Art As A Healing Force is an organization whose goal is to help make art and healing one on earth. It was established in 1991, by Michael Samuels, M.D. a physician, photographer who had used guided imagery, and his sister, Linda Samuels, a museum curator, artist, to network artists, healers, funders, museum curators, authors, anyone interested in art and healing. It was funded for three years by Marion Weber who I thank for her generous help.
Art As A Healing Force originally had two goals. The first was to network healers who were using art to heal patients, and the second was to network artists who were using art to heal themselves, others, or the earth. We hoped by doing that, that art and healing would become a recognized field in both art and in medicine. Of course, in this work, artists and healers are one, so we saw the networking as one expanding sphere like the consciousness of the earth. We hoped to concentrate on art itself, not art therapy or expressive arts as a method. We were interested in the artist as healer, as the creative process as a primary healing tool.
To help make art and healing one, we lectured, brought artists and healers together, ran workshops for patients and artists, sponsored healing art projects, had an annual think tank conference, published a newsletter, and had a slide library of images of healing artists.
Art As A Healing Force now is actively involved in making art and healing one, by continuing to bring together artists and healers around the world. We go to conferences worldwide and introduce artists and healers to each other and encourage them to work together in workshops, rituals, and performance art pieces. We maintain this web site with the goal of making art and healing one on earth and making each of us a part of the web. We run the medicine wheel web to bring each of us actively into the work with intent. We are writing a book, Creative Healing, to be published in 1998 by Harper Collins San Francisco, and we continuously do workshops and rituals to make art and healing one. We do performance art rituals all over the world in sacred sites, rivers, and springs, and we train artists and healers to use art and healing for themselves, others and the earth.
We see this as sacred work. We believe that as art and healing rejoin to become one again, the earth will be healed. We see the joining as part of an ancient path of spiritual integration and wholeness that is part of the life path for many of us. We are a family, this is our work, we are all one.
The medicine wheel web will invite each of us to become a part of art and healing in a real way in each day of our lives. It will help each of us to define our role as a healing artist and to do our part in making art and healing one. With intent we will all act to heal ourselves, others, and the earth through art.
Our hope is that as art and healing join, art will be changed, healing will be changed and the earth will be healed. Our goal is for every patient to be able to make art to heal and for every artist to know that art is transformative for them, others, and the earth. Blessings