Shownotes
Art isn’t just about creating masterpieces – it's about creating yourself.
In this episode you will discover that art is not just something to look at, it has a powerful therapeutic impact on your emotional state and productivity at work.
Today you will meet Karen DeLoach, a passionate advocate of using art as a form of self-therapy.
Learn how tapping into both the right and left sides of your brain can spark creativity, foster personal growth, and even transform your approach to business and everyday life.
Are you ready to unlock the therapeutic power of art?
Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:
How can we honor God in our business?
Learn to be salt and light in this world. To be SALT means to preserve goodness and truth in a world that often leans toward decay and corruption.
To be LIGHT is to illuminate the darkness, offering guidance, hope, and the love of God to those
who may feel lost or unseen.
One challenge from today.
Art isn’t just for the creative types, it’s a tool everyone can use to heal, innovate, and thrive.
Karen’s experiences prove that even small steps into the world of creativity can lead to profound personal and professional transformation.
- Be purposefully aware of being in the moment. Get out and soak in everything that surrounds you.
- Set a good example for the ones around you. Joy and optimism will inspire others to follow suit.
- Create a safe space in your brain, don’t be afraid to fail at something new. Strive for excellence, NOT perfection.
More About Karen DeLoach
getcreativewithkaren.com for a FREE 3-part creative podcast focused on art therapy
karendeloachart.com To connect and free resources
More About David Schmidt
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Transcripts
David:
[0:00] Today it's my pleasure to have with me Karen DeLoach. She's an artist, art mentor, speaker, actor, author, filmmaker, creativity specialist. She teaches art in college. She's known in textbooks, and she has a program called Art as Self Therapy Wellness through Creativity. Karen, welcome to Redeeming Business Today.
Karen:
[0:19] Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.
David:
[0:22] Yeah, nice to have you. Karen, what is one way you believe that about. honor God in our business today that others may not know about?
Karen:
[0:30] Well, I think, you know, he called us to be salt and light. And if we're not salt and we're not light, then we're really not representing him as we should. And that should be evident in every decision we make and every way we choose to run our business and our life. And even just a smile sometimes can radiate the love of God. So it doesn't have to be religious. It can be acting out our faith in the marketplace, which it should.
David:
[0:57] Yeah, very good. Yes. I like that answer. So I'd like you to take a few minutes to tell us about your art journey and how you got started and where you are today.
Karen:
[1:07] Well, thank you for that. Yeah, I've been a lifelong artist and performer. I come from it, honestly. My father was an Irish storyteller. He got to do vaudeville when he was a youth. And in his later life, I got to teach him painting and drawing. And he did some beautiful paintings that are still very, very, very precious to our family. So it was always in my life especially the storytelling part you know and I didn't even go to film school till I was in my 50s but I focused on the fine arts but you know as you look at what did you love when you were little when I was in kindergarten I would actually do plays in the recess I would make the monkey bar be like a spaceship because they were going to space when I was a child and it was exciting and there were monsters coming from other planets and people needed to be rescued. So, I would direct these plays. Sometimes my classmates would cooperate and sometimes they wouldn't.
Karen:
[2:06] And I don't know if you remember way back to the telethons that Jerry Lewis would do called For Jerry's Kids. And these were fundraisers on TV for children suffering from muscular dystrophy. And he would pass out these little play kits and you would, you'd be able to sell tickets and do plays in the backyard and then send your donations or whatever you collected to Jerry's kids. And I'm telling you, I took that so seriously. We made modern versions of, of cartoons or, you know, fairy tales, Disney, Disney cartoons, and we would act them out, modernize them and act them out. Every penny I made went to Jerry's kids and, even though I didn't study film, I did study theater in college and art and went there with an ability to draw from very good instruction. But I wasn't a very good painter.
Karen:
[3:02] My painting was my major, and I couldn't paint. They hated my paintings. My teachers told me that the only thing I had going for me was energy, that I didn't have any talent, that I was a three-dimensional artist. And so, unfortunately, I believed them. And for about 20 years, I was not able to finish a single painting. I went to graduate school in sculpture and ceramics, which I still love and I still do. But once I got married, started having children, I just wanted to paint them. I love portraiture and landscapes. I was traveling, loving the landscapes. And as a result, I was frustrated because in my mind was all those negative words that I had heard about my painting. They were the experts, right? They should know. And I tried and tried and had all these unfinished canvases until I got a mentor who actually taught me how to paint. I didn't want to do abstract expressionism. I wanted my paintings to look like what they were supposed to look like. I wanted to do impressionism and have the beauty of people and scenery.
Karen:
[4:09] So he taught me, which made me a better painter, but also made me a better teacher. I learned the value of having the skills and learning the techniques required. And then I also realized that words matter. You know, that old saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Big fat lie, right? Big fat lie. Words matter, especially to our sensitive right brain, which is our creative center. It's very sensitive. It remembers those things. And then what I call left brain bully says, you know, you're just proving them right. You can't do it. And I hear people all the time tell me these kinds of stories. And it just breaks my heart to hear it because it's so not true. And I found that out. And so, I make it my point in my life to teach the techniques that will help them gain the skills they need to do the work they want to do. So I've never stopped trying and I never stopped. Well, we call ourselves practicing artists because you're always practicing, right? You're always trying to be better and better at what you do. I still do sculpture. I've also kept my hand. My minor was theater, been able to keep that up. And then, like I said, went to film school in my 50s and have been teaching filmmaking and doing movies ever since. So creativity is in my blood and it's in my lifestyle.
David:
[5:27] Very good. Sounds neat. Yes. I can relate to that as far as my experiences in art was just kind of like, it's just one of those classes you had to take in grade school and junior high. And I didn't really like it because I couldn't do it. And I never got that love. But recently I got into doing Zentangles, which are just drawings. And my wife has got into painting. And I found out there's all kinds of different kinds of paint, from acrylic to oil to pencils, colors, whatever. There's tons of different things.
David:
[6:01] But that's another subject. Art therapy. Explain to me, what is art therapy?
Karen:
[6:07] Well, it's actually its own major. It's its own field, which I'm not technically an art therapist. I just started finding healing happening through art. And not only for myself, I married a musician, our children, our sons are musicians. I had some experiences with students that sent me on my journey to learn more about the restorative power of art. In one case, this young man, we were homeschooling. I was the homeschool art teacher. They'd come to my studio. And this particular young man was very depressed. He had ADHD and dyslexia, was failing. He was in depression. His mother just couldn't help him. She was very diligent about finding all the ways to reach them, and they just weren't working. And he just believed he was stupid.
Karen:
[6:57] And I just said, well, you know, come learn to draw, learn to paint, learn to sculpt. Well, he took to it like a duck to water. Next thing you know, he's out of depression. His natural, dry sense of humor was coming out. And I started entering my students' work in a youth art competition. They started winning ribbons and awards. Well, this changed his life. He got the confidence that he had been lacking, you know, believing that he did have worth enabled him to kind of take care of doing the work that it took to overcome these challenges he had. And he was able to graduate from high school. Now, it's not the end of his story. That's good news, wonderful news. But then he had a brain infection, which caused a stroke that paralyzed him on the right side. So here he was coming off a high, won literally best in show in a huge youth art competition. And next thing you know, he can't walk, talk. He can't move his right side, his hands curling up into a ball. Well, for four months, they had him in the hospital doing all sorts of therapies for him. But when he left, he still couldn't talk. He was dragging the right side of his body with a walker.
Karen:
[8:09] And his mom brought him right back to my studio. I said, well, you know, your left hand works. Let's see what happens. I didn't have any understanding of left brain, right brain, neural connections at that time. But I watched David struggling at first, but very quickly mastering the same techniques he had mastered right-handed. He was now doing left-handed. He could now draw, write, paint. Sculpture was still a little difficult because the right hand wasn't cooperating very well. But in a short amount of time, it was evident that he could do anything that he put his mind to. Next thing you know, I get a call from his neurosurgeon. He's like, what are you doing with David? I've never called anybody's art teacher before. And I said, I don't know. I'm just teaching him art. He said, well, don't stop because he is getting stronger with his weak hand than I am. And I'm a neurosurgeon. And he's also getting healing on the right side of his body.
Karen:
[9:05] And sure enough, next thing you know, he's able to talk. Now, he damaged part of his brain, but I didn't understand about the neuroplasticity of the brain, how when one part is damaged, another part can overcompensate, which is exactly what was happening. He had already been building left brain, right brain connections because he had been painting and drawing and sculpting, and now they just came in handy for him. He was able to do that work, start talking, communicating, and walking. Now, they had to replace his skull with plastic. I mean, this is severe injury. And art brought healing to his life. And even, I mean, his family's convinced, but so is his neurosurgeon. So I started studying what is going on. You know, what is this doing?
Karen:
[9:50] And, you know, understanding about right brain, left brain. You know, we live in a culture that really develops the left brain skills. You know, logic and order and all the details and memorization and orderliness and timeliness, which are all wonderful skills, but they tend to trivialize or even ignore the
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