People are talking about the book, Art Therapy Activities for ALL Ages...
Happy Customer:
Received this book as a gift. I love it. The layout is really easy to navigate and I like the various stencils included in the book as well. Excited to share with the kindergarten children that I teach. We're going to have so much fun!
Monique Harris, ECE Teacher
Kirkus Reviews:
ART THERAPY ACTIVITIES FOR ALL AGES
AN ARTFUL APPROACH TO HEALTH AND HEALING
BY JOAN STEWART RELEASE DATE: MARCH 28, 2024
A good resource for art therapists, teachers, and caregivers.
Stewart’s guide provides step-by-step instructions for various therapeutic art projects.
After running a preschool for 10 years, the author switched directions and concentrated on helping seniors. She found that, with modifications, the same type of art instruction that is fun for children just beginning their lives can also serve a population with many years behind them.
The guide includes projects suitable for stroke recovery classes. After suffering a stroke, people may have difficulty with their own facial expressions, manual dexterity, and isolation; recommended projects include drawing faces representing emotions onto balloons and painting different types of masks; some have themes, such as Mardi Gras, Halloween, and Phantom of the Opera, or use mixed media for decoration. (Per the author, these projects may especially resonate with stroke survivors, whose changed appearances may make them feel they’re in disguise already.) All of the activities encourage social interactions. Stewart also discusses obstacles older adults might face, such as dementia and hearing or vision loss.
The book is well structured and organized. Activities are grouped into categories, like “brain,” “memory,” “senses,” and “teamwork.” Each project is rated with symbols; for example, dollar signs signify the cost of the supplies and each clock-face symbol represents half an hour of preparation time. Stewart lists the specific supplies needed
and gives steps to follow for every activity. She sometimes includes templates to use, such as the shape of a mask, a tree, or a set of postcards.
Stewart’s focus on an older population that is usually overlooked is admirable, as is her emphasis on making art fun for people of all ages and abilities.
A good resource for art therapists, teachers, and caregivers.
Foreward (Clarion) Review:
Title of Book: Art Therapy Activities for All Ages
Author: Joan Stewart
Treating creativity as a means of building self-confidence, cultivating personal agency, and joining people in
communities, Art Therapy Activities for All Ages is an encouraging artistic guide.
Therapeutic art teacher Joan Stewart’s accessible creative guide Art Therapy Activities for All Ages includes fifty-two
projects that are designed to promote health and healing among those experiencing physical or cognitive impairment.
Drawing on a weekly retirement community art program that Stewart led, among her other professional experiences, this text celebrates the artistic process throughout. It is less concerned with helping audiences produce polished final products than it is with encouraging holistic healing through art.
Its projects include step-by-step instructions that celebrate the act of self-expression, as well as clear details regarding the time the projects take, the budget and items they require, clean-up time, difficulty level, and tips toward completion.
The activities are divided into five sections for easy navigation, with projects directed toward cognitive stimulation,
sensory engagement, engaging the memory, teamwork, and loss. The connections between individual projects and
these overarching groups are not always sufficiently explained, though. Color images of some completed projects,
and of the tools needed to complete them, appear alongside the activities’ explanations as examples or sources of
inspiration. At times, multiple projects are pictured, suggestive of the different artistic interpretations that the activities’ parameters support.
Throughout, this activity guide is a practical one, keeping its audience of art therapy facilitators in mind. It presumes some prior knowledge and expertise; it alludes to a growing body of evidence in neuroscience and rehabilitation medicine regarding the benefits of artistic expression and experiences.
The range of projects is wide, and the book includes prefatory guidance for making a community painting, a calendar, and coloring books. A Puzzling Posters activity involves cutting up extant artwork and piecing it back together; it comes with the advice to look for “free supplies. Plan ahead. Ask volunteers and participants to donate used calendars and posters,” as well as a tip to “photograph each poster or illustration ‘whole’ before you cut” for reference.
An Aromatherapy Playdough activity, designed to pique participants’ senses of smell, involves the facilitator first
making different scented dough varieties and then distributing them to participants to experiment with; it includes
broad prompts for molding the clay if needed, including “First Day of School, Earthquake, African Safari, Summer
Olympics, Wizard of Oz.”
Some activities, like making patterns in sand or constructing a house of cards, are quite familiar; others, like the
multimedia, memory-stimulating Christmas in a Box, are more layered and complex. Multiple activities involve masks, though they are used to stimulate different responses among the artists.
Art Therapy Activities for All Ages is an approachable collection of art activities designed with healing, dignity, and self-confidence in mind.
KRISTINE MORRIS (May 31, 2024)
