Here you will find a variety of art to stimulate your thoughts and feelings. Art that can take you inside, to reflect on your life. A unique gift will be the rare opportunity to hear directly from the artist, who has been asked to write a brief commentary on why they created what they did; what the art means to them. Enjoy . . . and allow the artist and their art to challenge you to seek deeper awareness.

 

Current Offering:

"Grandma's Rose Garden"

(Egg Tempera)
by
Gail Wirtz

 

The Artist Comments:

Materials: Egg Tempera Painting. This small, 5" x 7" painting was made using oxides from the ground (for color) and egg yolk. This is the method the Rennaissance painters used in the 1600's.

The subject is our farm. It has been in our family since we bought it from the Native Americans in the 1800's. More specifically, the subject is a rose garden, overlooking the home and yard, which my grandmother cultivated until she passed away in 1983. The garden holds many of the character traits inherent in our family values: formal, classic and consistent.

I love using the oxides to mix paint because it makes the paints rich in color and texture. It brings the earth into the paint, making the paint part of the land. As the land around our farm is sold to Target and sub-divided into acre lots for homes, I feel the importance of holding onto the memories the land holds for me. This land has touched many lives and is rich in experience for many members of our family. Recently I found letters my Grandfather wrote to my Grandmother in 1920, while he was at the farm. They held the sweetness, and strength, the farm holds for me today.

It is easy for me to lose the important aspects of life in day-to-day happenings. Art brings me back. It enables me to have an ongoing circular exchange with my unconscious. Sometimes I don't want to hear what my art tells me, but I listen. The answer for me is usually to slow down, and take time to acknowledge what I am being told.

Oddly enough, I find the whole art experience to be spiritual. Somewhere in the art process I find the answers of the universe. The answer I found in the rose garden painting is a message: "Enjoy me today. Feel, touch and be grateful for me, for we may all be gone tomorrow."

 

Gail Wirtz, LCPC, ATR works as an art therapist in private practice in Bannockburn, Illinois. She holds a Masters in Education and Art Therapy. For 23 years she taught graduate art therapy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is currently preparing to teach art therapy at Northwestern University. Her knowledge as a therapist and artist has enabled her to understand and help clients in a variety of settings (psychiatric hospitals, day treatment, residential treatment, and schools). This experience, as well as being a wife, and mother of two grown children, helps foster her philosophy that, "art is a metaphor for life, and a mirror that reflects our experience."  She uses these art experiences to assist clients to create change in their lives.

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Past offerings are found below. Enjoy.

 

"Red House"

(Watercolor)
by
Elise Pike Lerman

 

The Artist Comments:

Earlier in my life, trees and houses were a consistent theme of my painting. During my childhood, I lost members of my family with regularity. The house became a symbol of the security I longed for. Houses are rarely separated from trees. The two often share the same history and remain within the same footprint. However, the tree grows to dominate the house in size and importance. The separate trees move through and around one another to form a strong protection for the house and the people inside. For me, the trees had the strength I did not have as a child.

The Artist Comments:

(John)
I remember sitting on the rug in my office in early 1984 with Elise and Jack, their drawings spread all over the carpet. They listened as I shared my vision for The Center, as we had done before. We talked of art, of people, of pain. About how art is such a wonderful window to the soul. We worked together for many hours over many weeks, me with my vision and Elise and Jack with their remarkable talent. Finally I was thrilled with a drawing Elise had done, using the theme of the bridge which was so important to me. I remember she was very committed to help create a symbol of the journey we must all make if we are to truly know ourselves. Welcoming my compulsivity, we worked and reworked their wonderful sketches until the Logo, A Bridge to Wholeness, was born.

Eighteen years later, hundreds and hundreds of courageous people have crossed that bridge and entered into the unknown. There they have faced fear, found truth and discovered freedom. The journey is not static. Wholeness is a process in this life, not a destination. As the bridge suggests, we often move back and forth. We are always learning, always healing. Every age presents us with gifts. And while those things that used to disrupt our daily lives become almost nonexistent because of our healing work, there is always something new to discover. The well worn path becomes a way of life, and a welcome friend. It becomes . . . A Bridge To Wholeness.

(Elise)
When John first approached us about creating the design for a logo, Jack and I worked separately to produce our own ideas. For example, I made several versions of puzzle pieces (with some missing), while Jack made a series of hands clasped together. These early sketches were ways of helping John to realize his own vision. In this case, they served to help him decide what he did not want and led him to a more personal insight. Finally, he described with enthusiasm the landscaping around his new office. He spoke of the wooden bridge, the trickling stream, the delicate sumacs and metaphors about the journey of therapy.

We went to visit the space. I was amazed by the contrast of the busy highway we left behind, and the gentle quietness of the stream which wound around the low office complex. The flowing water, with its surrounding greenery, tied the buildings together and closed off the drone of the traffic, leaving that world behind. As I walked across the bridge to John's front door, I could hear wood tapping against my shoes, water percolating over stones, and birds chattering from thick bushes. As we talked of this, the picture of the logo became clear, to all of us.

I drew three or four versions in pen and ink. While I drew the bridge and the water from memory, I sketched the trees on a golf course near my own house. They were hanging over a canal and seemed to be guardians of a waterway.

We all agreed that the word "bridge" needed to be in the title. Finding a second word was elusive. We looked through a thesaurus to help us. We spoke word after word out loud. As I recall, it was Jack who said, "wholeness." We all agreed to that.

As I worked on the drawing, these thoughts occurred to me. Both the bridge and the thick foliage on the other side are inviting. There is a mystery ahead, a journey through unfamiliar territory. Perhaps even a stretch of jungle. But the road through the forest is there. It will be discovered by each person bold enough to cross the bridge and begin their journey of healing.