✦ "Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."
- Pablo Picasso
Mental health is gaining importance and it is a positive sign to see more people willing to have conversations about the subject and share stories about their experiences and recoveries.
Art therapy is a tool for mental health recovery. It is not always easy to express accurately what we feel, or how we feel. Very often we lack the words and sometimes even language is not enough to really give voice to our experiences and feelings.
That is where art therapy comes in. It leads the mind and body into a state of relaxation and it helps one to de-stress. That opens up a space for deeper feelings and thoughts to come up.
Why do Art Therapy?
People who have experienced the benefits of art therapy share how their self-awareness has increased. They are better able to identify their feelings and are more aware of how situations, things and people are affecting them. This helps to give them a way to ground themselves.
When in the past they used to feel lost, helpless and even hopeless, art therapy has helped them to learn about themselves so they can better manage their behaviours. They are faster at noticing their symptoms and finding a way to cope as opposed to being dragged along by them.
Ultimately, it builds self-esteem because they can now solve problems by looking at them with a different perspective.
Kim Staples, Award-Winning Artist and Art Therapist
Born in Paddington in Sydney, Kim Staples now lives in the beautiful mid north coast in Port Macquarie with her husband.
As an award winning Australian artist, Kim Staples draws her inspiration from the colours and beauty of her natural surroundings. Her work is influenced by her life experiences, inner emotions and intuition, a mindset she takes into all the mediums she explores including water based mixed media and sculpting. Kim Staples' art explodes with colours. When you see Kim, you know she is an art of life!
Kim Staples is an award-winning Australian artist who is the creator of Art of Life. She is committed to providing an art therapy space to youth, adults, Alzheimer's sufferers, people with disabilities, special needs and other challenging conditions in the community.
She teaches children, school students, and adults. Kim conducts personal one-on-one classes at home. Her special needs students are under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and they have assistance to access community social and recreational activities on individual weekdays.
Kim Staples' Mission
Kim's mission is to provide a safe, open and warm environment to support people to achieve, improve and develop healthy emotions through the arts. With children, she finds joy in helping them discover their creative talents. You never know what a child can do until you give them the freedom and support to simply be the creative person they already are. With more mature students, she guides them to let their creative side take over and give less attention to the disruptive cares of everyday life.
Kim is passionate about helping people with special needs. Through her art, she has experienced how it has helped people cope with emotional, mental, physical issues as well as developmental needs and disorders. For Kim, art is the key to one's soul. An empty canvas, a bit of paint, a brush is all they need, and that is a beautiful invitation to anyone to take a journey into the core of their being.
There is an openness to art and creativity that allows participants to feel safe to experiment and open up. There is no fear or judgement here and when guided by Kim's kindness and gentleness, participants dare to venture further. Through art, Kim is helping people to create harmony in their hearts, minds, bodies and spirits. Many enter the first time with a feeling of chaos and hopelessness, and her artistic space is where they have learnt to feel at home, to be calm and feel safe just being there with themselves.
Kim's Creative and Reflective Art Classes
Kim believes art is a therapeutic expressive tool. It allows people to express their inner thoughts, emotions and helps them to have emotional well-being.
Kim uses a variety of different mediums in her classes such as paint, paper, crayons, pens and textural products. It is extremely safe, open and inclusive space to be in. You do not need any special art skills or talent just a willingness to express yourself.
Her classes are suitable for all ages, and Kim knows just how to connect with people regardless of their age or personal experience.
How it Started
Kim’s passion for arts started in high school. Throughout the years she dabbled in the arts but did not make a career of it until she moved to Port Macquarie in 2003.
Kim's passion for helping people started when she completed an art therapy certification course and a lifeline telephone counselling course in 2008.
Since then, she has been working with children, adults and people with disabilities.
Having heard so many people share their difficult stories, she believes that art therapy can help people to find the light at the end of a dark emotional tunnel.
Kim's Special Space
Art to me is a therapeutic tool. It allows the artist to tell a creative and expressive story. It is an incredible tool in the visual world of healing. When one has no words to express their experiences and emotions, art can be the channel they can use to express themselves. It helps to release emotions that have been too unbearable to deal with. Some of these may go back many years and unearthing these emotions can be very painful and frightening. With the help of art therapy, people are gradually able to put aside these fears and start sharing their stories and experiences.
Kim's Creative and Reflective Art Classes provide a safe and supportive environment to express themselves. It also takes a special mindset to be able to listen to or simply witness what people are able to share about their experiences. In a comfortable space that is filled with beautiful colours, materials and textures. And opportunities to create. Especially to create a new way of being and a more joyful life. Perhaps even one with laughter and fun.
People leave feeling lighter, more empowered, and so much more hopeful about the future. They walk away with their unique artworks which, beyond the aesthetic value, is also proof of their courage and effort in being able to sit with their difficult emotions and allow them to surface, no matter how painful it was.
Benefits of Kim's Creative ad Reflective Art Classes
Simply by allowing your Inner Artist to take the lead, being in Kim's art therapy sessions can help people find solutions to the following:
• lift depression
• learn how to cope with disability and illness
• release negative emotions and disorders
• cope with domestic violence and abuse
• take control of addictions
• assist in family and relationship harmony
• cope with grief, trauma and loss
• strengthen self-worth
• achieve general well being
No matter what one's situation is, art therapy offers a ray of hope for change. And many have experienced Kim's gentle guidance as she helps people to begin to want to live life with joy again. And they are doing this one brushstroke at a time. Everyone is doing their best to paint a new and beautiful future for themselves.
"Kim Staples has run Art Therapy sessions at every one of my seven retreats. Her session has been a pivotal part of each of my Weight Loss and Wellness retreats both here in Australia and overseas. The feedback we receive from Kim’s life changing sessions has been incredibly positive, some saying that her session was the highlight of the retreat. Through Kim’s honest, caring and passionate commitment to helping people through Art Therapy I have seen firsthand transformations in people. I can whole heartily recommend Kim, she is the best at what she does. Her knowledge and experience shows how empowering Art Therapy can be."
Annette Sym
Symply Too Good To Be True
Author/Publisher/Speaker/Retreat Facilitator
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