Creative Care: Wellness-Centered Creative Expression Workshops for People of the African Diaspora 

Yanna Marie Orcel 

Masters of Research, Royal College of Art 

Fine Arts & Humanities 

Professor Gemma Blackshaw

July 17, 2023 

Abstract 

It is widely acknowledged that African Americans face higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to their White counterparts; however there are few resources addressing tried methods of working with Black patients and within Black communities to aid their wellness through creative expression. Research project “Creative Care” was developed as a mode of making wellness-centered art exercises more accessible to Black identifying people; to provide opportunities for Black adults to engage in creative acts of exploration, processing and resilience building as a response to the ferocious and insidious effects of the lived experience of social and systematic racism—all while building and fostering a greater sense of community. This research examines the relationship between multicultural art therapy, Black identity, and community engagement through group sessions that invite participants to practice emotional identification, respond to artwork, meditate, create, and share through discussion. Creative Care utilizes art therapy approaches to provide African Americans and Black British participants with space to address their individual and group identity as members of the Black community; while also providing participants with forms of emotional regulation they can use thereafter. Workshops for this research utilized curricula that were specifically developed for people of the African diaspora. Two 6-session research workshops were conducted, one online with African Americans and the other held at Royal College of Art with London-based Black identifying students. The online workshop’s curricula explored the seven psychological benefits of art elaborated on in Alain de Botton and John Armstrong’s “Art as Therapy” (2013), through a Black lens. 

Keywords: wellness-centered art, multicultural art therapy, art psychotherapy, Black community, African American

Acknowledgements 

This research took tremendous support from a community of notably caring and thoughtful individuals. I thank licensed art psychotherapist Sama Hunt for providing me with over 10 hours of supervision where she held space for me to process difficult emotions surrounding the topics covered in the curriculum I developed. Thank you to my therapist Joyce Washington, your continued support and reminders have helped more than you know. This research would not have been possible without the support of my tutor Gemma Blackshaw, who provided me with appreciated new perspectives and wisdom. Esther Tiechmann, thank you for going above and beyond as head of MRes program, your guidance made a world of difference. 

I am eternally grateful for all the support and help I received from Dr. Lydia Clemmons of Clemmons Family Farm, to run the Black & Bliss: Creative Care workshop—the same goes for Roxanne Simone and Emily Moore, co-chairs of RCA BLK; I could not have run the Creative Care: RCA BLK workshops without the dedicated support of Roxanne, Emily, and Isabella “Izzie” Mensah. Many thanks to Ilk, who ran the Museum Education Practicum for the Studio Museum Institute (Studio Museum in Harlem), which taught me so much about creating and running a pro-Black art practicum. I want to thank all the RCA BLK members that extended community and care to me throughout my masters. I would also like to thank Harold Offeh for the support and for providing me with valuable resources that helped shape my research. 

Thank you Julie Duffy, my former art therapy professor, for the continued emotional support and love. Thank you to all 28 of the Creative Care participants, this research literally would not be possible without the contributions from each of you. The RCA BLK and Black & Bliss Creative Care participants shaped this research through and through—thank you each for your time, energy, honesty, reflections, and care. Thank you to my incredible friends for the continued support. I owe all the thanks in the world to my Mom, Nonna, and Dad who raised me to be the artist and researcher I am today. I also want to send immense thanks to every member of my family, both blood and chosen; I would not be able to bring this research project to fruition without each of your love and faith. Lastly, I’d like to express all the gratitude in the world to my older brother Dominic for teaching me from a young age how essential creative expression is for our mental and emotional well-being.  

Creative Care: Wellness-Centered Creative Expression Workshops for People of the African Diaspora 

Introduction 

Following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the American Art Therapy Association’s (AATA) 52nd Annual Confernce’s theme was ‘Reconnecting + Visualizing Future Pathways for Art Therapy in a Diverse Society’. The 2021 AATA Annual Conference’s multicultural theme was in response to the urgent need for creative wellness for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), brought to light by the major societal shift that resulted from the aforementioned 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. While the literature on multicultural art therapy approaches and research continues to grow since, there remains a need for forms of more accessible wellness-centered creative expression for people of the African diaspora; specifically for African American and Black British populations. The word ‘accessible’ is key here, and in regards to this research can be defined as: free of cost and using materials that are easily obtainable and often familiar to said population. Additionally, the language, curriculum, subject matter, methods, and approaches need to be carefully chosen specifically for working with these two populations—to ensure the intervention feels comfortable and accessible to participants in ways beyond tangibly quantifiable measurements. 

Before the name ‘Creative Care’ was coined for this research project, it went by ‘Creating 4 Change’. I initially held online sessions for members of the Black community and their allies following the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The 3-night online workshop was held via YouTube livestream (from May 8th to 10th, 2020), where participants engaged in a variety of activities, including meditation, group discussions, creative exercises, journaling, and political advocacy. This sparked what later evolved into my research at Royal College of Art (RCA). Following the 3-night workshop in honor of Ahmaud Arbery, I continued to facilitate additional workshops in the years to come to both mourn the deaths of and advocate for justice for Breonna Taylor, Quawan “Bobby” Charles, and Tyre Nichols. Alongside these wellness-centered art sessions, I worked with licensed art therapist Julie Duffy to practice horticultural therapy in response to the ongoing deaths resulting from police brutality and racially charged attacks in the United States at that time. We went on to create a ‘Black Lives Matter garden’, which was documented and uploaded to YouTube as one of the many videos I shared during the Summer of 2020 using therapeutic techniques to address grieving Black death—while also aiming to instill hope and advocate for social justice.

I utilized the skills obtained from gaining a Bachelors of Arts degree in Art Therapy (from Emmanuel College, Boston, Massachusetts) and my previous work experience in the field to hold space for myself and the Black community to process and grieve the deaths of countless African Americans through virtual workshop sessions. Prior to facilitating ‘Creating 4 Change’ and ‘Creative Care’ sessions, I worked as a mental health counselor for one year at an eating disorder residential unit (in Massachusetts); where I often ran creative expression group therapy and went on to create and run a 10-week art therapy group curriculum for patients. I continued my work in this field as a mental health counselor at a private psychiatric hospital (also located in Massachusetts) where I frequently ran creative expression group therapy for at-risk patients. My past experiences running art therapy groups in combination with my drive to gather people to stand up for the rights of Black people through artistic means gave me a deep desire to hold space for the Black community and its allies to collectively and creatively heal. As time went on, I realized the need for wellness-centered art workshops for Black identifying people must go beyond being held exclusively for grieving Black death. 

I knew first-hand (as an African American woman) how debilitating the psychological effects of living in a white supremacist society can be for people of the African diaspora’s psyche, body, heart, and spirit; which led me to expand my research further through what later became known as ‘Creative Care’. I believed that my work had to evolve further to allow me to extend care to people of the African diaspora beyond simply during the moments of processing tremendous loss. From my own lived experiences and those of my peers and family members, I noticed that being Black in a country that still upholds white supremacist values and where racial discrimination is commonplace has long-lasting damaging effects on individuals and the Black community as a whole—which is why I felt the urgent need to create curricula that provides Black people with forms of wellness-centered artistic practices that they could go on to facilitate within their own communities, ideally without an outside professional needed. I believed this would (1) help foster a greater sense of community within pre-existing Black communities, (2) provide participants with creative exercises they could turn to when in need of emotional-regulation, (3) empower Black communities to heal themselves through the arts (eliminating the need of additional external licensed professionals, funding, or support), and (4) assist in decolonizing the arts, specifically in the realm of art therapy. 

I soon realized after moving to London that while Black British people and African Americans experience very different forms of racism, the damaging effects appear to be prevalent among both populations. Black British individuals and communities also need to heal from the pain, loss, and hurt often felt when living in societies that uphold white supremacy—historically and in the present moment. As a facilitator, I found working with African Americans and Black British participants to be a very similar experience: both populations had a clear desire to come together to heal our individual and collective wounds. While attending RCA I experienced several acts of microaggressions, which led me to advocate for a Black counselor to be hired by the institution and the support to run a Creative Care workshop for Black identifying students. I did not anticipate when beginning my RCA journey that one of my research subjects would be the institution itself, however working within that institution to advocate for more effective wellness services to provide its Black students is a reflection of my deeply embedded longing to create the change I wish to see and experience in my own world and the world at large. 

Literature Review 

the Damaging Effects of White Supremacy

Trauma therapist and author of “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies”, Resmaa Menakem, explains how unavoidable white supremacy is to our mind, body, and psyche as Americans: “It is part of the operating system and organizing structure of American culture. It’s always functioning in the background, often invisibly, in our institutions, our relationships, and our interactions. The cultural operating system of white-body supremacy influences or determines many of the decisions we make, the options we select, the choices open to us, and how we make those decisions and choices.”

Menakem also argues that white supremacist operating systems affect everyone, regardless of race, and even furthermore that if you are born and raised in America, white-body supremacy is in your blood (2017). This unavoidable exposure to the insidious effects of white supremacy can have deeply damaging effects on African Americans’ psyche, body, heart, and spirit. Many artists address the effects white supremacy in relation to Black identity, specifically, Kara Walker’s work displays, as Elizabeth Alexander describes, “the societal psychosis that white supremacy produces and how racism corrodes and deforms everything it touches.” (2022).  

  As a Black person living in America today you cannot escape the anxiety that surrounds your safety at any given moment. Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett outlines the five common forms of anxiety and fear among Black women in America as: (1) panic attacks, (2) social phobia, (3) specific phobia, (4) generalized anxiety, and (5) obsessive-compulsive disorder (2003). With the development of technology, avoiding exposure to footage of Black death resulting from police brutality and racially charged attacks has become increasingly difficult, making those born in the past twenty-six years very aware that “anti-Black hatred and violence were never far away”—Elizabeth Alexander refers to this population as “the Trayvon Generation” (2022). I myself identify as a member of the Trayvon Generation since the killing of Trayvon Martin deeply impacted my view of safety as a Black teenager living in America. The Trayvon Generation and those of African descent living in America that came before find themselves living in a country unfit to protect them; singer H.E.R. speculates, in her song “I Can’t Breathe” (in response to the murder of George Floyd): “Generations and generations of pain, fear, and anxiety. Equality is walking without intuition saying the protector and the killer is wearing the same uniform.” (2020). The harmful effects of white supremacy in America are undeniable, so how do we heal? How can we come together to fight this? Menakem’s response is to change the culture. 

a Need for Communal Healing 

  Menakem’s solution is to change the culture because, through doing so, you change lives and even the course of history; he insists, “White-body supremacy is already a part of American culture…This means we must create new experiences of culture that call out, reject, and undermine white-body supremacy.” (2017). Menakem acknowledges that the three populations involved in police brutality in America, Black people, white people, and police officers, all need to come together—however he insists there has been too much pain for all three groups to come together as one at this moment. First, each of the aforementioned groups must come together to consciously and collectively heal from the effects of white-body supremacy. Menakem recognizes that when trauma is a collective experience, the healing must also be collective and communal. He believes, “This communal healing can help us steadily build respect, recognition, community, and eventually, culture.” (2017). The solution of communal healing in response to race-based traumatic stress is nothing new, author Bell Hooks speaks extensively on the importance of “sweet communion”, among Black women in particular, in “Sisters of the Yams: Black Women and Self-Recovery” (1993). 

  Hooks argues that creating communities for Black women to share in sisterhood assists us in taking care of ourselves which can in turn help us in fighting for social justice and equality. She asserts, “No level of individual self-actualization alone can sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to collective struggle, to communities of resistance that move us outward into the world.” In “Sisters of the Yams”, Hooks’ adds that taking care of ourselves, as Black people, is even a form of political resistance: “Living as we do in a white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal context that can best exploit us when we lack a firm grounding in self and identity (knowledge of who we are and where we have come from), choosing ‘wellness’ is an act of political resistance.” These suggested collective, wellness-centered, care groups for people of the African diaspora are referred to as “Sisters of the Yams support groups” by Hooks and “sister circles” by Neal-Barnett (1993; 2003). While these authors and Menakem each explicitly state the need for African Americans to come together collectively to heal, there is no mention of using creative expression to aid this. 

Multicultural Art Therapy 

  In “Handbook of Art Therapy: Second Edition” Marian Liebmann highlights the reasons for group work in art therapy, including “people with similar needs can provide mutual support for each other and help with mutual problem solving”; I would add that this is prevalent for the Black community, whether in the US or UK since the ‘similar need’ could be expressed as a safe space to heal the wounds left from living in a society that upholds white supremacist values. Additionally, Liebmann offers that groups have the ability to provide a sense of belonging and identity, which I personally witnessed through the Creative Care: RCA BLK case study (Malchiodi, 2012). When looking at the intersectionality between Black community and art therapy, it is necessary to address that art therapy is directly rooted in Whiteness and therefore aligns with white supremacy. Elanna Abreu elaborates in her capstone thesis, for her MA in expressive therapies: “Art therapy in our modern age is White. Art therapy is middle class. Art therapy requires capital to be able to pursue the career. Art therapy requires capital to be able to receive treatment. Art therapy is accessible to those who fulfill all of those prerequisites.” (2021). Recognizing the benefits of therapeutic art while also acknowledging its lack of accessibility to the Black community inspired me to develop and research the Creative Care Approach as a more realistic alternative and/or addition. 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, developed a hierarchy of needs (referred to as ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’) to address the psychological needs of all human beings. At the base level, are the physiological needs, which are the biological needs for human survival. One level above the physiological needs are safety needs. Once someone’s safety needs and physiological needs are met, they are then able to fulfill their needs surrounding love and belonging; through interpersonal relationships. Next, on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is esteem needs and above that is self-actualization. The Creative Care Approach aims to address love and belongingness needs and esteem needs for participants, with a hope this will assist them in getting closer to or reaching self-actualization.

Black Joy 

 Black joy has become an underlying theme of the Creative Care Approach, as it has evolved. When the research unofficially first began, it was a response to the grief and anger we were currently experiencing when #JusticeforAhmaudArbery and #RunWithMaud began trending on social media in May of 2020. However, it seemed as though the missing piece was Black Joy. What I refer to as “Black Joy” Audre Lorde references as “The Erotic”:

“The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects - born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.” (Lorde, 1978)

While Lorde, Neal-Barnett, and Hooks are specifically addressing women, I believe that nowadays as a society we are (a) becoming more accepting of viewing gender as a spectrum, (b) recognizing the ‘Divine Feminine’ and “Divine Masculine’ within each of us, and (c) rightfully promoting more men to look after their mental health and well-being—therefore I find these works of literature’s messages can be applicable to people of all genders. Excluding Resmaa Menakem’s contribution, the entirety of this literature review has included the works of Black feminist writers. I feel I should include that while I never deliberately utilized feminist approaches during the Creative Care workshops, as a feminist, feminism inherently shines through everything I do, write, and create. 

Methods 

The methods used for this practice-based research include surveying, emotional identification, supervision, Black art history exploration and education, meditation, art making, writing/documentation, and group discussion. The RCA BLK Creative Care workshop sessions curriculum was developed in response to the 18 responses from a survey collected during term 1 (Appendix A). The curriculum for the Black & Bliss: Creative Care sessions that took place online was developed to further the research provided in “Art as Therapy” (de Botton & Armstrong, 2013). While the online session’s curriculum was not created in response to survey results, both workshops used anonymous surveys to collect further insight on the participants' feelings, attitudes, and experiences following each session (Appendix D). 

The Creative Care Approach comprises four key elements: (1) Black art history exploration and education, (2) meditation, (3) art making, and (4) group discussion. To begin each session participants share their first name, pronouns, and one word to describe how they’re feeling in that moment. Following brief introductions, participants are met with an image of a work of art made by an artist of African descent. Participants are given 2-5 minutes to review the artwork before sharing their reflections and responses through group discussion. This provides participants with a welcoming ice-breaker exercise while also introducing participants to artwork by Black artists they may not already be aware of. In “Art as Therapy”, the authors elaborate on the seven psychological benefits of art from a viewer stand-point; this opening activity provides participants with a moment to experience one or more of the seven psychological benefits of art from drawing upon connections between themselves and the artwork featured (de Botton & Armstrong, 2013). 

After responding to the artwork featured, each Creative Care session features a 3-10 min meditation. This provides participants with a moment to connect to their breath, ground themselves, and attempt to become more present. Meditation is commonly used for stress relief (Mayo Clinic, 2022), which makes it appropriate for Black populations considering the hypertension experienced by people of the African diaspora—approximately 55% of Black American adults have high blood pressure (American Heart Association, 2022). Since medical research has shown that regular meditation can help with managing high blood pressure (Maine Health Line, 2020), this practice could benefit participants' physical health as well as their emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Additionally, research suggests that meditation can also help with reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and heart disease; making this an opportune method for working within a population that exhibits said illnesses (Mayo Clinic, 2022). 

Art therapy approaches and techniques are utilized for the art making portion of each Creative Care session; drawing upon existing literature and research to adapt creative expression exercises for this specific population. After the creative exercise, participants engage in show and tell, where they each share, elaborate on, and reflect upon the artwork made during the session. Afterwards, participants share one word to describe how they feel at the end of session before additional resources are handed out. Emotional identification is employed by bringing awareness to how participants feel at the start compared to the end of the sessions. Throughout term 2, I facilitated 14 Creative Care workshop sessions and attended 9 sessions of 1:1 supervision with licensed art psychotherapist Samantha Hunt at the London Art Therapy Centre. 

A research method used which is discussed in more detail in the Creative Care book is my individual art practice: including collage making, letter writing, performance, and more. Additionally, throughout conducting this research, I have documented my findings and reflections through writing. The research findings and approaches are clearly documented in the book I wrote for my practice. The goal of the Creative Care book is to make the research available for public dissemination, so that hopefully Black people from across the US and UK use this information to then run Creative Care workshops within their communities. As the research progressed, it became clear that this was a form of action research; where my individual practice informed the writing and workshops, which also informed one another. 

Case Studies 

Case Study: RCA BLK 

 Creative Care: RCA BLK was a 6-session workshop that ran throughout the month of March 2023 for current RCA BLK students, at Battersea campus. For the first session we addressed healing and communal care through free-drawing activities and collective brainstorming. The following session we addressed Black and self identity through deconstructed collage making. For the third session, we addressed the topic of taking up space unapologetically (as Black artists) through collective cardboard sculpture making. For the fourth Creative Care: RCA BLK workshop session, we decorated the cardboard sculpture from the week prior with themes of Black joy and love; additionally we ended the session with a group dance party with our sculpture. I ran two of the Black joy and love themed sessions to accommodate participant’s schedules. For the final session, we came together to address our relationship with mental health and nature; following a group discussion on mental health, we went to Battersea park to take photos of representations of nature that reflect our mental health journey. The themes and art materials used for the workshop were identified through an anonymous survey from December 2022 where 18 current RCA BLK students responded; the researcher then created and ran a curriculum based on the survey responses. There were a total of 9 participants, each identified as Black women. All (9 of 9) of the participants responded to an anonymous feedback survey following the completion of the workshop's run. The results from that survey are as follows: 

• 100% of participants reported that attending the workshop improved their overall experience (as Black students) at Royal College of Art.

• 100% reported that attending the workshop sessions assisted in fostering a greater sense of community among themselves and fellow RCA BLK students.

• 100% agreed that the workshop sessions provided them with space to reflect on their individual identity and healing journey.

• 100% found the integration of meditation (in the workshop sessions) useful.

• 88.9% (8 out of 9 participants) said that the workshop sessions provided them with opportunities to engage in creative acts of exploration, processing and resilience building (as a response to the ferocious and insidious effects of social and systematic racism).

• 88.9% reported that attending the workshop sessions benefited their well-being and mental health.

• 88.9% said that the workshop sessions they attended provided them with new wellness-centered creative activities and techniques.

• 88.9% of the participants experimented with new mediums or art materials in the workshop.

• 5 of the 9 participants found working with cardboard to be the most memorable/useful material they explored throughout the workshop. 2 participants favored yarn/string and digital photography. 

• 4 participants (44.4%) requested topics were covered during the 6-session workshop—requested topics were expressed through an intake survey in December; The other 5 participants (55.6%) did not fill out the initial intake survey.

Additionally, the anonymous personal testimonies highlighted how valuable the workshops were to participants. Some quotes from participants’ personal testimonies include: 

• “The creative care workshops have been one of the most important things I’ve done this year at the RCA. It created a much needed space that allowed me to meet other black students and build new friendships. Each session was thought about carefully and I got so much from attending, I was able to unload and use creative tools to work through different feelings which improved my wellbeing and gave me something to look forward to every week!”

• “The creative care sessions were extremely grounding for me during my time at the RCA. It created a space to play unapologetically with different materials. I found the sessions were welcoming and a safe space to express and meet fellow black creatives at RCA.”

• “I attended a creative care session during the winter, during a really tough time in my life, and being able to attend allowed me to find some sense of connection with my peers. It helped me be vulnerable within a space that is safe and curated with people that are also going through similar experiences. As an artist, I think having these spaces are invaluable as they help us combat the stresses of being a minority group within an institution like RCA. I think they should be implemented university-wide. It may seem small but, I had been facing some really low moments and finding a connection may have saved my life.”

The only areas of improvement indicated from survey responses was a desire for more and longer Creative Care workshop sessions throughout the academic year. 

Case Study: Black & Bliss

Black & Bliss: Creative Care was a weekly online workshop that ran for 6 weeks from March 8th to April 12th, 2023. This workshop was created and run by myself, Yanna Marie Orcel, in collaboration with Black-owned, Vermont non-profit organization Clemmons Family Farm. The majority of participants (13) were ages 18 to 55+, living in the United States, while 4 participants were living in London, England and 1 participant was living in Montreal, Canada. All 18 participants identify as Black, African American, and/or of the African diaspora. Other than the “Biracial Identity” / self portrait themed workshop, the workshop’s curriculum was developed in response to the seven psychological benefits of art outlined in Alain de Botton & John Armstrong’s “Art as Therapy”; however the curriculum was adapted to promote wellness-centered art making, through a Black lens. The seven psychological benefits of art explored creatively were: (1) remembering; through mind maps and letter writing, (2) sorrow & hope; through free-drawing, (3) rebalancing; through collage making, (4) self-understanding; through reviewing Black art (from Studio Museum in Harlem’s online collection), and (5) appreciation & growth; through group writing, mixed media, and dance. 

After the completion of the workshops, 9 of the 18 participants (50%) responded to an anonymous survey sharing their reflections and attitudes: 

• 100% said that the workshop sessions provided them with opportunities to engage in creative acts of exploration, processing and resilience building (as a response to the ferocious and insidious effects of social and systematic racism).

• 100% responded that the workshop sessions provided them with space to reflect on their individual identity and healing journey.

• 100% reported that attending the workshops benefited their well-being and mental health.

• 100% found that attending the workshops provided them with new wellness-centered creative activities and techniques.

• 100% reported that attending the workshop sessions assisted them in their healing journey.

• 87.5% (7) of the participants reported that attending the workshops improved their understanding of the 7 psychological benefits of art. 

• 88.9% (8 of 9 participants) reported that attending the workshop sessions assisted in fostering a greater sense of community among themselves and other participants.

• 88.9% of participants found the integration of meditation (in the workshops) useful.

• 66.7% (6 of the 9 participants that responded to the survey) said that they were able to connect with friends or family through the online sessions. 

Anonymous personal testimonies from participants include: 

• “The experience of interpreting art in session led to myself reclaiming more of my artful expressiveness, and sharing my art with peers and engaging with theirs provided a sense of vulnerability and solidarity with a group. My sense of self was healing, and I appreciate this aspect of the session attended.”

• “I was not able to attend all of the workshops and the workshop I participated in largely impacted my state of mind. I left feeling lighter, grateful and mindful of myself and my surroundings, it was a positive reminder in many ways. The space was inviting and felt extremely authentic, albeit over a shared virtual space and the session was facilitated very well by Yanna. It was joyful to connect and create with Black people, especially from all the way across the Atlantic ocean.”

• “Though most people in the sessions were strangers to me, Yanna was able to cultivate such a familial space that all of the participants and myself found it so easy to authentically interact with one another. We were able to discuss and learn so many intimate parts of each other that it was so easy to bond and leave as no longer strangers but as new/reconnected friends.”

Conclusions 

 This research provided me with two tried and tested wellness-centered art workshops curricula. The anonymous feedback survey results suggest that the Creative Care Approach was effective in its goals (outlined in the introduction section). I was able to identify the following art materials as being appropriate for use (in combination with therapeutic art approaches) for Black identifying participants: cardboard, yarn, digital photography (through camera phones), and general drawing supplies (such as markers, pencils, and pens). The anonymous survey results strongly suggest that this form of/approach of wellness-centered art was effective and accessible among Black identifying participants. Since the workshops ended, participants from both cohorts have expressed an interest in more Creative Care sessions; especially pertaining to the Biracial identity as well as mental health and nature. It should be acknowledged that all participants indicated to have their safety and physiological needs met (from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs); I point this out to acknowledge that the curricula developed may not be as accessible to individuals and communities without their physiological needs met. I would like to explore Creative Care for Black identifying homeless people to adapt this curriculum/approach to suit their needs. Additionally, I would like to facilitate Creative Care workshops with both elderly and incarcerated African Americans.

 While I was able to gather an informative amount of research, the following questions still remain unanswered: (1) Can pre-existing Black communities adapt this curricula without the presence of myself or a trained art psychotherapist/art therapist? (2) Are licensed art therapists necessary for this work? (3) What would an all male participant Creative Care session look like? (4) How might this curriculum and approach shape-shift to become accessible to more specific populations? (5) What additional accessible art materials would be successful among participants?, and (6) Would the Creative Care Approach work well among groups of two? The last question mentioned stems from the fact that the minimum number of participants of the workshop sessions I ran was three. This research has already received praise in the field of art therapy, as I will present my research findings at this year’s 53rd Annual American Art Therapy Association Conference. When I began this research I was unsure of how well it would be received among art therapy practitioners, as the Creative Care Approach can be seen as an alternative to traditional art therapy; so to receive positive feedback from the American Art Therapy Association validates this research’s significance and urgency.   

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Details of group artwork, made among seven, Black, RCA students during three Creative Care sessions: one session dedicated to Taking Up Space Unapologetically (as Black artists), and two sessions dedicated to the celebration of Black joy and love.