come out the best way
to describe how this works is when you
look at the clouds and you pick up
familiar objects we would look through
the layers of paint at the textures in
the canvas and we’d be able to see
things that we could outline and create
into something completely different that
first night when we wrapped everything
up we all took a step back to see what
we created and what we saw was a
morphing of all of our styles into
something that had completely stood on
its own and this made the entire
experience really interesting and
exciting to be a part of the one thing
that really stood out about that night
was the sense of positivity we generated
throughout that night and it was a
feeling that carried through the entire
next week through this binding
experience we created a community that
was in an area of our life that
typically we faced alone these moments
where we were supporting each other we
were validating each other and this is
something I think we can all use from
time to time we started turning this
into more of a regular event in the
basement and never mattered how many
people showed up or who was there to
collaborate that same sense of
positivity always came up and this was
having an effect on all of us for me I
was able to see how art was bringing
people together and the effect it was
having on us and this inspired me to
keep generating these kind of projects
we started posting what we were doing
online through social media and it
wasn’t long before we outgrew the
basement we started setting up our
projects in different locations like
classrooms clubs festivals warehouses in
any one area that was wealthy and
welcoming what we were doing the one
thing about when I first started the all
of this was that I had no idea how
things were gonna go I mean when you’re
working in your basement with a group of
friends that happened to be artisan
musicians it’s not hard to kind of
figure out if things are gonna turn out
but now we were opening up this
experience to anybody in places we’d
never been and what if this was a
complete failure but it was it
everywhere we do on one of these events
people come right up to us and they ask
what we’re doing we explained that these
are interactive events that everyone is
welcome to come join through
collaborative painting and most people
give it a shot time and time again we
witness amazing
things happen on the canvas by people
that are connecting and developing
relationships and the amazing part for
us is when we set these projects up
we’re there to inspire and reach out to
people but more times than not we’re the
ones that walk away feeling inspired we
did an event with the spirit of
Huntington Art Center which uses
creativity to work with veterans and
children that are on the spectrum this
is our first time ever we’re using our
project to work with children so we
didn’t know how we were going to be
received but I remember when we set up
the project the kids hit us with the
sense of excitement that almost knocked
us over once we had everything in place
these kids hit that canvas with a sense
of enthusiasm that was so heartwarming
there was this one moment in the day
where all the kids got into this
collective concentration everything gets
super quiet and all he could hear were
the sound of the brushes on the canvas
and it dawned on me in that moment that
nobody had to tell these kids what to do
they just knew and that was an amazing
revelation st. Charles Hospital asked us
to work with patients who had suffered
from traumatic brain injuries here II
didn’t want to over stimulate the
patients so what we did was work on more
of a one-on-one basis as the staffer
bring each patient out but you’d ask him
if they wanted to paint and you could
see them working through the
difficulties to engage some of these
people had a real long road to recovery
ahead of them but once we get that
paintbrush in their hand you could see
something happening inside as they would
light up we did get to utilize our group
dynamic that day as we worked with the
family members of the patients that came
in throughout the day this is the first
time we used what we were doing
therapeutically and it’s an avenue we’re
going to continue to explore we had a
project called creative unity which we
were setting up all over the island and
a teacher from the Longwood School
District named Molly tonight have heard
about what we were doing and asked if we
would be willing to use this project to
work with our students Molly take the
children Molly works with are typically
the ones that are overlooked these are
children with severe learning
disabilities English as a second
language and behavioral issues I was
just talking to Molly about that day and
the way she describes it still gives me
the chills she described it as each
category of child throughout the day
evolve culminating into a beautiful
of humanity as these children were
creating together they were bonding and
they were generating that same sense of
positivity that we found in the basement
when we first started all this we were
so moved by the way the children
interacted with our project that we
donated this to the Longwood School
District where now as a permanent home
well I was preparing for this talk today
I was looking for a way to describe why
what we do works and I came across an
article that was written in the Huff
Post back in 2016 by Priscilla Frank the
details of a few points that I think are
pretty relevant what caught my eye was
the title of this article which said
study says making art reduces stress
even if you kind of suck at it so this
article details a study that was
conducted by dr. Currie Jake i’ma of the
ph.d program and creative art therapies
at Drexel University and was co-authored
by a doctoral student named Kendra reg
he invited 39 adults between the ages of
18 and 59 to participate each one was
given access to markers paper clay and
materials to collage with and they were
told they can create anything they
wanted within the 45 minute period of
time what they found was that 75% of the
participants experience a significant
reduction in cortisol which is our
stress hormone and I think this helps
explain why that sense of positivity
another thing that dr. Crewe kemal
explained in the article is that at the
core of art therapy is the idea that
each one of us is creative and when
we’re put in the right environment we
have the ability to express ourself
through the visual arts and that’s
exactly what we’re all about
in these divided times it is so
important to have activities that can
bring us together and creativity is a
great subject to work with every
decision we make is an act of creativity
and when we push that ability to its
fullest extent that’s when we can change
everything it’s setting up group
projects based on collaborative painting
and to solve all our problems well
anything that can inspire and bring
people together is a step in the right
direction if you haven’t had a chance
please come to our workshop or you can
explore the creative vortex experience
for yourself thank you [Applause]
so relatable to us I think we look at an
artists work what we’re seeing as a
representation of an ability we all
share and that’s our ability to create
an artist takes thought and translate
that into something tangible and in that
we can see a piece of ourselves along
with the artists ability to realize
their full potential and this has the
power to inspire and bring people
together as an artist I was used to
working on projects alone but as a
musician I was constantly collaborating
and this pushed me to ask the question
what would happen if you got a group of
people together and had them more
collaboratively on a painting so with
the help of some local artists and
musicians we decided to open up my
basement and give it a shot the initial
idea was to approach painting the same
way musicians approach a jam session as
musicians improvise they communicate
with each other through the music
when this generates the support of an
inspirational atmosphere which
perpetuates the motion of the jam and
this is something we thought we’d be
able to accomplish in the visual arts so
we set up a large-scale canvas that was
big enough for several artists to work
on along with an area close by for
musicians to jam in this way as the
artists were painting need be able to
see the interaction between the
musicians and have that influence their
work then in turn the musicians could
see the artists work and have that
influenced them creating this exchange
of energy which we were calling a
creative vortex when I looked up the
definition of what a vortex is I came
across the Cambridge dictionary
definition which described it as a mass
of air or water that spins pulling
objects towards it’s empty Center in a
creative vortex we would be pulling
inspirational ideas towards our
collective Center and this would push us
to generate something larger than any
one of us could come up with on our own
that first night it didn’t take a lot to
get things started
as a musician started playing one of the
artists a woman named Michelle got up
and she started to paint and she
encouraged the rest of us to join her as
each one of us stepped up to collaborate
the lines of communication open right up
we were sharing our ideas our styles and
our techniques we came up with a rule at
night that may seem kind of scary or
counterintuitive but really set the tone
for the entire experience and that was
everything was fair
to be painted on or over this really
allowed ego to be out of the equation
and also let everything that was
inspiring us just come out the best way
to describe how this works is when you
look at the clouds and you pick up
familiar objects we would look through
the layers of paint at the textures in
the canvas and we’d be able to see
things that we could outline and create
into something completely different that
first night when we wrapped everything
up we all took a step back to see what
we created and what we saw was a
morphing of all of our styles into
something that had completely stood on
its own and this made the entire
experience really interesting and
exciting to be a part of the one thing
that really stood out about that night
was the sense of positivity we generated
throughout that night and it was a
feeling that carried through the entire
next week through this binding
experience we created a community that
was in an area of our life that
typically we faced alone these moments
where we were supporting each other we
were validating each other and this is
something I think we can all use from
time to time we started turning this
into more of a regular event in the
basement and never mattered how many
people showed up or who was there to
collaborate that same sense of
positivity always came up and this was
having an effect on all of us for me I
was able to see how art was bringing
people together and the effect it was
having on us and this inspired me to
keep generating these kind of projects
we started posting what we were doing
online through social media and it
wasn’t long before we outgrew the
basement we started setting up our
projects in different locations like
classrooms clubs festivals warehouses in
any one area that was wealthy and
welcoming what we were doing the one
thing about when I first started the all
of this was that I had no idea how
things were gonna go I mean when you’re
working in your basement with a group of
friends that happened to be artisan
musicians it’s not hard to kind of
figure out if things are gonna turn out
but now we were opening up this
experience to anybody in places we’d
never been and what if this was a
complete failure but it was it
everywhere we do on one of these events
people come right up to us and they ask
what we’re doing we explained that these
are interactive events that everyone is
welcome to come join through
collaborative painting and most people
give it a shot time and time again we
witness amazing
things happen on the canvas by people
that are connecting and developing
relationships and the amazing part for
us is when we set these projects up
we’re there to inspire and reach out to
people but more times than not we’re the
ones that walk away feeling inspired we
did an event with the spirit of
Huntington Art Center which uses
creativity to work with veterans and
children that are on the spectrum this
is our first time ever we’re using our
project to work with children so we
didn’t know how we were going to be
received but I remember when we set up
the project the kids hit us with the
sense of excitement that almost knocked
us over once we had everything in place
these kids hit that canvas with a sense
of enthusiasm that was so heartwarming
there was this one moment in the day
where all the kids got into this
collective concentration everything gets
super quiet and all he could hear were
the sound of the brushes on the canvas
and it dawned on me in that moment that
nobody had to tell these kids what to do
they just knew and that was an amazing
revelation st. Charles Hospital asked us
to work with patients who had suffered
from traumatic brain injuries here II
didn’t want to over stimulate the
patients so what we did was work on more
of a one-on-one basis as the staffer
bring each patient out but you’d ask him
if they wanted to paint and you could
see them working through the
difficulties to engage some of these
people had a real long road to recovery
ahead of them but once we get that
paintbrush in their hand you could see
something happening inside as they would
light up we did get to utilize our group
dynamic that day as we worked with the
family members of the patients that came
in throughout the day this is the first
time we used what we were doing
therapeutically and it’s an avenue we’re
going to continue to explore we had a
project called creative unity which we
were setting up all over the island and
a teacher from the Longwood School
District named Molly tonight have heard
about what we were doing and asked if we
would be willing to use this project to
work with our students Molly take the
children Molly works with are typically
the ones that are overlooked these are
children with severe learning
disabilities English as a second
language and behavioral issues I was
just talking to Molly about that day and
the way she describes it still gives me
the chills she described it as each
category of child throughout the day
evolve culminating into a beautiful
of humanity as these children were
creating together they were bonding and
they were generating that same sense of
positivity that we found in the basement
when we first started all this we were
so moved by the way the children
interacted with our project that we
donated this to the Longwood School
District where now as a permanent home
well I was preparing for this talk today
I was looking for a way to describe why
what we do works and I came across an
article that was written in the Huff
Post back in 2016 by Priscilla Frank the
details of a few points that I think are
pretty relevant what caught my eye was
the title of this article which said
study says making art reduces stress
even if you kind of suck at it so this
article details a study that was
conducted by dr. Currie Jake i’ma of the
ph.d program and creative art therapies
at Drexel University and was co-authored
by a doctoral student named Kendra reg
he invited 39 adults between the ages of
18 and 59 to participate each one was
given access to markers paper clay and
materials to collage with and they were
told they can create anything they
wanted within the 45 minute period of
time what they found was that 75% of the
participants experience a significant
reduction in cortisol which is our
stress hormone and I think this helps
explain why that sense of positivity
another thing that dr. Crewe kemal
explained in the article is that at the
core of art therapy is the idea that
each one of us is creative and when
we’re put in the right environment we
have the ability to express ourself
through the visual arts and that’s
exactly what we’re all about
in these divided times it is so
important to have activities that can
bring us together and creativity is a
great subject to work with every
decision we make is an act of creativity
and when we push that ability to its
fullest extent that’s when we can change
everything it’s setting up group
projects based on collaborative painting
and to solve all our problems well
anything that can inspire and bring
people together is a step in the right
direction if you haven’t had a chance
please come to our workshop or you can
explore the creative vortex experience
for yourself thank you [Applause]
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