I am working with Monika on an 8 week course – ‘ Art journaling for selfcare’ . We are looking at running a session about shame and guilt. I have been searching for images that we could use as inspiration on line and I found Joseph Arthur. An artist who paints, writes poems and songs. He also paints as he sings ……
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XZBj7bNltbM
I found Arthur looking up ‘images of shame’ on google – a link took me to a poem using some of his paintings as illustrations https://steemit.com/poetry/@ezravan/to-shame-the-loneliness-original-poem-accompanying-paintings-by-joseph-arthurstemmit.com
Watching lots of videos of Arthur painting faces reminded me of Picasso’s crying women
Shelley Klammer is an art therapist that I admire and use regularly for inspiration. She suggested doing an intuitive painting about shame and then ripping it up and seeing if one wants to rip it up or comfort the picture …..
I loved the idea of a shame monster to attack ( not sure what that says about me …..) but, was struggling how to present it to our group without scaring them – by making them draw – I had fun having a go at making a portrait using cut out features I prepared, also using magazine faces and felt pens.
Next to add some text
I like this quote from Arthur
‘You never have been young
You never have been sane
And if you say that you don’t care,
In your eyes I see the shame
Looking through the window of your mind
I see your lonely shadow running out of time’
Joseph Arthur Termite song 2002
I worked on her a bit more And then screwed her up.
And then had a go at ripping into her 
I needed to stick her back together again ….. she isn’t half so scary now
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