Introduction
Welcome to POP UP ART HIVES in 15 Easy Steps! It’s fabulous to meet you.
This manual is specific to pop up art hives, the kind you might host once or twice in a novel location. It also offers ideas about how to run an art hive if you are suddenly in charge of one and you haven’t had much chance to research them. Our experience at Ebb & Flow Art Hive in Alberta, Canada, formed the basis for this manual. We created it as part of our social justice project, a component of our graduate degree in psychotherapy and art therapy. By the way, when I say “we”, I sometimes mean me, Jillian Paschen, and I sometimes mean our art hive as a collective.
Primarily, we outline the 15 Easy Steps, as the title suggests (see pages 5-19). A Practical Matters section follows, (pages 20-24), with info about essential art materials and basic hive necessities.
To conclude, there is a Workbook Component to get you brainstorming about the particular focus you would like YOUR art hive to have (see pages 25-33). We look at the differences between art hives and art therapy. We also discuss three of the most popular foci for art hives—creativity, spirituality, and social change—and we draw connections between them in ways that invite your input.
Please note that a wonderful manual for regular art hives already exists! This isn’t it. You can access it directly on the Art Hives website. It has excellent info on fiscal structure, grant writing, and safety with art materials and tools. It also tells you more than we do about the social and political background of art hives. It was co-written by the amazing Art Hive Founder, Janis Timm-Bottos, and Art Hives International network coordinator, Rachel Chainey.
A word to users of this manual: As art therapists, we are not typically trained as “advocates or revolutionaries, [or] as social and cultural analysts and critics, but as those who, through the art therapy process, help people cope and adapt” (Junge, 2009, p. 109). What many suggest we are helping people cope and adapt to, though, is a society in disrepair and a “fatally injured mental health system” (p. 109). As a lifelong activist for social justice, I have chosen art hives, a form of free, open, community art studios, as a vehicle for societal and systemic change. I believe art hives serve as a healthy presence in the community and an adjunct to more formal mental wellness services. Through both art therapy and art hives, we proclaim ourselves to be “champions of a non-hierarchical, anti-elitist view of art” (Moon, 2002, p. 307). We also support “creative processes for decision-making and problem solving, as well as, meaning making and healing” (AATA, 2013). As an art therapist, I see my community practice as a necessary partner to my private practice, and I see both as necessitating vigorous self-interrogation, so I do not function as another jagged part of a broken system. I have created this manual to facilitate the growth of the art hive movement as one more path, along with art therapy and many other healing modalities, towards a kinder, gentler world. As Catherine Moon says, “In one sense, all art therapy practice is activist because it addresses social ills. [W]e art therapists address social change, one person at a time, through the work we do within ourselves and through assisting those who come to us for help” (Moon, 2002, p. 298).
Disclaimer: The conceptual frame for art hives has developed from a long line of movements for social justice. As with all art for social change projects and work that involves the process of co-creation, we must be careful not to claim too much for this practice. We must “caution against framing [these movements] as a catch-all panacea for social exclusion and marginalization, given the differentials of power that thread through urban society” (Carpenter, 2020, p. 174). However, we are fostering the forming of relationships that have the potential to transform our social consciousness. We can envision neighbours who have never spoken before, connecting outside of the polarizing lines that divide our communities. Our movement has “the capacity to impact the people who can trouble […] structural forces, […] question inequalities related to gender, class, race, and postcolonial-ism, and challenge societal inequities” (p. 187). Art hives are a hopeful practice. Change is in the air.
Graciously translated to French by Sigrid Seminario. Gracieusement traduit en français par Sigrid Seminario.
Introduction
Bienvenue à POP UP ART HIVES en 15 étapes faciles ! Nous sommes ravis de vous rencontrer.
Ce manuel s'adresse spécifiquement aux ruches d'art pop-up, celles que vous pouvez accueillir une ou deux fois dans un lieu inédit. Il propose également des idées sur la manière de gérer une ruche d'art pop-up.
Il propose également des idées sur la façon de gérer une ruche d'art si vous en êtes soudainement responsable et que vous n'avez pas eu l'occasion de faire des recherches sur ce sujet.
Notre expérience à la ruche Ebb & Flow Art Hive en Alberta, au Canada, a servi de base à ce manuel.
Nous l'avons créé dans le cadre de notre projet de justice sociale, une composante de notre diplôme de psychothérapie et d'art-thérapie.
D'ailleurs, lorsque je dis "nous", il s'agit parfois de moi, Jillian Paschen, et parfois notre ruche artistique en tant que collectif.
En premier lieu, nous présentons les 15 étapes faciles, comme le suggère le titre et ensuite vous trouverez des "Questions pratiques". Il y a également des informations sur le matériel d'art essentiel et les nécessités de base de la ruche.
Enfin, un cahier d'exercices vous permettra de réfléchir à l'orientation particulière que vous souhaitez donner à VOTRE ruche artistique.
Nous examinons également les différences entre les ruches d'art et l'art-thérapie.
Ensuite, nous discuterons de trois des centres d'intérêt les plus populaires pour les ruches d'art - la créativité, la spiritualité et le changement social - et nous établirons des liens entre eux dans le cadre d'un projet de recherche sur l'art.
Veuillez noter qu'il existe déjà un merveilleux manuel pour les ruches d'art régulières ! Ce n'est pas celui-ci. Vous pouvez y accéder à l'adresse suivante : arthives.org. Il contient d'excellentes informations sur la structure fiscale, la rédaction de demandes de subventions et la sécurité avec les matériaux et les outils artistiques.
Il en dit également plus que nous sur le contexte social et politique des ruches d'art. Il a été co-écrit par l'étonnante fondatrice d'Art Hive, Janis Timm-Bottos, et la directrice nationale d'Art Hives, Rachel Chainey.
