Creative Collage: I (Dina Campeis) have always been “drawn” to mixed media art….
……..so when Mosaic Home Care booked Lesley White to facilitate a collage class, I thought, Wow, this is great. I get to play and work at the same time!
As Community Relations Manager, I can often join the various programs that we provide for free at our Community Resource Centres, and this was one such program.
The program was 1.5 hours in length, and Lesley gave instructions and provided all the necessary tools and magazines to get us started. And then the race against time began! I came across the words ‘Road Trip’ and so started my search for pictures that spoke to me about my upcoming trip to the east coast with 5 lifelong girlfriends. Yellow rubber boots got me started.
At first, the group was silent…………… So much concentration! But then a beautiful thing happened: the group started to chat and laugh and ask questions.
At the end, each collage was different, which I found fascinating:
They ranged from an entire collage of dogs by someone who wants a dog, but doesn’t have one, to all women (it was the day after International Women’s Day), to colourful pictures that went with the words ‘Feeling Jazzed’. One of my favourites was done by a cancer survivor who used pinking shears to cut stamp sized pictures and descriptive words of all the places she had visited all over the world. There was one gentleman in the group and he created a nature v’s building structures. They were all very inspiring!
This program, and others like it, link back to Mosaic offering programs that help reduce social isolation by creating opportunities to meet new people. While this program was meant to be fun and creative, the stories of ‘how’ and ‘why’ the pictures were chosen were really quite therapeutic. I obviously am looking forward to the ‘girls road trip’ and this was a fun way to get excited about it!
The “learnings” from this collage class are easily transferred to our caregivers who can use old magazines to create collages with our clients and have great conversations while doing so. How easy it would be to find pictures and words to cut out for dog lovers, gardeners, musicians, travellers, car enthusiasts. So many ways to create together – now THAT is Person-Centred Care!
For those of you who knit or crochet, or just like to work with textiles, stay tuned for a fun event we will be having!
For more information on organizations that offer creative programs, visit:
https://www.mosaichomecare.com/news-events/upcoming-events/
http://centraleglinton.com/index.php/50-programs
And for information about the collage class offered by Lesley White: lesleywhite@rogers.com
