Art, activism an outlet for women

BY WENDY ELLIOTT

Kings County Advertiser

Transition houses across the province are participating in a visual art project to mark the 16 Days of Activism to Eliminate Gender Violence.

Chrysalis House staff member Florence Denney has coordinated the project locally. This year, the focus of the art is drawing a window on the world of violence against women.

The display shows a red brick building, each window filled with a meaningful piece of art therapy. “It is quite striking, just as the masks were last year and the scarves the year before,” says Chrysalis House director Rhonda Fraser. “Art therapy allows individuals to use the situations they experience and their thoughts and emotions to create an outlet for healing,” says Denney.

Community groups, churches and schools across the region served by Chrysalis House are invited each year to host the display for a day in order to boost public awareness. “Women access transition house services for a variety of reasons,” notes Fraser, “but on an essential and very basic level, they want safety.”

The art-filled windows, Denney says, can be tumultuous or calm, depending on the women or child who created the piece. She runs, as funds are available, art therapy programs for both mothers and children at Chrysalis House. The results, Denney finds, are often moving. “Some times it’s so quiet in here you can hear a pin drop, or they will laugh and chat. It’s truly amazing.”

One woman attends the program after traveling on the bus from Windsor. Legally blind, Denney says, she had never painted before. “Her work is pretty awesome,” Denney says. She hopes eventually to hold a sale of some of the pieces in order to buy more art supplies.

Outreach worker Betty Kalt arranges the scheduling for the Days of Activism. Contact Kalt at 679-1155 ext. 1 or chrysaliswomen@ns.sympatico.ca.

Movement for women

The 20-year-old Transition House Association of Nova Scotia (THANS) is the provincial voice of the transition house movement in Nova Scotia.

Member organizations across Nova Scotia provide shelter, outreach, networking, counselling, programming and education for abused women and their children. As an association, THANS works in the areas of networking, advocacy, policy and research.

In 2007, THANS initiated the Clothesline Project to enable women who have experienced violence to have an opportunity to express their feelings, experience and stories through art. That first year, 300 scarves were distributed to appropriate public venues as a display of Art From the Heart.

The association also coordinates the Purple Ribbon Campaign, commemorating the 14 women murdered at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal Dec. 6, 1989. This campaign of public awareness and fundraising runs from Nov. 25 to Dec. 10. Since 1990, all funds raised have been dedicated to improving shelters and services for women.