9 minute read
Linda Blasdel
from February 2016
by Le Journal
Art and psychology teacher Linda Blasdel uses a variety of media to create both 2-D and 3-D artwork. Above, three pieces of her art are combined: “Memory Crows,” “Souls of 9/11” and “Caledonia Crow,” and she won the National Art Educators Best of Show award for “Memory Crows.” “Usually when I’m very happy with a piece, it’s expressing something I feel strongly about,” Blasdel said. (artwork submitted by Linda Blasdel, photo by Sophie Nedelco)
Expressing
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Her white knuckles wrapped around a marker, and eyebrows furrowed, she dug the felt tip into the page. Streaks of red passion and black darkness drowned the white paper.
Pain. Violence. Confusion. Combined: unmeasurable anger.
The assignment was to abstractly give shape and form to eight different emotions, yet she could only give one. But to psychology and art teacher Linda Blasdel, that was okay.
Blasdel was at Hilltop Residential Center, somewhere where the kids may not be safe or encouraged to express feeling. Part of a government grant to infuse Hilltop as well as McCune Residential Center, both juvenile prisons of Jackson County, Missouri, with the arts, she allowed this particular young girl and the other children to do just that: give form to feeling.
“She couldn’t do anything but black and red, and everything was angry.
Those were all of her emotions. Just anger,” Blasdel said. “And, as an art therapist you recognize that you don’t try to move her anywhere because she got the opportunity to say ‘I’m angry, I’m angry, I’m angry, I’m angry.’” Blasdel’s art career didn’t originate in art therapy but began back when she was in elementary school. With fresh scratches on her knees from roller skating and climbing trees, “Linda the Teacher” would sit up straight at the table in her home, prepping for an art class. Smiling at the imaginary camera, she would lay out all the materials her audience would need. “Now you’re going to have to have scissors and construction paper and glue, and here’s what you do…,” she said, mimicking her favorite “learn how to” art programs. She was destined to be a teacher. That is, according
Expressing
the Inexpressible
BY SOPHIE NEDELCO CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF to her father she was. I tried to think about how you create As an art therapist at the juvenile sends students out every year with a
After graduating from the an image if you’re blind because I’m prisons, the school for the blind, better understanding that what they University of Kansas with a degree so dependent on my eyes. I had [the then later at Menninger’s on the top think and what they do changes their in art, Blasdel ran a lucrative sign boys] draw a picture of the room, floor of Providence Medical Center, brain, just as art therapy can be a painting business for 15 years before where we were,” Blasdel said. “What Blasdel found unity in her different release of emotion, therefore altering computers overtook the industry. was interesting was they drew it like experiences as well as in her own art. the mind. While making art one Saturday, she a map, looking from above, because “There’s just so many universals. “The most important thing that discovered the perfect transition out that’s how their brains saw things, and We all have a full range of feelings. [Blasdel] has taught me about the of her beloved business, a transition so that gave me a lot of information... There’s some commonalities in how process of making art is not to fear it that would lead her to an alternative I set things up for tactile feeling. We we express some of those feelings in and to enjoy it instead. She wants us understanding of art. used different materials: soft, scratchy a visual way,” Blasdel said. “Like, for to enjoy the process more than she
“I watched a PBS show, and there because they were reluctant to touch.” instance, what color might you pick expects us to produce blue pearls,” was man named Bob Ault talking Blasdel also emphasizes building up if you’re feeling sad? Blue. If you AP art senior Caroline Hodes said. about art therapy, and I’d never heard creative critical thinking skills through have a lot of downward lines or shapes, “I used to think of art as just creating of it before. So here I am painting, and art and won the Kansas Psychological if there’s low energy, lack of color, it something beautiful, but she has I’m watching this man, and I say, ‘Well Association Paper after completing might indicate a feeling. If it’s really changed my perspective by showing yes! Well of course! So full and loaded with color and done me that it’s more about expressing it was very exciting to me,” Blasdel said. “It just “When I’m working on really fast, it could be kind of hyper. All of those things are universal, the emotions in ways that you just can’t with words and presenting the world seemed to fit. Everything just kept making sense. a piece of art, I’m using feelings that we have.” The question, “What is art the way you see it in a way that you enjoy.” It seemed like the right everything I know about therapy?” was thrown around while Psychology and art are two thing to do.” She applied the world.” -Linda Blasdel Blasdel was in graduate school and continues to be contemplated with separate subjects, but in many ways they overlap, and Blasdel prepares her to Emporia State only a handful of states granting art students to use the critical thinking University to take the therapist licensure. It is defined by they have developed to discover new psychology courses required for research at Banneker Elementary the client, constantly morphing and perspectives about the world, just as certification in art therapy. One of School on the topic. changing. she has. Blasdel’s favorite classes was education “The idea being the arts in the “In art therapy, you start where “When I’m working on a piece of psychology, and her father continued grade school level promote thinking, the client is. It’s important to honor the art, I’m using everything I know about to insist she follow her destined path. promote innovation, and promote expression of where that child is even the world. I’m using my intellect, I’m
“We used to have kitchen debates expression of feelings and emotion,” if that expression does not meet some using my emotions, I’m using my eyes, over all kinds of topics, but my Blasdel said. expectation,” Blasdel said. “In a group, my hands, and if I get into it, I get into argument to him was ‘I’m not ready While at Hilltop and McCune, everyone takes turns talking, but in art like a flow state where I love it, and I’m to teach because I don’t have anything Blasdel supported the children as they therapy, everybody’s speaking through making all these decisions, and I’m to teach yet. I’m still learning,’” Blasdel let out feelings in a safe way within art their art at the same time, and they putting things together in unique and said. “It wasn’t where I wanted to be. and used this type of critical thinking, have the opportunity to share what fun ways,” Blasdel said. “And that being But, art therapy seemed to be the right allowing them to open up and begin to they meant, what they discovered, said, it can also be frustrating because thing to do. I was forty, and I wanted heal. what they’d like to or to not share. So you can spend a whole day working to give back. I wanted to help people.” “When people go to a therapist, I can’t imagine having a therapy group on something, and it just doesn’t come
All of Blasdel’s experiences while they use words. I think sometimes, we without art-making.” together. I always tell my art students obtaining her certification and serving don’t know the words,” Blasdel said. After working in Menninger’s for that frustration is a part of the creative as an art therapist combined to create “A child might not be able to express only two years until it closed, Blasdel’s process.” her understanding of emotion, art and exactly what they’re feeling in words art journey lead her to where her father The full range of feelings is how to express the inexpressible. or what the problem is. Or a middle- knew she would end up ever since she universal, and there is a full range of
“I think that’s helped me as artist aged person might not be able to put was a little girl putting on “learn how colors to accompany them. Yellow is as well as an art therapist: the focus on into words a multitude of things over to” art shows for pretend audiences. cheerful, blue is trust, and red is anger. the process of making and expressing their lifetime that are kind of coming “I saw an ad in the paper, and Rather than choosing a favorite color, things in a visual way,” Blasdel said. together and crashing at one time. Or it said this school is looking for a Blasdel admires how colors combine
At Accessible Arts at the a teenager, they’re acting out, but they psychology teacher and an art teacher. and the energy between them. She sees Kansas School for the Blind, Blasdel don’t know why.” Sion,” Blasdel said. “So, I cut it out, and her thoughts and feelings embedded functioned as an art therapist to two The process of exploring what I put it by my computer, and I said [to safely within her artistic expression, boys who were blind and severely one’s thinking visually without my husband] ‘Well, I think I’d like to just as the girl that colored red and autistic, and in doing this, adapted words serves as an alternate form of try that.’” black at the juvenile prison did earlier a shift in perspective, furthering her expression. According to Blasdel, art With nearly 100 students every in her art therapy career. appreciation for the process over the therapy is very different from an art year, Blasdel believes that teaching is “Art making within itself is finished product. class but is similar in that the artist right next to being an art therapist as therapeutic,” Blasdel said. “It’s
“One of the first things I did was puts herself into the art she makes. an altruistic, giving profession. She authentically you.”
