From Hearts of the Hill Country to Flags of Hope & Reverence: A Hospital-to-Community Art Response After Disaster
Facilitated by Jaimie Peterson, MAAT, LPC, ATR-BC
This workshop explores how art can create connection, reflection, and resilience within a community following disaster. Beginning at Kerrville State Hospital, participants will learn about Hearts of the Hill Country, a simple art-based response developed within the hospital that invited both residents and staff to create hearts representing hope, healing, and resilience. The project grew beyond the hospital walls when the hearts became part of a holiday float built by resident artists, and shared with the surrounding community, eventually becoming a permanent public art display in Kerr County.
The workshop then follows this hospital-to-community model through Flags of Hope & Reverence, a community art project created in response to the Guadalupe River flood. The project provided community members with time and space to reflect, remember, and express hope and resilience in the weeks leading up to the anniversary of the disaster. Participants will explore how accessible, art-making can move from a clinical setting into the broader community, creating opportunities for connection, collective meaning-making, remembrance, and healing after disaster.
Participants will:
Describe at least three ways creative expression may support emotional expression, reflection, meaning-making, and resilience during grief and after disaster.
Explore the therapeutic relationship between grief, place, nature, memory, and creative expression.
Demonstrate the use of color, imagery, symbolism, words, and personal narrative through the creation of an individual fabric flag.
Discuss how collaborative and community-based art-making may support connection, belonging, social support, and collective resilience
Explain how a hospital-based art intervention can be adapted to extend beyond the clinical setting and create opportunities for community connection and collective healing.
Workshop Details:
Date: Saturday, November 14
Time: 11:00AM – 3:00PM. [With option to stay later for nature-based CE]
Location: Kerville State Hospital - 721 Thompson Drive, Kerrville, TX 78028
Cost: FREE for STATA members, $50 for non-members, which includes member-level access to STATA programming for one year
3+ CEU hours
If you would like to carpool from Austin, please contact Ellen Smithey: ellensmithey@gmail.com.
Schedule:
Meet at Kerville State Hospital
1st CEU is at Kerrville State Hospital from 11am-12:30pm
Lunch provided at Jaimie Peterson's house in Hunt, TX 12:30-1:30pm
2nd CEU Creating the Flags of Hope 1:30-3pm
Break 3-3:30
Optional nature based art CE 3:30-5pm
If people are wishing to explore the surrounding area more, vineyard, restaurants, and/or other locations will be provided!