Art for Therapeutic Application Series Struggle and Joy: Using Art to Transform

Dates: February 21, 2025

Meets: F from 9:00 AM to 12 N

Location: Grand Rapids Art Museum

COURSE: $59.00

There are still openings remaining at this time.

Description
Fees
Location

Course Description

Participants of this workshop are eligible to receive 3.0 social work continuing education credits and/or 3.0 SCECHs for educators.

How can art practices truly transform us, and bring motivation and presence alive, for us and our clients? This session explores use of art to transform through narrative. Subtly beginning to bring things into the therapeutic session that are story or narrative based can help make struggle meaningful. Engaging with Jungian notions of archetypes, myth, and journey, we will explore through art making and discussion. This session will engage with art in the galleries as well as art making in the GRAM art studio.
Bring: notebook or sketchbook. Dress comfortably. All art materials provided. No art experience or background required!

Course Level: Beginner

Objectives:

Participants will acquire increased understanding of the role of narrative and its uses in therapeutic art making.
Participants will be able to identify at least 3 ways art making can increase personal and professional motivation/vitality.
Participants will develop increased comfort and confidence in use of art within therapeutic setting.

Instructor

Jill Eggers

Jill Eggers is an artist and art educator. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Western Michigan University and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University. She headed the Painting program at Grand Valley State University for the past 24 years and prior to that taught at Wichita State University. She has also taught in public schools in Chicago and England. Her teaching in recent years has focused on the potential of arts and meditation to facilitate learning and well being, in health care and other fields. She created an undergraduate course for pre- med students in collaboration with colleagues at Harvard University, to improve diagnostic capability and patient-caregiver communication. She has a Buddhist teaching practice and painting studio in downtown Grand Rapids. Her work is exhibited nationally and held in private and public collections.

Steven Edelman

Steven Edelman is an LPC, expressive arts therapist, community arts teacher, visual artist, and writer in Grand Rapids, MI. Originally from Nebraska and Wyoming, he made West Michigan his home in 2011. He has Master’s Degrees in Comparative Religion (Temple University, 2010) and Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a Specialization in Expressive Arts Therapy (Lesley University, 2019). He works as a therapist with Thrive Wellness Collaborative and teaching artist for Artists Creating Together. His current area of focus is Archetypal Psychology’s reframing of the Psyche as a polymorphic structure with inherently dramatic/aesthetic motivations. He spends his free time collaging, daydreaming, and maintaining a mostly healthy obsession with fairy tales.

Location

Grand Rapids Art Museum
Creative Learning Center Entrance on Louis Street
101 Monroe Center NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Special Accommodations

Please contact our office regarding any accommodations you may need prior to attending our program(s). We will work with you to ensure your needs are met. You may email us at learn@gvsu.edu, or call us at (616) 331-7180.

To view our policies, please visit: www.gvsu.edu/learn/policies

Grand Valley State University School of Social Work, an accredited social work education program, is authorized by Administrative Rule 338.2963 to award Michigan social work continuing education contact hours.