Success of Programs

Arts in Healthcare º Benefits of Arts Education º Sojourners In Paver Project Phoenix Rising º Tristesse Grief Center

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising is Growing Stronger than ever and enthusiasm for the arts continues to grow! Youth who participate in the program are adjudicated teens who are not attending public school due to suspension and/or truancy. Most have not had the opportunities afforded to their peers to participate in the arts and are extraordinarily creative and interested. The Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa partners with the Tulsa Juvenile Bureau to provide glassblowing, metalworking, clay work, mural painting, and theatre to these teens.

One student used her time at Garden Deva Sculpture Company to create an art piece memorializing a friend who had died recently due to gang violence. This student had not spoken of this tragedy up to that point despite many opportunities to do so in traditional group counseling sessions. However, the medium of metal and fire allowed her to process some very difficult experiences she was going through.

Benefits of Arts Education:

Stimulates and develops imagination and critical thinking
Develops a sense of goal-setting and craftsmanship—skills needed in the classroom and beyond
Builds self-confidence and self-discipline
Students who participate in the arts show improved academic performance and lower dropout rates

Source: Americans for the Arts, 2002

The impact the arts have on academic achievement became dramatically evident when the Council introduced a strings component into Chouteau Elementary School. After just one year, the number of students accepted from Chouteau into the highly competitive Carver Middle School rose from four to fourteen. All fourteen students participated in the strings program and the principal directly credits the Council’s core arts program with their success.

Arts in Healthcare

Through the Arts in Healthcare program of the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, artist Margee Aycock visits with patients and their families, encouraging them to use art as a way to pass the time and express their emotions. Margee recently gave us the following glimpse into the healing power of art:

“My session last week included 5 ladies and 1 gentleman. I taught them all how to make sculpy beads, which involves choosing colors, following directions, rolling clay and having fun. They had an amazing time and I ended up staying longer just because the conversation was so interesting and participants were reluctant to quit. They were asking when I could come back and said that they had all just had the very best time.

One of them commented that she had not one artistic bone in her body and had wondered if she would enjoy herself at all. She went on and on about what a joy it had been to be there.

Another woman commented that she hadn’t thought about her pain in 2 hours.

Thanks to the Arts [in Healthcare] Program and the Arts & Humanities Council for adding this wonderful program to enhance the lives of people who are suffering and especially for enhancing my own life! It is such a worthwhile venture and the hospital is very lucky to have it.”

Sojourners Inn Paver Project
Mothers and their children escape the violence of domestic abuse at DVIS Sojourn Inn. They have most recently been empowered to beautify their living space by working with artist Louise Higgs to create mosaic pavers that are installed around the Inn. Staff, artists, and mothers agreed that making these avers allowed painful emotions to be transformed into something beautiful to be left as a legacy of future residents.

Tristesse Grief Center
The Tristesse Grief Center opened in 2002 and provides individual and group counseling, grief education and support and specialized programs to adults, children and families who are mourning the death of the loved one. The Council recently began interactive Sundays where children and their caregivers may express their grief and their love of life through the arts. Many are unable to communicate their grief with words. Drama, stories, music and painting offer them unique opportunities to express their feelings. Through art making and sharing in group setting, individuals begin to understand the process they are going through and begin to realize new possibilities of coping with their loss. We have had tremendous results with this program!