We recently read an amazing article at the Miami Herald about Shari Lynn Beame.
Shari was just a teenager when it happened. She was ready to graduate and become a reporter. However, a fatal car accident resulted in a brain injury, leaving her paralyzed. Shari had to learn everything over, including walking and talking.
Then she found art.
We’ve talked about how art therapy can help children communicate, especially when communicating through words is a struggle. Shari’s incident was very similar to this.
“I was 17 years old wearing diapers,” she said. “It gave me the outlet for all of my emotions. I was just so tense, [had] so much anger,” she said. “After I painted a picture, I was feeling relieved.”
Fast-forward 23 years later and Shari Lynn Beame is a certified mental health therapist with a focus on art therapy. And she loves it so much that she’s now using art therapy to help others.
Talk about coming full circle. Talk about inspiring. Many thanks to Shari for inspiring others to create.
PS – Stay tuned for an article on how art benefits the brain.
Very inspiring!
Thank you! This is wonderful to hear! Recently I met a young man who works in a Target store in Florida.
He saw that I’d purchased a few art supplies, and he’d questioned what I was going to do with them.
It turns out that he had brain cancer and a tumor removed. He said that he started to do pottery during that time, and that he doesn’t know what his life would be like had he not discovered art.
Wonderful!! I’m look forward to your article about art/the brain. Thanks!!
Wonderful inspiring story. I work for a young man of 25 who because of a diving in a swimming pool accident being paralized from shoulders down..can use arms but not hands. If there is any way I can somehow get him to paint…I would love to know how I can do it. He can not really use neck muscles as it is a spinal cord injury.
Anyone have any ideas…would love to know. I so believe it will help him and I am willing to do what I can do to help.
Art is an amazing tool to help people communicate things that are hard to say in spoken or even written words. It’s a great story about this girl (althoug – if it was a “fatal” car accident, she would not have survived, and if she were paralized she would not be relearning to walk… So I kind of feel like I missed part of this story!). It’s very inspirational when people turn their lives around like that after so much difficulty has been thrown at them – and it almost feels like the hand of fate, here, as if she was meant to be going into therapy all along and this is what pushed her in that direction.
Laura Williams-
I am an Occupational Therapist and the young man you work for can definitely learn to paint and benefit from it. If he has the use of both of his arms but not his hands, then I am certain that he would benefit from something called a U-cuff (universal cuff). Unless he has not received OT, he should have one of these. The u-cuff has a part in which utensils such as forks, spoons, toothbrushes, or paint brushes can be placed. For your friend, you will want to be sure he is seated upright and securely in his w/c with good support at his trunk. The better the support at his trunk and hips the better he can use his upper extremities. I hope this helps!
Thankyou for this story, soooo inspiring! I always look forward to your posts.
~valoree~
thanks for the kind words…glad everyone enjoyed it!
Laura Williams, when your friend uses the U-cuff and holds to hold a paintbrush, he can experiment with the Wet-on-Wet watercolor technique, using overlapping colors to blend and make abstract shapes for a satisfying and fun first-time painting experience. The beauty of it is that it does not have to replicate anything, just allows a freedom of movement and creativity without preconceived ideas of what the painting should look like when it’s finished. Using wet watercolor paper, the paint is dropped or swished onto the paper, and the result is a colorful one-of-a-kind watercolor creation to frame and hang on the wall!
Here is a link to a video demo of the technique you can refer to. http://www.sunrisedistrib.com/VideoClipWetonWet.html
Let us know how it goes!
very inspiring! looking forward for the article on art benefits brain. art is an amazing assessment tool in psychotherapy.
This is fantastic.
I too am a Mental Health Therapist and have been very practive where art is concerned as I am a qualified Art Therapist. I started my jon being allowed to do one Art Therapy session per week. I have since thengot it up to four sessions a week, one being at my local MIND.
Keep up the good, worthwhile work Shari and others who provide such a valued intervention.
Wonderful stories…
Who can tell me what I should do in order to be a qualified Art Therapist?
Thank you!
Keep me posted. I am just now working on paperwork for Admisison to an Art Therapy/Counseling program in New Mexico.
loreatencio@rocketmail.com
I’m an art professor who uses art for rehabilitation. Many of the techniqes I’ve used for stroke patience can be easily adapted for cognitive rehab with a vet who sutained a traumatic brain injury.
I don’t want to change the world. I just want to help change the life of a veteran with a brain injury using art for rehabilitation! Please pass this along!
Say..I’m the art professor who uses art for rehabilitation with learners who suffered brain injuries. Here are my e-mails- freemandw@skybest.com (or during school- taylorcl@appstate.edu.
A seven year old client,with congenital brain tumors, has been helping me understand the dark mysteries of rehabilitation for the brain.
Creating art activities that work has been baffling at best. My discouragment has come as I complete his treatment knowing I absolutely did not have the answers.
A doctorate degree, and over four thousand people in my classes, still has not prepared me for these dark mysteries of the mind inflicted with pain or the inability to function.
Please fill free to e-mail me, freemandw@skybest, if you are finding successful rehabilitation ideas for patients sustaining traumatic brain injuries, strokes, or tumors. It is a deep conundrum to my very spirit.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, for this astounding connection to art and the sypathetic voice. I had a cerebral aneurism a few years ago, and have a condition called hydrocephalus, as a result.
I worked as an illustrator and graphic designer, and painted a few murals befor the event. I have been afraid to try to make art until the past six months. I feel like I am starting to have ART IDEAS again. It is very exciting. Thank you for this insporational and supportive resource!!!
I completely support the use of art in therapeutic services given to those who unfortunately suffered a traumatic brain injury. I personally know the amazing benefits art does bring and can offer after such injury. Thinking of a traumatic brain injury and art brings tears, happy and sad; because I know what pain and growth exists.
I suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2006. I was unconscious for a month and was in recovery for over a year. I’m not 100% back and never will be; but gaining two degrees in 2008 & 2011 and a full time job as a therapist does help. I’m so happy to hear your story. Keep sharing!