MOLI VIEW™

Maybe you don't have to know about art to like what you see. But what do artists need to know before plunging into community activism? Artists, by definition, are adventurous boundary breakers. Meanwhile, professionals in the caring fields of psychology and social work tend to be more cautious, mindful of the often fragile emotional and mental state of their charges. What the artist considers a breakthrough, the shrink might consider a breakdown.
Charmille "Charm" Waters is an artist who believes that art has the power to heal. So she designed a series of dance and music workshops to, she says, "facilitate personal transformations for populations with special needs." To start with, she's dancing and drumming with battered women and the homeless in Miami. Through her organization Rhythmic Rapture, she also designed workshops this summer for another "special" population: a dozen or so artist-activists themselves. Waters enlisted a psychologist, a dance therapist, and a dance theater artist and jazz singer who specializes in community arts to share their experiences with what works and what hurts.
There was a lot to talk about, so today and tomorrow I'll be sharing what I gleaned from two eight-hour workshops. The first lesson is to beware of expecting too much.
Dr. Elsa Orlandini, a psychologist who has worked in both private practice and in community outreach with the homeless and other populations, managed to explain complicated psychological concepts while making us laugh like a stand-up comic. Here's how she broke down "transference" and "countertransference": Basically, whenever we meet a new person, our brains run through our database of all previous acquaintances. We end up imposing on the new acquaintance qualities we associate with someone we already know.
For example, the Doc asked us to name a "really hot guy." She rejected Brad Pitt out of hand, but seemed happy when someone suggested Barack Obama. So, she said, a client comes in who looks a little like Barack Obama, and immediately we assume that this guy will be smart, progressive, and sensitive. We like him. If we learn later that he has done something terrible, like molesting children, we're going to have a hard time putting that information together with our preconception. Conversely, she pointed out, we might make a negative association with someone that will get in the way of our working together successfully. For her part, Orlandini admitted that she "can't stand whiny men" – so if a man comes into her office and starts to whine, she tells him that she's sorry, she doesn't think she can help him, and recommends someone else.
To reject someone in the community because of our personal hang-ups is a tough concept for some artists to swallow. Madafo Lloyd Wilson, a storyteller who works frequently with urban youth, worried that the young men he works with are so often rejected, by their families and the schools, that he can't see rejecting any of them yet again.
Orlandini upped the stakes. What if it were not just an issue of transference? she asked. What if one of the students was actually disrupting the experience for the rest of the group?
Still uncomfortable about ejecting a student, the storyteller admitted that if anyone disrupted the experience for the rest of the group, he would have to go.
The same holds true, then, Orlandini insisted, if it's our own feelings that get in the way of actually helping someone.
"We can end up doing more harm than good," she warns.
That's hardcore. It's also realistic. As Orlandini pointed out, many of us take to community activism because we believe we're going to save the world, or at least save the people that we're working with. She described herself as a young idealist, convinced that she would sweep into a ward for psychiatric patients with terminal diseases and make them all feel good. Instead, she found that their physical pain aggravated their psychological conditions so severely that happiness seemed an unrealistic goal.
"Every night I went home and cried," she confessed. "I was no good to anyone else in my life who loved me, no good to myself, and ultimately, no good to my patients."
Now the doctor realizes she should have had much more realistic expectations: "Sometimes it's enough to just look someone in the eyes and say, ‘I see you.'"
Too often, people in need are not seen, or not seen as human beings. That's why art is such a powerful tool for mental health and social service: Art-making is fundamentally an expression of humanity.
Here's another view of the workshop from Elizabeth Acosta at Soul of Miami.

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