Woven Stories

50 tufted pieces, connected by roughed-op chains.

“They say some people think outside the box. I can’t even find the damn box.”

– Joseph Kainz, Sector 12 and the Art of Dying

Not all people feel like they are visually creative. Offently they stopped trying to make art after their high school art classes, which confronted them with assignments and the restrictions that come with them. At a young age, I started going to creative therapy. I learned to deal with certain emotions better, without getting the impression that feeling those emotions are bad, or more importantly, unnatural. Because of the creative in creative therapy, I also learned that art does not need to have rules or restrictions, for it to be art.

Thus, in my thesis, I researched which role creative therapy could play in making art. Taking art as the focal point, not looking at the mental benefits it could have. After completing the theoretical research, I had six sessions/conversations. During the conversations I had the speakers make art. I told them to let their intuïtivity take the lead of the artistic choices, while their thinking goes towards telling the story. My final artwork consists of their stories, which have been on paper by them, for me to translate into small bits, which form these woven star signs. The signs are an analogy for how things impact our lives, and how we/they decide to form our lives.

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michiel.pva@hotmail.nl