| A Window between Worlds |
| Saturday, 26 March 2011 17:31 |
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"At the beginning I thought, 'How could cutting and gluing my thoughts on paper be helpful?' However, by the end of the session, I was in tears - healing tears. I could see how my abuser beat the sunrays out of my life. Just as the sunrays break through on a stormy day, I too will break through my storm and shine again.” The feelings shared by this domestic abuse survivor are echoed by so many of the participants in A Window Between Worlds’ healing art programs. Most wonder how art can possibly assist them in healing the trauma they have suffered, some for countless years. Yet after experiencing just one art workshop, they emerge stronger, more self-reflective, and best of all hopeful. A Window Between Worlds was established as a way of using art as a healing tool for abused women and children in 1991. “Art provides a critical window of safety to release pain that’s been trapped. And it becomes a window of courage, a window of relief, even a window of joy. Art truly becomes a Window Between Worlds in the hearts and lives of these women and children.” Says AWBW Founder and Executive Director, Cathy Salser, Cathy’s Journey In 1991 the organization’s founder, Cathy Salser, was a young idealistic emerging artist who wanted to use art as a means to connect with others. She left her job as an art teacher and traveled from one domestic violence shelter to the next, living and making art with battered women and paying for gas and art supplies with portraits she painted along the way. During the tour Cathy offered art workshops and training at thirty-two shelters in eighteen states from California to Massachusetts. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Cathy launched A Window Between Worlds, partnering with a local domestic violence organization to pilot the first ongoing Windows Project. Weekly workshops were designed from the outset to help women reclaim their lives and move toward a healthy future. Initial funding from the Peter Norton Family Foundation and the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation enabled AWBW to expand the Windows Project to four additional shelters. Today the program has grown to serve over fifty in Los Angeles, nearly 150 across twenty-five states. During the past eighteen years, AWBW’s programs have reached over 49,500 women and children. Permanent, ongoing Women's Windows and Children's Windows Programs have been implemented in domestic violence shelters, transitional homes, and outreach centers in twenty-eight states. What began with one woman’s cross-country journey has become what many shelters see as their most valuable tool for supporting women and children in moving beyond violent relationships. In the words of one director, “I can’t imagine not having AWBW here. It’s the one aspect of our shelter that I get more positive feedback about than anything else.” Releasing Emotions Art provides a direct, gentle, and effective way for battered women and their children to reconnect with the parts of themselves that they shut off in order to survive the violence. By telling their stories through collage, painting, writing and sculpture, survivors of domestic violence are able to express and release feelings of anger, hurt, shame, and betrayal. Exploring buried emotions is an essential step in the healing process, and it decreases the likelihood that survivors will experience chronic post-trauma symptoms. While using art to calmly and purposefully reflect on their past, battered women develop the clarity and vision to create a new life for themselves, and regain a sense of their own power and worth. Lori is an AWBW program participant and domestic abuse survivor whose Story Tree painting, “Where is Mikey Joe,” was featured in an online exhibit. “I hadn’t had any relationship, visits, or interaction with my son since losing him to my abusive ex-husband in 2000. The seasons seemed to carry on, but in my heart things stopped cold. I felt the chilly winds of denial, indifference and despair. I never got to tell my son what I felt; I could hardly go there myself. There didn’t seem to be any way to move past that. But in painting this, in bringing it forth, I felt released. I never imagined that would happen and I certainly never thought I would be able to share any of that with my son, but a funny thing happened. I got a phone call from my abuser. He had found my painting online and showed it to my son. Somehow, this painting reached my abuser and past him to my son and carried along with it the AWBW story and its mission. This Story Tree means more now than I can even begin to express. It has moved beyond many seasons in my heart and moved other hearts as well. I hope that in further sharing this ongoing story it will inspire others to express their own stories and watch them grow. A Story Tree can speak in ways that the survivor alone could not accomplish with her own voice.” Brain research shows that the area of the brain that gets “disconnected” first in trauma is the area that is activated when we are engaged in expressive art-making. It is the part of the brain related to our sense of well-being and our ability to put our thoughts together. The process of creative expression increases our sense of wholeness and gives us a sense of connection to a larger community. (Carol Caddes, “Healing from Trauma—Art and the Brain,” 2001) AWBW trains shelter staff and volunteers who wish to make art an on-going resource for women and children in domestic violence shelters. The two-day training includes a comprehensive manual, hands-on experience with a range of materials and techniques and exploration of how to build safety and closure. The training supports each new leader to adapt the Windows process to their own style, situation, and client base, and allows ample time to explore challenges and brainstorm solutions. As one shelter director said of the program, “After implementing the Children's Windows Program at our shelter, we began to see a great change in the children's ability to cope and work through their issues of domestic violence." Meeting A Member Erindira was first introduced to Windows through a Domestic Violence Hotline. During her sixteen-week stay at a local shelter, Erindira participated in many art workshops. Everyone steps into these workshops with a little fear, and Erindira was no different. Though she had taken an art class or two she still felt like she was not going to be good enough. It didn’t take her long to realize there was no right or wrong in an AWBW Workshop. “That gave me the power to just go and do it,” said Erindira. The first project Erindira ever participated in was Journey Footprints. She still keeps her footprint near her in a big box with so many of her other AWBW projects. She’s framed it, ready for when she has a place of her own. “It’s the first piece of art that will go up on my wall. It speaks to the journey I went through. It has a lot of things in it that happened to me when I was a teenager, including my miscarriage.” Today Erindira has a beautiful son and has declared that the cycle of abuse will be broken with him. “My son is an inheritance that no gems or gold could replace. Giving him a better life and knowing he’ll respect women and have a good marriage one day gives me strength. Windows helped me find my voice without my having to really speak at all.” Erindira is still in a shelter program and plans on getting her license to become a leader. She talks often about the day when she will have her own place. In her mind’s eye she can see her desk with all her art supplies. She’s passionate about keeping art and AWBW in her life. “There’s hope in every trial; it’s another way to learn and gain the wisdom to grow.” Art As An Instrument For Healing In the safe and accepting atmosphere of AWBW’s art workshops, the children of battered women break the silence of abuse that locks them in shame and self-blame. 63 percent of all boys (ages 11-20) who commit murder, kill the man who was abusing their mother. And a child witnessing domestic violence is the strongest risk factor for transmitting violent behavior to the next generation. Learning to see themselves and their art as special rebuilds children’s damaged self-worth. It is this kind of early intervention that makes possible a violence-free adult life for children and their families. Art provides an arena in which participants can discover that they are capable of creating beauty and expressing emotions that they had previously considered out of reach. Often they are quite surprised by what they are able to find within themselves through the process--as one participant told us, “This workshop helped me to envision a future for myself and my children that is beautiful, full of possibilities and happiness." A Window Between Worlds provides free support, training and art supplies to shelters, transitional homes and outreach centers throughout the United States thanks to generous donations from individuals, corporations and foundations moved by their life-changing work. If you would like to support AWBW, or find out how you can become one of their Advocates, volunteers, or organize an art supply drive, please visit www.awbw.org or call 310-396-0317.
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