In March 2020 when the world was on lockdown, the Getty Center in Los Angeles issued a challenge across social media: Recreate a famous work of art with found objects in your home, then post the original, and your copy, for everyone to enjoy.
The response was overwhelming, and even though the Getty eventually compiled its favorite entries into a book, winning the challenge was never the point. The point was to show the therapeutic benefits of art.
Four years later, getting a regular dose of creativity could still be the ticket for improving your mental health.
“Coming out of the pandemic now, I think we’re all still recovering,” says Orange County-based art therapist Erica Curtis, who also is the author of several books on the benefits of art therapy, particularly for parents and children.
“Even though we’re not in the same state of crisis, there are still a lot of reverberations,” Curtis adds. “It’s still a time to pay attention to our mental health, our emotional health, and our social health. Creativity is a really accessible and non-stigmatized way we can do all that, regardless of age.”
Art therapy vs. therapeutic art
Curtis stresses that “therapeutic art” and “art therapy” are not interchangeable terms.
Art therapy is a specialized branch of psychology, and art therapists are trained and board certified. Their training is quite specific, Curtis explains, noting that she is not certified to provide all forms of art therapy.
In fact, art therapy first became known as a professional discipline in the 1940s. Artist Adrian Hill coined the term in England in 1942. Psychologist Margaret Naumburg helped establish the field in the United States, leading many to call her the “mother of art therapy.”
Naumburg had previously worked with pioneering educators Maria Montessori and John Dewey.
The early 1940s, with WWII raging, were also marked by crisis. So it may not be surprising that people started turning to the emotional solace of the arts. In intervening years, art therapy has become a staple treatment for improving mental health in populations that for various reasons get isolated from larger society, such as people with cognitive and mobile disabilities in care facilities, or people in prison.
But that doesn’t mean society at large can’t benefit, and during COVID, we all got to experience what it was like to be shut out of the world, and what a relief it was to connect with others. Making and sharing art can be a rewarding way to make that connection.
Keeping the momentum going is the challenge, Curtis says.
Area offerings
Apart from accessing the services of the many certified therapists operating in Southern California (to find one, the American Art Therapy Association can help, at arttherapy.org) several groups across Southern California are offering therapeutic art programs to the public, and many are free.
In Santa Monica, The Arts and Healing Initiative has organized everything from drumming circles to creative writing seminars to painting classes, both in person and online.
“It’s about making art without judgment, without the expectation of mastery,” said founder and director Ping Ho. She’s also co-author with Curtis on “The Innovative Parent: Raising Connected, Happy, Successful Kids through Art.”
The Initiative started in 2004, and, along with offering classes and events to the public, it also gives individuals, often educators, the opportunity to start their own therapeutic art programs by offering access to professional development training.
“Our approach is to empower people to do this in their own community,” Ho said, adding that the Initiative has worked with several school districts, including Long Beach and Santa Monica-Malibu, and has not only encouraged teachers there to embrace therapeutic art, but also students, who she said have blossomed as a result.
The Initiative has also worked with area museums, such as LACMA and the Getty, to develop interactive programs that make art more immersive and personal. A recent project is “Mood Journeys” offered by the Getty, which lets attendees tailor their visit by taking guided tours that feature art that corresponds to feelings, including “Calm and Serene” and “Melancholy and Wistful.”
Back to the Initiative’s therapeutic art classes, offerings are still online, but Ho hopes this will change soon. She said she is a particular fan of the drumming classes, and while the online versions are perfectly acceptable, there is something about the energy and connection of being in the same room, the power of the sound, “and the laughter.”
People 60 and older in Orange County can feel that personal connection all this year, thanks to the Council on Aging, which is offering a series of in-person classes in various cities, on everything from quilting to painting to flower arranging.
The program — called “My Colors. My Mind. My Life.” — was first launched in 2020, said Sara Kim, a licensed social worker and the clinical manager of the Council’s Behavioral Health and Wellness Department, and was an attempt to help seniors improve their mental health through art.
Unfortunately, the in-person classes had to stop when the lockdowns started, but were soon offered online instead.
The Council renewed its grant this year (spurred by department director Carolina Gutierrez-Richau, who also wrote the 2020 grant). Classes have already begun, and are not just offered in English, but also in Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean, since seniors in those populations may have a harder time accessing services due to the language barrier and cultural beliefs about mental health.
“The focus is to reduce the stigma,” Kim said. “Art classes are a safe space, a form of expression.”
In May, the Council will be displaying selected works from classes on bus shelters across the county, like they previously did in 2020.
“It’s specifically in May,” Kim said, adding that that month is not just Mental Health Awareness Month, but also Older Americans Month. The bus shelter displays will include information about how to access the program. In the meantime, those interested in taking a class should call the Council at 714-352-8820.
For those younger than 60 who need art, not just in OC but all over Southern California, there are plenty of free and lower-cost options available.
Many museums have free admission all the time, or on specific days of the month. In Los Angeles County, discoverlosangeles.com offers a list of times and days for everything from the Los Angeles Arboretum to the Museum of Latin American Art to LACMA. Socalmuseums.org offers information for museums in the region.
As for classes and events, a number of places in Los Angeles County — including the Armory Arts Center in Pasadena, LACMA and the LA Department of Parks and Recreation — have options. Those looking in Orange County should check out artsoc.org, while Riverside area residents should look at riversideca.gov.
There is, of course, still the online option. Free art classes abound on YouTube and other streaming services, from local museums, and also ones abroad, with many featuring virtual tours.
Credit for this goes to Google, which during the pandemic years partnered with several thousand art institutions to offer the Google Arts and Culture program. Some famous venues, including the Louvre Museum in Paris, also struck out on their own.
“I thought, during the pandemic, the museums really stepped up, the museums came into our homes,” said Karen North, a social and clinical psychologist, and the creator of the University of Southern California Annenberg’s master’s in Digital Social Media program.
An expert on social media, North said social media was a platform for artists to share their work with the public long before COVID-19. While she is not prepared to say that the pandemic, aided by social media, has increased the public’s interest in therapeutic art (no formal studies have been done on the topic), she acknowledged that many individuals on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms have increased awareness about the importance of mental health.
“Personally, I give credit to the influencers,” North said. “Influencers were talking about how stressed they were. Influencers become thought leaders. We’re all online, and we’re all struggling. There’s been a real movement.”
So yes, while getting out of the house to experience, or make, some art is great for your mental health, getting on the Internet should not be discounted as a viable tool for doing the same.
“There’s so much criticism of the digital world,” North said, adding that much of that criticism is fair. “The thing I find so heartening about the digital world is we’re now in a world where, if you have an interest, the digital world provides you an interest. We now have a way to connect.”
And, at the end of the day, isn’t connection the point of art?
