Art for Health and Happiness Club

Blog #8

       I was about eight that summer when I decided that our neighborhood needed a club.  That was a way we could get together for a positive purpose and have fun.  Since I was the oldest girl, I decided to organize the others.  I called it the Art for Health and Happiness Club. 

       We would get together several times a week to make crafts (cards and gifts) for others and sometimes for ourselves. We had no money, so we were supposed to find envelopes and other items from our parents’ trash that we could use for our crafts.  It was so exciting to me.  It was thrilling to think of creative new ways to use old or unneeded things. 

       In June, I remember we collected rose petals from the ground in jars filled with water and sealed the lids to make perfume.  Delicate rose petals would certainly make the most fragrant perfume, I thought.  Of course, the murky water had a scent that was anything but fragrant.

       Digging through old envelopes, paper and other trash, though an adventure for me, was a concern to my mother who did not want our family business distributed through out the neighborhood.  She decided that she needed to check what I pulled from the trash, before I could use the items for crafts.  This limited our supplies a little, but we still managed to find what we needed. (One side benefit of this was that I did start collecting stamps, because of all the interesting stamps I saw on the envelopes in the trash.)

      The other neighborhood children soon lost interest in the club, but I stuck with it.  I loved the creative process of making something from nothing and sharing arts and crafts with others. Most of my life, I have been involved with children and even adults, at school, church, home and camp using arts and crafts for "health and happiness". I have never lost my interest.

      When you see me at garage sales, thrift stores, and store clearance aisles, look at the items I purchase.  Chenille strips, foam, stickers, small flowers, feathers, colored paper, envelopes, ribbon and crafts sticks are some of the treasures I might swoop up.  Even if I have no idea what to do with a given item at the time of purchase, it will eventually be used by someone for something. That is the nature of the creativity game! 

      Children of all ages enjoy being creative and expressing themselves with arts and crafts. There are no wrong answers in art. Every project is always beautiful as is the one creating it.   From my experience, even adolescent boys enjoy arts and crafts as much as six year old girls do. They just like different projects.

       As the school year, of my thirtieth year of public school teaching, begins in two weeks, I look forward to getting a whole new group of kids.  All of my students are automatically in the Art for Health and Happiness Club, even though they never hear the name of the club or know that they are in it.. In my class every gesture of creativity is appreciated and nurtured.  The supplies  we use are better and brighter than when I was eight. The homemade cards, gifts and projects are still a great source of joy to the one who makes them and the one who views them or receives them.  Yes, I am still the oldest girl and I am still in the club.