Jody Johnson-Barra never intended for her self-help class community project, to become a regional non-profit organization, with herself as the co-founder.
But that’s exactly what happened.
Healing Thru Arts started as a one-time art exhibit at a well-known Coral Gables bookstore, Books and Books. Johnson-Barra said its mission is to help women “use art as a means of healing.”
She attended a Self Expression Leadership Program where one of the assignments was to create a “community project.”
Johnson-Barra came up with the idea from her personal experiences when working in an emergency room. In order to release her feelings from the pain and suffering that others went through at her job, she would come home and paint them away.
She also happens to be a victim of sexual assault.
At the time Healing Thru Arts was founded, Johnson-Barra was taking classes for victims of sexual assault at the Journey Institute in Miami. She and some of the women in her class got together to take her “community project” to Books and Books.
In that first exhibit, forty women participated and there were one hundred pieces of art, music and poetry.
Johnson-Barra said she would have been happy to let the project end there, but she decided to continue it because of the positive response she received from the women in the community.
Miami-Dade Job Corps, which helps train economically challenged people from ages 16 to 24, requested the second exhibit. An employee happened to come across a flyer promoting the first exhibit and was so interested that he contacted Johnson-Barra and asked her to come to the school. There she conducted workshops that lasted for eight weeks.
When asked about what she gets from doing it, Johnson-Barra said, “First and foremost I do it to heal myself.”
In fact, her own healing has come so far that she has been able to form a great relationship with her own abuser.
Johnson-Barra said she knows that some people wouldn’t understand that relationship and said, “Society has a certain judgment and they impose it on the victims and perpetrators.”
But she stressed that building a relationship with one’s abuser is not necessarily a goal of the organization. That decision is left up to the individual.
She also said her work has strengthened her bond with her sisters both of whom work with the organization. She said she loves being united with them in a common goal of helping others.
Because of the amount of requests that she was receiving, she enrolled her sister, Valerie Law, to help her form Healing Thru Arts.One of their projects that the organization began is the Prison Arts Project.
The idea of bringing their work to the prison came to Law by accident. A friend of hers who is in the prison ministry approached her and told her that the women needed this type of help.
So once a week, Law and other volunteers visit the prison bringing their art supplies with them. About 35 to 50 women show for approximately 2 hours every Sunday to participate.
Originally, it too started as an eight-week program. But like its parent, Healing Thru Arts, it never stopped.
“It was not intended to be continuous,” Law said.
Law said that many of the women believe they are “defined by one action,” and she tells them, “a thing that you have done is not who you are.”
According to Law, the inmates’ crimes range from writing bad checks to using drugs and even murder. She only knows this because some of them offer the information, but she said she never asks because, “It doesn’t matter what they did before. It matters what they are doing now and in the future.” Ninety-five percent of the women, however, are not in there for life and will eventually be released.
Healing Thru Arts “takes the emotions and allows you to put them on paper,” Law said. For Law, it “forces me to do artwork as well.”
Jason Parsley can be reached at 561-297-2960 or [email protected].æææ
To see the prisoner’s artwork you can visit the Boca Campus library until Sept. 30. For more Information on Healing Thru Arts you can visit their website at HealingThruArts.org.
