Art Feeds. Determined to make a difference, Meg uses healing art to help kids be empowered to express themselves.
Meg Bourne founded Art Feeds at the age of 19. Art Feeds began as a response to a need in one simple classroom with one little boy, now Meg’s goal is to work with every child in Joplin through healing art and creative education. Art Feeds has been helping the kids of Joplin heal from the tornado in 2011, works with kids in Ghana, West Africa, and is organizing an effort to help kids of Estes Park heal after the devastating floods.
Meg talks with Mark and Theresa about her passion for helping kids through healing art, and some of the projects she’s doing with them.
Mark: You’re back inside MyFixitUpLife with my wife, Theresa …
Theresa: And my husband, Mark …
Mark: And I’m feeling color. I’m feeling art. I’m feeling the world as a better place than when we left it.
Theresa: Yeah?
Mark: Well, we didn’t really leave the world, but we did leave …
Theresa: You know, that makes you more attractive, when you’re thinking about other people.
Mark: That’s the way I like it.
Theresa: Do you know that?
Mark: I only think about other people, which is why at 112 years of age, I have limited wrinkles.
Theresa: And you always unload the dish washer, too.
Mark: I do my best. In the leaving the world better than they found it stage, we’re joined by Art Feeds. I’ve re-titled you, Meg Bourne. Chief Inspiration Officer.
Theresa: Nice!
Meg: Oh, great. I’ll let our staff know.
Theresa: You’re now a CIO, which is pretty cool.
Mark: I’ve already sent them several memoranda, so you don’t need to worry about that.
Meg: Really? Okay.
Theresa: Ignore all of those memoranda, staff, please.
Mark: You run an organization in Joplin, Missouri, and we saw it in action when we were there with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, called Art Feeds, and we want you to explain to us what Art Feeds is.
Meg: Yeah, absolutely. We are dedicated to facilitating expression and feeding creativity in children. We do that by offering free therapeutic art and creative education lessons to students in schools and in children’s organizations on a consistent basis. We do all forms of innovative and challenging art with the kids: dancing, painting drawing, sculpture, storytelling. We build structures together. We do all sorts of things to allow students to consistently express themselves and create more self-worth as well as become creative thinkers for a stronger future. In a nutshell, that’s what we do.
Theresa: We definitely applaud your work, and like Mark was saying, when we were in Joplin a few years ago with Extreme Makeover, and we saw your mobile bus, which was so cool, that you have, your mobile unit for Art Feeds, which was awesome, and then we were hearing about the stories of kids that were drawing tornadoes over and over and over again in school, and the work that you do to try to heal that, and heal other things that kids are going through through creativity. It’s so powerful and amazing.
Meg: Thank you so much. Yeah, we feel like we have the best jobs in the world, absolutely. Working through this process with Joplin’s students, and in the near future with students nationwide, is such a blessing to us. We’ve had an incredible journey. We were just looking back. It’s been about two and a half years with the kids and the schools where we’ve been every single week, and this fall we’re actually in 13 Joplin schools with 3,400 students every single week. Just to go on this journey with them from, some of them, their schools and homes and churches and losing loved ones to that moment where we’re just working to help them smile and feel normal again, to now when they’re powerful, expressive little human beings that are strong and resilient. Just to be with them on this journey has been incredible.
Theresa: I think it is so true, not just for little people, but for big people too, because I know that when I take time to create something, to draw, to make a craft, for building projects that we do, you just feel better. There’s some energy that just goes through, I guess, me, and I don’t know … Does that happen to you, Mark?
Mark: I’m listening to both of you, and Meg, and I get where you’re coming from, and by the way, the art mobile … Love that thing! Forget about being esoteric, that thing’s great.
Theresa: Yeah, Mark just wants to trick out something. Make his own mobile unit.
Mark: Do I feel that way from drawing something, painting …
Theresa: Building something.
Mark: No, but building something releases that creativity and puts me in a different place, so I get where you’re coming from, and just love what you’re doing.
Theresa: What I want to know, too, because today we’re talking about kids and DIY, and creativity, and projects, and I’m curious what kinds of things, because you guys do so many different creative things with kids in schools. What kinds of projects and activities are you doing this time of year?
Meg: I will actually explain to you a project that we did in the past, and then one that we’ll do this semester. One of the most cool projects we did was called Restore Joplin. After the disaster in Joplin, when all the debris was cleared, it was actually more painful to look at nothing than it was to look at a pile of something that once was, so we took that opportunity to turn it into a positive for the kids.
We said, “Hey. We have this land here. What do we do with it? We want to call you to action and say, ‘Why don’t you build something brand new, or re-build something that you loved in Joplin and put your own twists on it.’” They got their sketchbooks out and drew … they rebuilt the hospital with water slides. They rebuilt their schools with chocolate fountains in the front. It was also a really great level of compassion where students were rebuilding other students’ homes and building huge apartment complexes saying, “This is for everyone who has been displaced.”
We took that even further and we got refrigerator-sized and stove-sized boxes, and we organized the kids into teams and they actually got to construct their buildings. Then we took their building, about 45 of them, and set them up on the lawn and created a brand new Joplin. In this situation where they felt really helpless, like they couldn’t do anything, or had no control over what had happened, we turned it into a positive where they built these incredible buildings, and then they got to see it all come together, like, “In my fifth grade class we built this building, while first grade built this. Wow, that looks amazing. They rebuilt the school in this way.” Just to see all their ideas spark and to know that they do have the power to create change was really awesome.
That’s one of the projects that we did, I guess a year ago … a year or two ago. Then, another project that we have coming up is we do storytelling tents. That’s in a couple of parts. We teach the kids how to finger weave and finger crochet, and take all the kids’ strings and finger weaving and crochet, and build what we call a story tent, which is a big hula hoop covered in all their parts. Then we have the kids tell their own story. They pick up an object, maybe a paint brush, or just things we find … maybe a Crayon, or a little gnome, and they step into the storytelling tent and start telling their story.
We did this one about a year ago, and we had incredibly creative stories about ninjas and bananas and what have you, but we also had students who have been in foster care and they tell their story from a different perspective, and it has a happy ending where they’re waiting on a home with new parents. It’s just really powerful, because some kids who had never spoken in class before got under the storytelling tent and had kind of a layer of protection, or had some sort of magic. They built this thing together, and they were able to use their voice in a very powerful way. Those are a couple of things that we have going on in our classes.
Mark: Well, I’m going to pretend that I’m not crying right now and change the subject to people around the country, in about the 30 seconds we have left. They can get involved with you in different ways?
Meg: Yeah, absolutely. They can visit us at artfeeds.org, get involved via social media, be an intern, host an event, do an art supply drive. We have people involved all across the country, and exciting things are happening in the next couple of months, so we would love everyone to join us in that.
Theresa: For everybody listening, too, we follow you guys on Instagram, and I swear you guys have one of the best Instagram feeds. It’s just so many fun pictures every day. I want to quote you because Art Feeds, your tagline, “Love naively. Give generously. Be foolishly compassionate.” It’s so important to remember those words, and something good to think about whenever you’re working on a project with a child, whether or not it’s just for fun, or it’s for healing.
Meg: Right.
Mark: So, leave the world better than you found it. Follow Art Feeds. Follow us to the end of this break. We’ll be back with more MyFixitUpLife.
For more information about Art Feeds and their healing art programs, visit them online, on twitter, or on Facebook.
