Source: Judgefloro

This week, Kim Woodley, from the Rotary Club of Worthing, gives an update on the latest and future goings-on.Rotary clubs are always pleased to learn about new initiatives that help our local community and last week, during Worthing Rotary Club’s lunch meeting, we had an extremely interesting and informative talk about art psychology.The leader of this wonderful organisation is Justine Van der Weg, who runs The Arts College in Worthing.She explained that art psychology is a new area of study focusing on how a child’s brain grows and develops emotionally and socially in the home.With regular classes in Worthing we heard that a child walks into one of her art classes and thinks they are attending a standard class, but where this is different is that it is not an ‘arts and craft’ styled lesson.She helps children to be able to draw and paint in proportion successfully using a step-by-step method – e.g.in a traditional school environment a student has a shoe placed in front of them is simply told to ‘draw what they see’.This can cause anxiety but Justine is able to offer support.When a person struggles in their artwork she supports them technically in their drawing.This makes them feel relaxed and builds trust in themselves.Something shifts and triggers their thinking enabling them to feel they can do this.It teaches them to break down problems into smaller bits that they can cope with.Once the artwork is completed a facilitator assesses the art piece and the journey the child took on each step to complete the project.