Art Heals: Color the art of Super Sunday

It's official: if you're feeling a lot of stress right now, you're far from the only one. On February 15, the American Psychological Association released the findings of its annual survey, "Stress in America", and announced that stress levels in Americans have made the first significant jump in the survey's 10-year history. But we don't need a survey to know this. We've watched it color our social feeds. We feel it in everyday experiences.

Here at the Wex, we see it in responses to programming that touches on some of the incendiary issues currently affecting our society. We're so proud to be a place in which the arts can foster tough conversations with a multitude of different voices to inspire social change and personal growth. At the same time, we want to highlight how the arts can be a sanctuary when stress gets to be too much.

With Art Heals, we'll share prescriptions for art as self-care. To start, you'll find a trio of coloring pages below created by Columbus artists Dan Gerdeman, Grant Gilsdorf, and Rob W. Jones for our Super Sunday event earlier this month. Save the images to your desktop or cloud drive, print them out, pick up your medium of choice and spend some time coloring in or out of the lines. 

"Coloring definitely has therapeutic potential to reduce anxiety, create focus or bring [about] more mindfulness," certified art therapist Marygrace Berberian told CNN reporter Kelly Fitzpatrick in 2016. Fitzpatrick further reported, "just like meditation, coloring also allows us to switch off our brains from other thoughts and focus only on the moment, helping to alleviate free-floating anxiety." One of the specific benefits of coloring, she noted, is that the pre-contained designs in coloring pages provide a creative outlet that feels safe. 

We'll be sharing more ideas and suggestions in the weeks ahead. If you've got one to share, tell us about it on Facebook or Twitter.