Art therapy teaches painting, sculpture, weaving to open up possibilities
Philip and Leila Zemke are all about choices. Whether it’s picking out a color or deciding what emotions to express, the Zemkes offer these options through art.
“Art is a safe place to explore those things that might not be safe if you handled it head on,” Philip says. “If someone does stick figures, that’s all right with us. We’re about choices and building confidence.”
By coming at the problem though the creative process, the Zemkes get around learned behaviors that often get in the way of healing.
“When you’re out in the world, you’re always trying to make safe choices,” Philip says. But some of their students are not comfortable with making decisions at the speed of life.
“When you slow that decision-making down, more people can often make the safe choices. And that translates into being courageous in their lives.”
And it’s not just talk. They walk the walk.
The Zemkes have a ton of success stories.
“We were in Ronan, Montana, and there was a gal who’d been in a car accident,” Philip recalls. “Her hands were withdrawn and the only emotion she could express was anger. We were doing clay work and I pressed a piece of clay into her withdrawn hand.”
By the second week, she was reaching for the clay.
The next week she was talking – and she hadn’t spoken a word in years.
“After that we discovered that she wanted to paint,” Philip said. “So I created a special easel and a set of brushes she could use with her mouth. She continues to paint and express herself.”
Play of Life Therapies, located in Bozeman, has four rooms, each one designed for specific things: a painting room, a sculpture and puppet room, a quiet room with a loom, and a game and flat work room. Philip and Leila work one-on-one with each of their clients, allowing them the time, the space and the freedom to discover their own creative processes.
“It’s all about watching people,” Philip says. “We set up the materials and observe. We recognize the internal process, the neural searching that’s going on.”
In the clay room, shelves of heads with various grimaces and smiles crowd the designated space.
“We give our clients a plastic skeleton head and some clay,” Philip says. “They cover the head with rolled out clay and then work on making faces.”
Some of the heads show white teeth through the clay. It would be easy to peek inside a person’s emotions with a tool like this as a magnifier. Other shelves hold stacks of paintings, laid flat. Puppets are grouped together along with small and large stages for the puppet work.
Lois Miller, mother of David, 44, with cerebral palsy, has seen her son make giant leaps since he starting going to Play of Life Therapy.
“It has helped tremendously,” she says. “David’s right side is crippled, and some of the things they’ve done have strengthened his right side.”
Ms. Miller has seen an increase not only in David’s dexterity but in his vocabulary as well.
“There are different words that David will come up with, and I know it’s something he’s heard at art, with Leila talking about colors or space,” she says.
“When he first started, they gave him a blank piece of paper and he’d color it one solid color. He might take another color and cover the whole thing in that color.”
Now he’s actually making connections with the objects.
“If he draws a tree, instead of coloring it all purple he’ll draw the trunk brown and the leaves green,” Ms. Miller says. “He can see the difference between scribbling and knowing what colors the objects should be, and he tries to make the colors appropriate to the object.”
David attends a Bible study group in the winter, and one of the activities is coloring booklets.
“In the past David couldn’t differentiate when one man started and the other began, now he can,” she says. “He could see there were two men but he’d color the whole thing one solid color.
Now they’re colored separately. It’s a big improvement. He’s made tremendous progress, especially because he can observe the space between objects.”
Philip added that David’s anger levels have dropped dramatically as well.
But more than the actual physical improvements, David looks forward to his time with Philip and Leila.
“The social aspect is very uplifting,” Ms. Miller says.
“He looks forward to the days when he has art therapy. And after the classes he gets very excited about what he’s done.”
Philip started out as a studio artist and began working with special needs kids while finishing up his degree. Later on, he was certified as an art therapist.
Leila worked specifically with autism students.
“Then someone suggested that we work together,” Leila says. “That was about eight years ago.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Counselors from the Gallatin Valley school districts send students who are dealing with something very traumatic, but about two-thirds of their clients come from the special needs community, including Reach, AWARE Inc., High Case Management, Family Outreach, as well as area physicians and naturopaths. They also speak at two conferences a year.
Thomas Rodrique is one of the Zemkes’ clients who now lives independently.
“I do artwork,” Thomas says. “The biggest piece of artwork I did was for my sister’s wedding.”
Thomas created the cover for the wedding program.
“I gave the original to them for a Christmas gift,” he adds proudly.
When Thomas was in preschool, Philip was his preschool teacher, creating a bond that still exists today.
“I remember that we spoke about going to Mandan, North Dakota. We talked about that a lot,”
Thomas likes to use colored pencils and watercolors on very large, poster-sized pieces of paper.
“I am the only one in the office that uses the big, big pieces of paper,” he says. “I color whatever comes to mind; I like to draw freehand. Right now I’m doing something of a rainbow – it takes a few sessions to get them done. I used to draw on the small pieces of paper. They told me I have enough art to do a show. I can do art and talk to them at the same time, and hang out with them. It makes me feel good.
“Both Philip and Leila believe very strongly that no one in our society should be ignored or thrown away.”
“The brain is plastic and life-long learning is possible,” Leila adds. “The brain will seek for repair and compensation mechanisms.”
Before beginning a session, Leila takes the client through a series of exercises called “Brain Gym,” a registered and trademarked program that enables anyone to be open to learning something new.
“First you drink some water,” Leila says. “The brain is made up of 90 percent water so we need to hydrate.”
Then one hand is placed on the midsection, over the navel, and the other hand massages the first rib to relax the carotid arteries.
Next comes the “Cross Crawl,” an exercise that helps coordinate right and left brain by exercising the information flow between the two hemispheres.
And finally, the “hook up,” a relaxation technique used to calm the nerves.
The Zemkes have added one extra step, which is to place the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, behind the front teeth.
“The tongue accesses the limbic system, which houses our emotions,” Philip says. “It’s neurologically impossible to hold an angry or upsetting thought in this position.”
The Zemkes are trying to open people up to use their whole brains.
“But we’re not about the end goals, we’re about the process,” Philip says. “We want people to be as balanced as possible. If someone comes here and engages with the environment then they’ve succeeded.”
Because most people use only 10 percent of their brain, over time those white cells take over our behavior and our thought process. But through art the Zemkes are activating the parts of the brain that usually don’t get used, the gray cells.
“The white cells only send messages in one direction,” Philip says. “The grey cells work in multiple directions. Most of our special needs friends have compensated in some way for their disability. Art puts them in the whole brain state and it allows them to choose an alternate path.”
They’ve seen folks go from group homes to independent living through their art therapy program.
“They’ve learned to make choices,” Leila says. “And we never know what will be the tipping point. All we can do is offer them possibilities. Everybody’s process is different.”
And, according to Philip and Leila, by opening up a person to all the possibilities, the world becomes a better place.
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