Inside the Wayne Center for the Arts in Wooster on a recent evening, pottery instructor Beth Negro taught a class of 20 women how to make clay bowls shaped like spring flowers.
She showed them how to cut petals from a slab.
“Every one you cut, you want it as close to the next as you can so you can get the most out of your clay,” she said.
Negro walked around the room, offering words of encouragement from time to time.
“You got it!” she reassured one of the students. “Beautiful.”
This class is a partnership between the Wayne Center for the Arts and OneEighty, an organization specializing in addiction, mental health and domestic violence recovery.
These women are in OneEighty’s residential addiction recovery program. They come downtown for this pottery class once a month.
One of the clients, Danielle Drost, is in the program for the second time. She loves the pottery class.
“We get to act like a family. We're all a family, we're all enjoying doing something fun,” Drost said. “It's kind of like nice to not have stress on it and just get to be yourself.”
But there’s even more to it than that, she added.
“There weren't many things I was completing in my life or doing anything productive before I got the chance to come back,” Drost said. “So, at least this feels like, ‘Ah, look what I did.'
You know, it's super exciting.”
Working with clay helps clients process trauma, stay engaged in treatment
OneEighty has two residential treatment programs: one for women and another for men.
Clients are dealing with a variety of concerns – like substance abuse, crime and mental health, said Clinical Director John Fishburn.
The 60-day program gives them the tools they need to get back on track. They learn coping skills and behavioral health strategies and receive counseling, he said.
But their participation in activities like the pottery class is what makes the difference, he said.
“The biggest predictor of client success is how engaged they are in treatment,” Fishburn said “That's my goal, is I want people, not only they have to be here and they have to do the groups and they to do the counseling, but let's make it fun.”
Ohio became the eighth state to classify art therapy as a clinical treatment for mental health issues almost three years ago. Studies have long shown the benefits of art therapy in treating mental health and addiction, said Wayne Center for the Arts Executive Director Sara Brink.
“We see on a regular basis the value that the arts bring to the lives of the people who engage with them, and how important the arts can be for our mental health,” Brink said. “These wonderful breakthroughs that people are able to have while engaging a different part of their brain and letting themselves just really feel. I just think for our community as a whole, it's just such a wonderful positive.”
Art allows people to express themselves and work through complex thoughts and feelings, she added.
“Sometimes language can be wonderful in helping us to express ourselves, but sometimes language can also really be a limitation in our being able to express what we're going through,” Brink said. “By taking language out of the equation and allowing people to really express those emotions from a very raw place without necessarily needing to struggle with defining something with words, I think it really opens up a lot of doors for people.”
Many of OneEighty’s patients have turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with underlying trauma, so during treatment, they may have to relive difficult moments of their past, Fishburn said.
Working with clay helps ground them.
“Just being able to like grab the clay, work with the clay, use the clay,” Fishburn added. “Clients have said they've really enjoyed just being to do it, express themselves with that and then put what they do on display.”
One client, Megan Carter, said pottery class helps take her mind off of things.
“Yes, I am in recovery, but there are still days where it's hard and it gives you something to do - somewhere for your mind to go,” Carter said.
Activities like pottery class also give clients a hobby to look forward to picking up when they have completed the program, Fishburn added.
Pottery teaches life lessons – and self-worth
Clients also love the pottery instructor, Beth Negro, Fishburn said.
Negro connects with the clients because of what she learned when she first took a pottery class back in the '90s, she said.
“I was actually dealing with, I don't know, some personal things, and my therapist said, you should do something, you know, try something,” Negro said. “Once I did it, it just... It blossomed from there. It was the way I needed to go. It was magical. And in many ways, I feel like pottery kind of saved my life.”
Negro loves seeing students discover the same magic she found in her first class, she said.
While making art of any kind can be therapeutic, pottery in particular can be helpful for people dealing with addiction, Negro added.
The clients are often self-critical and focus on the mistakes of their past.
Pottery, coincidentally, is full of mistakes. Projects rarely turn out exactly as planned, she said.
“You can go through the whole process and still at the end, in the firing, it can be destroyed,” Negro said. “That’s what happens with life. You're trying, and you're doing, and bad things happen. It doesn't go the way you planned. And through that, how are you being to yourself, right?”
Negro teaches students to be kind to themselves when their projects don’t turn out the way they hoped – a message that’s especially important for these clients, she said.
“They're desperately hard on themselves. They have this frame of mind that it has to be perfect, or you just have not met the mark,” Negro said. “No, that's not what it's about. Nothing about clay is going to be perfect - nothing. And it is, it's a life skill of coping and learning. And I’ve found that it has changed a lot of attitudes.”
For Drost, one of the participants, the class has helped her learn to cope with – and even embrace – imperfection.
Pottery allows her to experiment and make projects her own, she said.
“The last time that I was here, we made pumpkins, but they let me make it into a moon and make it my own little thing,” Drost said. “It's like my favorite decor I have in my house, this little moon.”
The clay moon is on display in her living room. It reminds her of OneEighty’s program – and the support system she’s found, she added.
“When things aren't going great, it's a little reminder that I always have a home to go to … kind of like a lighthouse,” Drost said. “It reminds me where I can find the people that love me and embrace me, and help me get to where I need go. Like a point of safety, really.”
Brink with the Wayne Center for the Arts hopes to expand their partnership with OneEighty to offer additional art classes in the future, she said.
