Breakthrough!

At my very informative meeting with Dr. Zeisel a few weeks ago,

he suggested that I start encouraging the class members 

to work more independently. 

He thought that by "drawing shapes for them to color in" 

was preventing them from expressing themselves freely. 

So today I brought in some colorful flower arrangements

for them to look at and told them to

just put down on the paper whatever came to them. 

That would have terrified them a few months ago, 

but today, they completely surprised me 

and the work they did was amazing! 

This was done by a woman who has never uses 

more than one color when she paints. 

Pat was a little confused at first and 

asked me repeatedly what she was supposed to.

I told her to just let the paint tell her what to do.  

Barbara's interpretation of the flowers 

"but in a garden".   

Rita asked for a marker so she could draw in the vase, 

then painted this completely by herself! 

Another independently created piece.  

Priceless.  

These are incredibly sophisticated pieces of work and 

so much more expressive than I ever imagined they could be.  

I am thrilled about this "break through", 

and I thank Dr. Zeisel for encouraging me to 

 trust the process 

and let the paint do the talking. 

Speaking of breakthrough's: 

There is man named Peter who lives on the floor, 

who often walks though the dining room during class,

but never joins in or talks to anyone. 

The assistants tell me that he never sits down, 

rarely eats, and shows no emotion. 

(Only cries when listening to patriot music.) 

Today he stopped at the counter where there was 

paint set up with blank paper 

and did this! 

He quickly put the brush down and walked out,

but the fact that he actually painted amazed everyone.