Our first Love Notes Art Workshop with Tuttifruti was a powerful and inspiring experience, blending art therapy with meaningful discussions on healthy relationships. Rooted in the Love Notes curriculum by the Dibble Institute, this workshop series creates a space for participants to explore relationship dynamics through creativity. In our inaugural session, seven engaged participants came together for a thought-provoking discussion on modern relationships while engaging in a unique sketching exercise.
The sketching activity called automatic drawing entailed never stopping your pen, pencil, or marker from creating. To constantly be drawing whatever and anything without breaks to think was the goal. This blended amazingly into the discussions surrounding what a healthy relationship is. One participant shared that as our discussion describing our ideal relationship turned to an open discussion of a toxic relationship their automatic drawing naturally shifted from light, bright colors with soft movements to darker colors and sharp, erratic movements.Â
Through a never ending and engaging conversation that each participant was actively engaged in we saw the creation of a supportive group actively thinking about how to improve their relationships in life. We are so excited to continue these discussions at our next event and build upon our first group of participants. This program will run the last friday of every month and build a creative community of support.
Although this program has already faced challenges spun on by Trump’s grant ban which defunded the Planned Parenthood program that helped fund the instructor, we are dedicated to making this program persist. In overcoming this challenge we are adapting the youth focused program to be geared toward both youth and community because everyone can benefit from this program.Â