The Kamloops Arts Council presents a Crossing Bridges exhibit at the Old Courthouse Cultural Centre from October 20 to November 4, 2022. The Old Courthouse is downtown at Seymour Street and First Avenue.
The Crossing Bridges Outreach Show is a collection of masks and pictures of masks submitted by instructors and clients at the partner agencies with which the KAC works. We decided to venture into the making of masks with all the participants in the communities we give service to. October is Mental Health Month and we were inspired by the work of Melissa Walker, a creative arts therapist. She has worked making masks with veterans living with PTSD and has seen firsthand how this work has impacted her patients’ recovery and healing. Vivid, symbolic artwork has been created at Crossing Brides and we can’t wait to show Kamloops all these masks as each of them tells a story. We’ve observed that the art process bypasses the brain’s speech-language issue. Art-making accesses the same sensory areas of the brain that encode trauma. The participants of our workshops can use art-making to work through their experiences in a non-threatening way. They can then apply words to their physical creations, reintegrating the left and the right hemispheres of the brain and It’s our pleasure to be a part of it. It has been very touching and rewarding to make masks with our clients and see them begin to open up and heal and, finally, start to let it go. We invite you to celebrate them and the health and wellness we can all experience through art with us.
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