BOUNTIFUL — At the Bountiful Davis Arts Center lies a collection of small glass artworks that tells a much deeper story of healing through their creation.
The Fragments to Wholeness art show beautifully captures the resilience and creativity of teen sexual abuse survivors. The artworks were created by a group of 11 teenage girls who participated in a glass art therapy program.
The young artists hosted a recent private showing with those they considered “safe.” Their artworks will be on display at the Bountiful Davis Arts Center until July 3.
Because of sensitive situations, none of the artwork is identified by name. But each girl did write an anonymous artist statement to accompany their glass projects.
“I felt stuck, alone, scared and dull. Through art, I find peace, comfort, color and authenticity. Through sharing my story, I have come to realize there is power in telling your story and that we are not alone,” one of the artists says.
One girl shared how the class helped her heal her inner child, who was angry about what happened to her; the art class allowed her to let her inner child take control. Other artists said the class helped them learn it’s OK for life to be messy and that there is peace in creating.
“I felt like I couldn’t share anything with anyone besides my sketchbook. I’ve tried many kinds of therapies, but none have felt as healing as this class,” one girl said.
Therapist Holly Willard explained how people’s brains can get stuck in fight, flight or freeze after experiencing trauma. Traumatic memories are typically stored somatically or with senses in the brain rather than in verbal language, causing it to be difficult to talk about, especially for children, she said.
“Being able to use expressive arts is a way for them to describe the indescribable,” Willard said. Expressive arts and movement therapy can be so beneficial for trauma victims as it helps them understand what happened to them and be able to explain it.
Willard has been utilizing expressive arts in therapy for over two decades at Grandview Family Counseling. After meeting artist Sarinda Jones in an art class, she thought it would be a great idea to host a glass art workshop for trauma victims, but the problem was glass can be pretty expensive.
Grandview for Good, the nonprofit sector of Grandview Family Counseling, is dedicated to making therapy more accessible, in partnership with the nonprofit No More Victims, to provide funding that will make the program free for participants. The participants made six glass projects during the six-week therapy course, discovering how to work with glass while also learning how to cope with their trauma.
Similar to the Japanese art of kintsugi — where broken pottery is mended with gold — the program aimed to show the girls that even if they feel like broken glass, they can be transformed into a masterpiece. The therapists ensured the teens knew what happened to them wasn’t their fault and that they could still rebuild, Willard said.
“In glass class, you take a bunch of hard, rocky, sharp glass pieces, as glass tends to be, and melt them into something beautiful. That’s what I can do, too,” one of the artists said in her statements.
One of the biggest successes of the program was the powerful community the girls gained through each other. The girls were able to talk and process their own situations while supporting one another, Willard said.
“What most of them described at the end that was healing for them, was having a place where they got seen in a way they hadn’t felt seen before. Not seen by a therapist, because we can say all the same things to them, but it doesn’t make as big a difference as when they are seen by their peers,” she said.
Listening to each other’s stories helped the girls know they are not alone and that they can heal from their wounds.
“This has been the best experience since my assault. The amount of love and unconditional support has been so incredible and so unwavering. These girls have taught me strength and resilience and how to love after being violated. I am so incredibly grateful for this group,” one of the program participants said.
Grandview for Good is hoping to raise enough funding to host the glass art therapy program again in the fall, with one course for ages 12-18 and another for adults.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
