Fabric, Icebergs and Portraits

Exciting things are happening in SOHO!

 Last week's SOHO started with choosing fabrics. One of our wonderful mentors named Carley owns U-Fab, a local fabric store located very close to VisArts. She and U-Fab have generously offered to donate ALL of the fabric, pillow forms, foam and quilt batting for the SOHO program. This is especially AMAZING since these are some of the materials we need the most for the program. Girls and mentors make pillows, curtains, a new bedspread and all sort of other fun projects for their room makeover in May.

Tesni went on to U-Fab last Thursday morning and was so kindly helped by the staff at U-Fab to gather fabric samples. That night at SOHO all of the girls and women were excited to choose their own fabrics.  This was the first year that they were able to choose what they wanted thanks to U-fab's generosity.  Previously, we had picked general colors and Tesni had worked hard to pick the right types of fabrics for the girls. So a big thanks to U-Fab!

This week in photography, Liana and the girls had their first printing day with the negatives that they took from their photo walks outside. Everyone was talking about how much fun they had watching their photos appear, almost magically, while working in the darkroom.  We'll now have some beautiful photos to show you after they've dried!

Girl Talk started in on a new set of session dealing with the topics of empathy and judgement. The class started off with Tesni talking about glaciers and icebergs and the powerful metaphor they can be for this topic.  The top of the iceberg that you can actually see above water is a very small part of the whole. This top portion represents what people think you should be and how they perceive you. Underneath the water lies the larger part of the glacier or iceberg which represents who you really are. It may be that people don't actually see that part very often or at all, or maybe you only share it with a few people. 

 Everyone then started brainstorming how this relates to how girls are often viewed in general as opposed to who they really are. Then everyone broke off and drew their own icebergs in their journals. These were shared between big and little sisters and they had conversations about what they drew and why. Tesni overheard some wonderful discussions about this and went around to each group to take a look at each pair's icebergs and hear what they had to say.

After that, Tesni had everyone play a game called "The Big Wind Blows". In this game, everyone has a hoola hoop on the floor which are arranged in a circle.  One person (Tesni to start) is in the middle. The person in the middle says "the big wind blows for anyone who..." and then fills in the blank with something that is true about themselves. Tesni started off with something light: "the big wind blows for anyone who has gotten straight A's before." Everyone who has gotten straight A's leaves their hoop and moves to another hoop.  Because there's not enough hoops for everyone, one person will always be left in the middle--think musical chairs! This new 'middle" person will then have to say something true about themselves.  And the game goes on.

 This was a new game for SOHO and could be intimidating for someone shy, but this game was a hit and everyone wanted to be in the middle! Some very nice things were said like: "the big wind blows for anyone who...is afraid they won't reach their full potential in life", "who grew up with divorced parents", "who just wants to be happy", "who struggles with doing the right thing in a fight", "who loves their gap" (in their teeth)!  After the game, the group chatted about some of the feelings and thoughts the game brought up like taking risks while being in the middle or getting out of your hoola hoop and learning that other people feel the same way as you. And of course - the day ended with hoola hooping!

After snack, we all went down to the studio to continue on our self portraits with Sara. . Sometimes in past SOHO years, this has been a heavy project because some of the girls have been uncomfortable with self portraits, looking at themselves, or making their pictures "perfect".

 

Sarah does a great job of breaking things into steps and helping everyone be confident that things don't have to look perfect, or exactly like "you".  Instead, your portrait can be the essence of you. It's amazing how many of the portraits succeeded in this. Some just have the feeling of the girl who drew them or a feature that's perfectly drawn.

 In the end, everyone was proud of their portrait and everyone there finished their portraits! One of our girls had to miss SOHO that night, but her mentor (who is especially artistic) painted a wonderful portrait of her.

 

 

For now, the portraits are brightening up the walls of VisArts. Eventually they'll make their way home with the girls to be a part of their home.