Express Yourself

Julie Billiart School fifth grader Lincoln Rufus came home after an art therapy lesson last year talking about artist Helen Frankenthaler, who often depicts emotions in her paintings. Lincoln told his mom, Karla Rufus, about the artist’s biography.

“Mom, I could be [her] one day,” says Lincoln, who has autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.  “There could be kids at my school that learn about me.”

All kindergartners through eighth graders at the Akron campus take an art class with social-emotional lessons taught by art therapist Holly Queen, and some participate in individual and small group sessions, including Lincoln. After the pandemic shutdown, Queen noticed several students struggled with returning to a structured school routine and dealt with more behavioral and social challenges, so she used art therapy to help students work on self-regulation. Through collage, drawing, painting and other artistic mediums, she helps students empathize, self-reflect, communicate and improve self-awareness and self-esteem.

Activities include using paint drips and splatters to visualize students’ energies and emotions, and making a mixed-media piece on ice skates to reflect on how ice skaters bounce back after mistakes, applying it not just in sports, but to school and home.

“We talk about what gives us hope and what things make us happy,” Queen says. “We try to focus on the positive in each other and in ourselves.”

From students choosing colors for paintings to observing art therapy until they feel comfortable enough to take part, art therapy prompts students to learn through self-expression while exploring their creativity, and that’s what Lincoln enjoyed.

“The excitement of doing something that he loved, creating things that he enjoyed, being in a group with other children and with a loving teacher, that gave Lincoln something to look forward to,” Karla says. “He told me, I feel like I’m in my element, and this is where I’m most happy.”

Art therapy helps students with their feelings and mental health. Students can cope with stressful situations by recognizing the difference between an anxious body and a relaxed body through metaphors in 3D or digital images.

“Most successful people are resilient people,” Queen says. “Having emotional resilience and improving self-awareness and self-control, that’s naturally going to lead them to be a more successful person in the future.”