EYM, Inc: Transforming Lives

Why Art as a response to violence?

Art and healing have always been one. It has been found by researchers that art, prayer and healing all come from the same source in the body, creating similar brain waves and mind-body changes.

Think back to seeing a small child busy with her coloring, lost in creation. No hunger, no fighting, no need other than the task at hand. Her breathing slows, her eyes, hands, mouth and spirit all connected in the present. I have seen this same shift in the kids I work with at the detention center, and in adults and kids in psychiatric facilities, excused for a brief time from their turmoil. The energy changes, the molecules in the room seem to shift...healing is present.

Why art as a response to violence? Simply put, because it opens our hearts and connects us to each other...both as artist and observer.

The violence we and our children endure either as victims, observers or perpetrators bares a devastating toll on our society and souls. Art has always been a way to honor that collective devastation. It can take the form of long standing statues of historic heroes or in a more local way such as the Express Yourself “Remembrance Tree," at Golda Meir School, each leaf bearing the names of a child in Milwaukee who has lost his or her life to violence.

Related to:art therapy violence education Yourself

Art can honor our individual pain as a tool for healing and self expression. It serves to extract the pain and confusion we hold in our chaotic unspeakable deeper selves. It places what is difficult to articulate out into the world of our senses. Art allows a shift, an unblocking of these internal poisons while allowing the “fresh air” of the witness to connect and heal us.

As the only animal on this earth that makes art for self expression, it reminds us of our humanity. The tragedy and glory of human pain and triumph. It at once takes the artist all the way inside and calls the viewer all the way out to a place were we can meet.

Whether the artist is professional or amateur, the viewers eye trained or raw, the results are the same. Whether the art takes the form of theatre, song, dance, visual art, drumming, stomping, blurting, screaming or tenderly folding paper...we are, in the moment of its creation, changed.

At a recent local Reggae concert I witnessed black, white, brown, young, old, conservative and wild all bouncing to the same beat, all smiling. You could catch the eye of any of these humans and share a knowing smile. What did we know? That in that moment for that brief time we knew we were ONE. The same bounce, the same rhythm reflecting our collective heartbeats. In that brief glimpse of our ONENESS it was unthinkable to do each other harm.

Let us find and provide more opportunities to know our ONENESS...let us do art!!!!!!

sidekick

This is a copy of my blog posted in: readers blogs. In a world infected by the power of toxic fear and chronic greed our social system has lost its responsibility to the sanctity of human life. War is more important than education. Ownership and profit margins are more important than health care, food, clothing and shelter. Consequently, disparity occurs. Hearts are broken and minds are lost. Poverty breeds hopelessness, low self-esteem, anger and and fatal self destruction. Human relationships lay in ruin. I am a visual artist and since my earliest years art has served as a safe place to reveal my scary feelings and as a place to discover hope. As I have grown into adulthood I've realized that the condition of this world and my perceived powerlessness in it has caused me to feel rage and anger. Making art has taught me that my anger can be constructive when I channel its powerful energy into actions of peace and love. Art is vital to our healing as a broken people. Not only can it restore us as a community also it brings us closer to and makes us more aware of the "self" inside each one of us where our power to change begins. Recently I have been given the opportunity to be a volunteer with Express Yourself Milwaukee -EYM inc., a non-profit organization that uses art, music, dance, writing and many other expressive medium to clean the wounds and heal the pain that so MANY of our youth endure while living in this infected society. The people of EYM are reaching out to those who walk the neighborhood dodging bullets, and to those who have lost family and friends to violence and drugs and to those who are victims of abuse, injustice and disenfranchisement, and to our youths who are lost and are already familiar with incarceration. It is not effective to pity the underserved population in our community. Only in solidarity will we mend the relationships necessary to make real change. EYM in itself is a work of art. It is an action of peace and love in response to the condition of an ugly, angry world. EYM nurtures the power within us to make our lives better. As we become better people the world becomes a better place. I am fortunate to work and to grow with Express Yourself Milwaukee and I encourage any and everyone to visit www.expressyourselfmilwaukee.org Put the word on the street that EYMinc. is on the map! peace

One way to respond to violence in Miltown "please forgive me i am new at this. i alredy posted this comment but didn't realize it would be posted on the website. so i am posting it again with a better headline." This is a copy of my blog posted in: readers blogs. In a world infected by the power of toxic fear and chronic greed our social system has lost its responsibility to the sanctity of human life. War is more important than education. Ownership and profit margins are more important than health care, food, clothing and shelter. Consequently, disparity occurs. Hearts are broken and minds are lost. Poverty breeds hopelessness, low self-esteem, anger and and fatal self destruction. Human relationships lay in ruin. I am a visual artist and since my earliest years art has served as a safe place to reveal my scary feelings and as a place to discover hope. As I have grown into adulthood I've realized that the condition of this world and my perceived powerlessness in it has caused me to feel rage and anger. Making art has taught me that my anger can be constructive when I channel its powerful energy into actions of peace and love. Art is vital to our healing as a broken people. Not only can it restore us as a community also it brings us closer to and makes us more aware of the "self" inside each one of us where our power to change begins. Recently I have been given the opportunity to be a volunteer with Express Yourself Milwaukee -EYM inc., a non-profit organization that uses art, music, dance, writing and many other expressive medium to clean the wounds and heal the pain that so MANY of our youth endure while living in this infected society. The people of EYM are reaching out to those who walk the neighborhood dodging bullets, and to those who have lost family and friends to violence and drugs and to those who are victims of abuse, injustice and disenfranchisement, and to our youths who are lost and are already familiar with incarceration. It is not effective to pity the underserved population in our community. Only in solidarity will we mend the relationships necessary to make real change. EYM in itself is a work of art. It is an action of peace and love in response to the condition of an ugly, angry world. EYM nurtures the power within us to make our lives better. As we become better people the world becomes a better place. I am fortunate to work and to grow with Express Yourself Milwaukee and I encourage any and everyone to visit www.expressyourselfmilwaukee.org Put the word on the street that EYMinc. is on the map! peace

Blanca M.

I had no idea there was anything like this, let alone in Milwaukee!

It is awesome isn't it! I wish milwaukee could've offered EYM to me when I was young and truamatized by life.

EYM, Inc: Transforming Lives

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