Birth Art Training
Week One Objectives
Embody and experience the birth art process for yourself, including journal and keep going prompts.
Review materials recommended for Birth Art.
Prepare to do your first Birth Art assignment with a volunteer.
Explain how the Birth Art process is different from Art Therapy.
Begin Here!
This course is designed for you to begin right away! Each week, you will find a volunteer to practice with. But first, begin within. Read though this module, and complete the assignment at the end before our first live call. Happy art making!
A Menu of Birth Art Assignments
You can save the document to your device by going to File > download.
1. Birth in Your Culture
For millennia, humans have made drawings of birth on cave walls, as well as shaped birth into sculptures.
In the 1970's, before launching the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft, NASA prepared time capsules with images that portrayed life in our culture and on Earth, so that if future humans or extraterrestrials found the spacecraft they would have some idea about the people who created them.
Imagine that you are invited to contribute to such a time capsule. Make a drawing that shows how humans give birth where you live, their birthplaces, customs, objects, and beliefs. This drawing may not represent your own birth expectations or values, but it captures birth in our culture.
2. Womb with a View
Imagine you could take a peek through a window in your womb. What do you see your baby doing in their watery world all day? What do they look like? Imagine what your baby sees... hears... feels while growing in your womb. Using pastels or watercolors, make a picture of your baby. Include as many details as you like.
In the last few minutes, suggest the final step: "Send a message through your drawing . . . write or draw a message from your heart to your baby.”
3. Journey through a Labor Landscape
Instead of thinking of labor as a physiological process in your body, imagine labor as a landscape. What geographical terrain, season and weather comes to mind. Enter into it. It might be a wooded forest or a desert scene... mountainous or... with bodies of water, wind, elements of weather, or a particular season.
Put yourself in the labor landscape and imagine moving through it... through labor, or a part of labor. When ready, draw your journey through a labor landscape. Include yourself or anyone who is with you.
Note: This assignment might be more relevant to parents who have already given birth and are postpartum or pregnant again. However, first-time parents benefit from it, too.
4. Door to Birth
What if there was a door to birth? What would it look like? What shape or size would it be? What color(s)? Would it be shut? Locked? Open? Where does it lead? Imagine there is a door to birth. Embellish it with as much detail as you can see.
5. Seeing Myself as a Parent
For centuries, artists, writers, therapists, poets, fairy tales, theater and film have impressed image upon image of Mother, and of mother-and-child, on the personal and collective psyche. Your relationships with your mother and grandmother also formed your idea of Mother: the idealized Mother, the Good— and the Terrible Mother. How do you see yourself as Mother or Parent? Even if the human figure you draw does not look like what you see in your mind, remember this: What matters is, that in expressing the image, you feel it. If the image that is coming up for you is complex or ambiguous, add as many symbols as needed to express the idea and the feeling fully. When you think you are done, keep going... until the drawing tells you it is finished.
6. Seeing Myself as a Parent (for Birth Partners)
Draw, paint, or sculpt an image of what being a parent means to you. Your image should be in human form. Even if the human figure you draw does not look like what you see in your mind, remember that what matters is that, in expressing the image, you feel it. If this is a complex or ambiguous image for you, add as many symbols as needed to express the idea fully. Your drawing should include the human form, as well as symbols that express the feelings you associate with being a parent. When you think you are done, keep going... until the drawing tells you it is finished.
Flawed Birth Art Assignments
Do not use these assignments for yourself or with parents.
“Draw your fantasy of a perfect birth,” or “Draw your ideal birth.”
Here's why not: The assignments "Draw your fantasy of a perfect birth, or Ideal birth" encourages magical thinking. Michael Meade, author of Water of Life, observes that "fantasy is an external illusion that leads to confusion, distraction, a belief in the appearance of things, and ultimately encourages the individual or society to dissociate." Encouraging parents to fantasize about their ideal birth sets parents up for feelings of disappointment, betrayal, guilt, and/or trauma.
“Draw the thing you fear or dread most about giving birth.”
Here's why not: While drawing a picture (for 25-20 minutes) of the thing they most hope won't happen, parents are actively imagining their helplessness and powerlessness.
Keep Going!
Notice when you reach the point you think you are finished with your drawing. Perhaps it is when you have completed the image that initially came to mind. Or, if you like your first sketch, you may want to stop and preserve it—before you “ruin it.”
When prompted to keep going, you might wonder, "How do I know my drawing is complete?" If you were not surprised by anything you drew, or you did not come to that place where you did not know what to draw next, then you probably just expressed an idea or image which was already familiar to you.
If that is the case: Wait! Don't put away your pastels yet!
The power of the art-making process is only realized when you move beyond what you expected and what you know.
Don’t stop in your comfort zone.
Don’t think.
Don’t think you know where the drawing is going next or what it is supposed to look like.
Ask the drawing what it wants. Maybe you already know but you are hesitating to add it because you don’t know how to draw the object or symbol, or it doesn’t make sense to you.
Renowned Santa Fe artist and teacher, Albert Handell teaches like this:
"When you begin a drawing or painting, you begin with what you want. You put in what you want, how you want it to be. Then comes that moment—when you stop and ask yourself, “Is it done? What does it need?” This is when you listen to what the painting is telling you it wants and needs."
The creative process is part of life and labor. We begin by trying to do what we want and believe in. We even try to get others to do whatever we think will bring about the outcome we want. But there comes a time when we are doing something new, or when we are in the zone in a creative process, or in the unknown when we don't know where we are or what to do next; when we don't know whether we are tapped out or need to tune in. This is the time to stop—and listen.
Ask softly, what does this moment need? What does my drawing need?
Listen. Allow the answer to come into you.
Then, do it wholeheartedly, without reservation.
Even if you don't know how to draw whatever it is that wants to be included, put it in there. If it doesn't fit your initial image or desire, put it in there anyway—and feel what happens next.
Doing that one unplanned thing, and perhaps another, is a key that unlocks the knowledge stored in your unconscious and reveals what is surprising, intuitive, and often the solution that the conscious mind could not have come up with.
Ask the drawing what it wants. Listen. Let the answer or image come into you. Then pick up a pastel and make another mark, and then another. Do this without thinking, planning or rationalizing. Continue drawing until you reach the critical, uncomfortable, moment of not-knowing. And then –- be surprised by what happens next!
Journal Prompts
Choose at least two of the following questions (you don't have to answer all of them).
Watch the time and them to get a sense of how they are doing and when/if an additional prompt is called for.
What surprised you? (Either as you made the drawing, or now as you look at it/think about it.)
What didn’t make sense or was confusing, but you drew it anyway?
When looking at the drawing, what do you see now that you didn't see at first?
What do you know now, that you didn’t know before making the drawing? (This could be knowing about yourself, about birth, being a parent, about a decision...)
Is there anything you might do differently now, as a result of making and thinking about your drawing? (In life, not in the actual drawing.)
As a result of making this drawing, do you have any new questions about yourself, about birth, etc.?
If the drawing has a title, write it down.
What is/was surprising or confusing to you? What didn't make sense, but you put it in any way?
Is there anything that doesn't make sense to you?
When looking at or remembering the drawing, what do you see now that you did not see at first?
When you reflect on the process of making this drawing, not on the drawing itself, write the first thing that comes to mind. It may be one word or a paragraph.
If your image had a posture, what is it? (invite them to move into the posture if they are able).
How is this different from art therapy?
The purpose of this birth art process is limited to helping the artist:
Move beyond thinking and planning, into sensing and feeling.
Clarify questions and clear up misconceptions.
Integrate practical information related to childbirth with personal growth through self-discovery.
In contrast, a professional art therapist is a mental health professional that is in agreement with a patient to utilize art making for analysis in the treatment of mental illness, addiction, stress, depression, and to resolve conflict. Unlike art therapy, the facilitator or childbirth mentor leading the BW Birth Art Process does not interpret or analyze the art or artist.
Although the title of this course is “Birth Art,” many of these prompts can be adapted for use in working with postpartum clients too. Some of the prompts may need to be adjusted slightly to be relevant for that audience. Keep in mind that newly postpartum parents may have less time and energy to do this kind of inner work and reflection in the weeks following the birth; they may have more emotional and practical space later in the postpartum period.
Some suggestions:
Postpartum in Your Culture (from Birth in Your Culture)
Door to Postpartum (from Door to Birth)
Journey through the Landscape of Postpartum (from Journey through the Landscape of Labor)
Seeing Myself as a Parent
What else can you imagine using?
You can also get creative and make your own prompts, but be sure to check out the info in lesson two about flawed birth art assignments.
Week One Homework: Making and Journaling About Your Birth Art
This week draw each of these birth art assignments using chalk pastels:
· Birth in Your Culture
· Landscape of Labor
· Womb with a View
After each drawing, use the prompts to journal about what you discovered about yourself. Using the prompts will deter you from the impulse to describe the image itself. Submit the journaling notes you made following two of your birth art drawings. If you like, you can upload/paste digital images of your drawings along with your homework.
Choose at least two of the following questions (you don't have to answers all of them):
What surprised you? (Either as you made the drawing, or now as you look at it/think about it.)
What didn’t make sense or was confusing, but you drew it anyway?
When looking at the drawing, what do you see now that you didn't see at first?
What do you know now, that you didn’t know before making the drawing?
Is there anything you might do differently now, as a result of making and thinking about your drawing?
As a result of making this drawing, do you have any new questions about yourself, about birth, etc.?
What do you do when you don't know what to do next?
Go to our Community Group to post your homework at least 24 hours before the first live call.