A fantasy expressive arts therapy workshop for congress

The recent mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard approximately 9 months after the Sandy Hook Elementry School shooting reminds me of how hard it is for our congress to address gun violence, mental health issues and the underlying problem of a society in which creativity is stifled.

I offer this fantasy expressive arts therapy workshop as a vision of what can occur, sometime in the future, when everybody is encouraged and supported to have an art-making practice of some kind or another.

Location:  a beautiful natural setting with a shooting range.  

Everybody paints or draws the word “Impossible” on large piece of target paper.  Next using handguns only, congress members would take aim at the target.

Then everybody would get their target paper with the word “Impossible” and many holes in it and create sculptures or paintings and drawings out of this.  Then all of congress would create one large collaborative art piece out of the individual creations.

Congress members would be paired up with somebody with opposite points of view on gun control and on government support for the arts.  Discussion questions might include:

What was this experience like for you?  What was the most satisfying and dissatisfying?  What power did you feel shooting the gun?  What power did you feel creating the art?  Did anything shift for you on what is possible and what is impossible?

What is your fantasy expressive art workshop for congress?

The painting above is entitled "Branciforte and Doyle," It was created on site shortly after two police officers were killed and the perpetrator was killed in my town of Santa Cruz.