Art & Life | Sheila Collins

To Change Our World

by Sheila Collins | Nov 2, 2023 | Art & Life, book promotion, Celebrations, Community, Dances, Duality, Gatherings, Grieving, Personal Stories, Rituals, Songs, Story-telling, The Art of Grieving, Women, Girls & the Feminine, Writing

When I was in high school, I read a newspaper article about a new kind of therapy. What I knew about mental health therapy at that time was that it was an expensive individual process, often taking years, where a person worked on their own behaviors and attitudes with...

Pittsburgh Understands the Art of Grieving and Practices it Well

by Sheila Collins | Oct 26, 2023 | Art & Life, Institutional Loss, Noteworthy men, Past Events, Personal Stories, Resilience, Rituals, The Art of Grieving, Uncategorized

It was the spring of 2018. A group of leaders, educational institutions, and non-profits in Pittsburgh began working together to bring to Pittsburgh some of the 70 restored string instruments played by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust. They wanted...

Another Visit From a Butterfly

by Sheila Collins | Oct 12, 2023 | Art & Life, Book Excerpts, book promotion, Celebrations, Community, Environment, Gatherings, Our Children, Past Events, Personal Stories, Women, Girls & the Feminine, Writing

I only had one assignment from my writing coach when I left Pittsburgh last week to spend 5 days in Belize at a women’s retreat. My intention was to step away and have some time for reflection, but our project is at the place where we need to establish a launch date...

Making Visual Art to Help Us Grieve

by Sheila Collins | Sep 21, 2023 | Art & Life, Grieving, Personal Stories, Self-Care, The Art of Grieving

Visual art is what people usually think of when they hear the word “art.” Arts that are categorized as visual art; painting, sculpture, film, drawing, ceramics, crafts, print making, photography, video, and architecture, are appreciated primarily through our...

How About Looking to Music as Medicine

by Sheila Collins | Sep 7, 2023 | Art & Life, Community, Family, Our Children, Past Events, Personal Stories, Play, Songs, Story-telling

Grandsons Ethan and Will were nine and six years old, respectively, when I watched their mother interrupt a fight they were having. She had clearly done this before, and I saw that she had some skill in getting the boys to each look at the situation from the other’s...

Poetry and Grief’s Gift

by Sheila Collins | Aug 30, 2023 | Art & Life, Celebrations, Community, Gatherings, Grieving, the Big Body

Yesterday was National Grief Awareness Day in the U.S. It’s goal–to encourage open communication on loss and bereavement, and better inform the public on the facts of grief. As a grief advocate, I am always on the lookout for art tools that help us understand grief...

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Learn the Many, Magical Ways Art Transforms Grieving!

(No art skills required.)

Loss is inevitable, yet too often we bury our grief, pretending we're OK when we're not.

In my new book (COMING SOON), I'll share some uncommon notions about grief and how the arts, and art-making, have transformative powers that take us to the heart of the matter.

To Change Our World

Pittsburgh Understands the Art of Grieving and Practices it Well

Another Visit From a Butterfly

Making Visual Art to Help Us Grieve

How About Looking to Music as Medicine

Poetry and Grief’s Gift

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