Creativity Connections: Wellness Through Artistic Expression, by Madeleine Schachter

Bringing art into one’s life brings a sense of joy and contemplation. Art can bring even more: it can bring a sense of tranquility, empowerment, and emotional release, and it help you orient yourself within the world around you.

The CREATIVITY CONNECTIONS book is designed to help you connect through artistic expression in order to promote wellness by bringing more beauty, and more appreciation for beauty, into everyday living. The creativity connections method explains how, regardless of your perceived skill or prior work in art, you can tap into your own creativity, and how you can encourage others, to explore emotions and experience.

Engaging in a creative enterprise allows us to connect with our thoughts and our feelings as we contemplate not just the pictures we produce, but also our inner selves. And it enables us to connect with others as we each work on a project in a group or as we collaborate with others on a collective work. Ultimately, there is value in both the process and the product.

The creativity connections approach offers a series of ideas and themes to inspire creativity. Art making can be deliberative or subliminal, with industry or without effort, with concentration or without focus. You’ll learn how to interpret the work that you create, without judgment or presumption. And throughout, you’ll gain insight into how the process and the product afford opportunities for self-growth.

Art nurtures and sustains. It provides inspiration and solace. And it is a catalyst for connection with oneself and with others.

The book is now in its second edition, offering international perspectives about the use of art to engage and empower others.

Show Appreciation for COVID-19 Frontline Healthcare Workers

You can engage and empower people of all ages to draw pictures or write cards, letters, or poems to encourage frontline healthcare providers and to show appreciation for all they are doing to combat COVID-19. The cards and pictures will be placed in staff lounges at New York Presbyterian Hospital for providers to see during their very brief but much needed breaks.

A few guidelines, please:

DO: Encourage everyone, especially children of all ages, to participate. Pictures are welcome from those who do not yet write, who have learning disabilities, or who simply prefer to express themselves through images. In fact, children who are understandably experiencing anxiety during these challenging times may find it more comfortable to draw pictures, which may provide a great opportunity to spur dialogue with parents, carers, and teachers about feelings.

DO: Please feel free to pass this information along to teachers in case a class-wide or school initiative is of interest.

DO: Encourage positive messages to the healthcare workers. Words of encouragement and appreciation for their efforts mean a great deal.

DO: Use materials you have readily available and please don’t feel you need to make special shopping trips outside that may jeopardize your own health. Paper and crayons, markers, colored pencils, and stickers, and even highlighters or ordinary pens, are all great materials.

DO: Do feel free if you don’t have stamps at hand to purchase postage online to maintain social distancing.

DO NOT: Please do not encourage the use of chalk pastels or collage materials. While these lead to creative expression, we are looking to avoid the use of materials that have dust particles, possible odors, etc.

DO NOT: Please do not drop off the pictures and cards directly at the hospital, because the hospital must severely restrict visitors and devote its stretched resources to patient care.

DO: Contact artist for address to which to send cards and pictures.

The artist leads workshops for people in shelters, survivors of domestic violence, refugees,
inmates, and others, using art to empower and to release emotions to overcome trauma.

For example, she has led wellness through creativity workshops for Ukrainian refugee children in Chisinau, Moldova, in Kyiv, Ukraine for children and mothers bereaved by loss during the war in Ukraine, and for Syrian refugee children in Mount Lebanon, Lebanon and she has trained others to do such work in Beqaa, Lebanon.

She has also led art programs for women, youth, and male change agents in Aweil, South Sudan.

And she has led similar programs with inmates at the Rikers Correctional Facility in New York, for survivors of domestic violence, and for children in transitional housing.

In addition, she has worked with patients in the In-Patient Rehab Unit and with patients dealing with psychiatric illnesses in the New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, New York, and with pediatric and adult patients in Hospices of Hope in Brasov, Bucharest, and Copaceni, Romania and in Chisinau, Moldova.

The artist has collaborated with the following non-profit organizations:

Hospices of Hope — This organization provides medical and other care to adult and pediatric patients who are suffering from terminal or life-limiting diseases so that they can live and die with dignity and without pain. (The artist serves of the Board of Trustees of Hospices of Hope.)
For More Information: https://hospicesofhope.co.uk

Concern Worldwide — This organization is an international humanitarian organization that
works to eradicate fear, poverty, and oppression in two dozen countries. (The artist previously served on the Board of Directors of Concern Worldwide USA.)
For More Information: https://www.concern.net and https://www.concernusa.org

Children of Heroes — This organization supports children in Ukraine who have lost a parent due to the war.
For More Information: https://childrenheroes.org/en/

Acumen — This organization invests patient capital (capital that bridges the gap between the efficiency and scale of market-based approaches and the social impact of pure philanthropy) in entrepreneurs who bring sustainable solutions to problems of poverty.
For More Information: https://acumen.org

The Luminos Fund -- This organization is dedicated to ensuring that children denied the
chance to education because of conflict, poverty, or discrimination, get access to a
quality education.
For More Information: http://luminosfund.org

New York Cares – Amongst the many ways that this organization meets the
needs of New York communities is by using the arts to empower and engage
children in transitional housing and children with autism spectrum disorders.
For More Information: https://www.newyorkcares.org

Safe Horizon — This organization provides support and promotes justice for
survivors of domestic violence and abuse, and for their families.
For More Information: https://www.safehorizon.org

Northwell Health at Lenox Hill Hospital -- The artist led a session hosted by ChaShaMa at
the "Wellness Through Creativity" Fair in partnership with Mt. Sinai Hospital, Lenox Hill Hospital,
and United Healthcare Workers East SEIU-1199 that offered artistic health and wellness
workshops to all employees of both hospitals.

Gabriel Enterprise CIO -- Gabriel Fine Arts Gallery will donate its profits from the Bethnal
Fine Arts Festival in December 2018 to this UK registered charity, which provides free classes
in the performing and visual arts, mentoring, and support for persons who are economically
disadvantaged or who have disabilities.
For More Information: http://gabriel-enterprise-cio.business.site

Art of Hope – This organization uses art to provide therapy and vocational training
for refugee women and children.
For More Information: http://www.artofhopeglobal.org

ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty) – This organization delivers arts
programs to youth affected by immigration status, gun violence, incarceration,
HIV/AIDS, and systemic poverty.
For More Information: https://www.astep.org

The artist has supported the following non-profit organizations with donations of her artwork:

Art of Hope – This organization uses art to provide therapy and vocational training
for refugee women and children.
For More Information: http://www.artofhopeglobal.org

The Nexus Fund of the New Venture Fund -- This organization works to prevent genocide and
mass atrocities by countering hate speech in the United States and abroad.
For More Information: https://www.nexus-fund.org/home/

Einstein Community Health Clinic -- This clinic, a collaboration between the Institute for Family Health and the Albert Einstein College of MedicineFree Clinic, provides free, comprehensive health care to the uninsured population of the Bronx in New York City.
For More Information: https://www.einstein.yu.edu/students/clubs/echo/

New York Presbyterian Hospital - The artist donated a diptych to the staff lounge for frontline healthcare workers combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concern Worldwide — This organization is an international humanitarian organization that
works to eradicate fear, poverty, and oppression in two dozen countries. (The artist serves on
Board of Directors of Concern Worldwide USA.)
For More Information: https://www.concern.net and https://www.concernusa.org

To request that the artist consider a donation of her artwork to a non-profit organization,
submit your request in the form provided.

Request for Donation of Artwork By Artist to a Non-Profit or Non-Governmental Organization

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Creativity Connections: Wellness Through Artistic Expression, by Madeleine Schachter

Show Appreciation for COVID-19 Frontline Healthcare Workers

***Creativity Connections: Wellness Through Artistic Expression*, by Madeleine Schachter**