Happy bearthday to me...

“be.art.day” is a series of pictures & collages that I’ve captured/created over the last couple of weeks leading up to my 39th bearthday, July 5, 2013.  This series was inspired by the lyrics on India.Arie’s new cd "Songversation," and my current state of mind/heart. 

Images were captured/created at the following locations:

-My altar

-“Art Therapy in Black” exhibit

-2013 SAIC Commencement

-Walking meditations in my neighborhood

-Oprah’s Life Class live taping

-History Museum

-India.Arie's "Songversation" listening party at Hard Rock Café

-My first Mega-bus ride experience

-Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference, Miami University (Body Ecology performance)

She is my sunshine...

(unedited freewrite)

Happy Bearthday Mama and Happy Summer Solstice. I was raised by a Master number 11, Gemini on the cusp of Cancer.  She is my first love, my mama.  The older I get the more I am like her, the more I am like myself. The more I grow in my womonness the more I see her as a womon, not just Mama.

I am grateful for her sacrifices throughout my life. I am grateful for her support. I am grateful for her strength.  I am grateful for her courage.  I am grateful for her vulnerability.  My mama, was my first "woman womon." Though she is, she wud not describe herself as a feminist, womonist, social justice practictioner,"power to the power" typa sista. Nonetheless, I realize that because of how she reared me, those were the movements that I was drawn to early on.

 I am grateful that Mama made sure that I also saw reflections of my Black gurl self in our home. I've told this story before about how I had ALL Black dolls and toys and she'd color the faces brown/black on the wrapping paper and anything else that she cudnot find to reflect me. She combed my natural hair and told me that I was beautiful and so was my natural hair.  She walked me to school hand in hand singing, "you are my sunshine..."

As a iddy-bitty girl, she taught me that I had a voice and that not only did I have my opinion, but I a right to SAY my opinion.  I had to be respectful, but I was never silenced or told "a child stays in a child's place."  She was my first teacher of critical engagement and to not just "drink the kool-aid" cuz someone told me it "taste'ed"  good. 

 She taught me lessons of responsibility and the value of my word. I grew up dancing and in the arts and I wud go to the field house and sign up for all of these classes and mid-way through I'd want to quit, but she wud not let me. She gave me the same speech, "If you make the commitment then you see it thru to the end." I had to finish the quarter and if I did not want to sign up for all the classes the next quarter, I had that option, but I had to finish what I originally signed up for. 

My mama has a huge heart and though she is  fiery, she is the most giving person I know. ( I come from fiery womyn, she and I both get it honest.  lol lol lol.) She taught me love is in the details, and if you're gonna do something, do it right, to the best of your ability and dont be cutting corners. My mama taught me to never let money be the center of my existence. Give it all away if it impedes my happiness. 

But most important, as Ive said before, I am most grateful that she gave me her God. Though we do not practice our beliefs in the same way anymore,  I am grateful for her making God the foundation in our home and in my life. At heart, I am a church girl. I was raised in the Black church and was active in the Black church. That is my foundation from which I move from to this day. I am not talking about doctrine, I am talking about God and spirituality. I am talking about ancestors, angels, and the knowing that there is something far greater than me who loves me. My mama debunked the myth that, God only help those who help themselves. She told me at an early age God shows favor to whomever God chooses. And because of how my mama reared me, she gave me the space to grow my understanding of God as the Divine feminine.

So on this day, the Summer Solstice, I wish my mama a Happy Bearthday. I love you.

Summer Series...

REGISTER NOW: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7002640085#

"She be . Black . Arts . Movement . Summer Series" is an economically exclusive 6-week creativity immersion for Black womyn to CREATE artistic expression, ENGAGE public spaces, COLLABORATE with other dynamic sistas, PROMOTE mindfulness and EXPLORE Chicago. Artists and adventure-seekers veronica precious bohanan (UnSilenced Woman Press) and Sandria Washington (The Real Youga) are unapologetically taking sister circles out into the world and it’s going to be F-U-N!

Come discover how to #LiveArtfully.

Honor sacred creativity on six (6) Sundays, beginning July 7, 2013. All locations can be reached by public transportation and are wheelchair accessible. Follow your journey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ArtSheBe and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/shebe.artfully.

Cost:  $20 per session, or $100 for all six

Attire:  Wear comfortable “play clothes” and your gym shoes

If you have any questions email shebeart13@gmail.com

Dates/Locations/Times: 

We will meet weekly in the front lobby of each venue.

All supplies will be provided.

Week 1:

July 7

10am - 1pm

Chicago Cultural Center

78 E. Washington

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Week 2:

July 14

12 - 3pm

DuSable Museum

740 E. 56th Place

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Week 3:

July 21

12 - 3pm

Mexican Fine Arts Museum

1852 W. 19th St.

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Week 4:

July 28

10am - 1pm

MCA Chicago

220 E. Chicago

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Week 5:

August 4

12 - 3pm

Chicago Historical Museum

1601 N. Clark

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Week 6:

August 11

10am - 1pm

Next Door

659 W. Diversey Parkway

Your tourguides:

As an art therapist, writer and activist, veronica precious bohanan (vpb) is interested in how life's details intersect with race, class, gender and all aspects of one's environment—as one's mental health does not exist in isolation. veronica is interested in details because they are what make us each unique; they are also the qualities that must be navigated to have healthy relationships and communities. veronica's work as a therapist is grounded in trauma-informed care, cultural competency, and social, healing and reproductive justice. As an artist/writer, she has co-written such stage productions as Aqua Beats and Moon Verses, Brotha…Wassup Sun, and Love Does Not Hurt. Her poetry can be found in Home Girls Make Some Noise!: Hip-hop Feminism Anthology and Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees. Om: My Sistagyrl Lotus is her first collection of prose and poetry. veronica has travelled the U.S. and abroad facilitating girl and womyn-centered workshops. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. www.veronicabohanan.com

Living life artfully is Sandria M. Washington’s full-time job. As a writer, philanthropist, activist, wellness ambassador and visionary, Sandria believes in “trying life on and wearing it well” and allowing all of her personalities to have a say  about their preferred medium of expression. As a writer and journalist, Sandria has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, interviewing acclaimed artists such as Sean Paul, Eric Benet, Donna Summer and Grammy award-winning songwriters J. Ivy and Tarrey Torae. Sandria was a featured spoken word artist at Proctor & Gamble’s My Black is Beautiful tour (Chicago) and her poetry has been published in the BAC Street Journal and American Open Mike, Vol. I anthology. Currently, she blogs at My So-Called Writer’s Life on ChicagoNow.com. As a yoga instructor trained through Moksha Yoga Center, Sandria combines the science and healing of yoga with the art and healing of creative writing to help people live their most authentic and inspired lives. http://therealyouga.com/

REGISTER NOW: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/700264008

Next Level Series...

power.privilege.oppression

My response(art) to a training session on Systems of Oppression and Racism, Prejudice & Diversity.

- digital collage mixed-media (c) 5/30/13 vpb -

Private | Public

Check out my new photography stills. 

  this image is inside of my plaster hand...

Thesis Show....

Art Therapy in Black…

CHICAGO – Rumble Arts Center, 3413 W. North in Chicago, will host Art Therapy in Black…, a public presentation by veronica precious bohanan  and Johannil Napoleón Castro Fornisa Ramirez as a graduation requirement for the School of the Art Institute’s Masters of Art Therapy program. A special opening night presentation and performance will begin the exhibit on Friday, May 17, 2013, 6pm, and will run through June 30.

Their work encompasses a mixed-media, visual arts, and performance presentation of “artist as therapist” identities and the artists’ thesis findings, comprised of the completed artwork created during the thesis process. The artists believe that as burgeoning art therapists and women of African descent, they were compelled to conduct thesis projects and put together an exhibit/presentation/performance that was culturally sensitive, acknowledged strengths, negate racial/cultural stereotypes, and promote innovative art therapy practices.

This collaboration reflects the artists’ complimentary topics and methods, as they are both using an arts-based research methodology, and they are both working with adolescents. Arts-based research is a method that systematically uses the artistic process as a way of examining/interpreting the experience by both investigators and research participants. Instead of traditional scientific, verbal, or mathematical analyses of phenomena, the art is the data.

Napoleón’s arts-based research focuses on African-American adolescent women survivors of sexual abuse in a high school based program. “I set out to investigate: How can creating a [wo]mannequin or female body form in art therapy help African-American adolescent women survivors of sexual abuse promote greater self-worth about their body image? My research is rooted in societal stereotypes, African-American history, and the adolescent’s sexual trauma experiences. To support them, I will also engage in the art-making process by creating a body form of my own.”

bohanan’s arts-based research focuses on her experiences as a clinical art therapy intern at a residential treatment center with predominately African American boys. “Within a culturally competent and trauma-informed framework, I explore how to effectively incorporate integrated arts and Positive Youth Development values into my art therapy practice with adolescent boys. Central to my exploration is my personal art-making/creative expressions and processing questions after each session to inform therapeutically sound directives and interventions.”