Believing that art is a doorway to the soul, SPIRAL Arts invites adults and children from all walks of life to create art in an inclusive, spiritually-centered, caring community. To be a safe place, a sanctuary, where isolated city people in need of hope, purpose, and meaningful community can experience transformation, spiritual growth, joy and healing through the creative arts within a community of support is the mission statement of SPIRAL Arts.

Creating Community

SPIRAL Arts is for everyone who experiences isolation or loneliness. Classes typically include several single parents and their children (who will either take part in the class or join the child-care group), one or two adults from group homes for people with physically or mentally handicapping conditions, a couple of folks with mental illnesses, several individuals from churches and agencies, a local artist or two, a number of suvivors of sexual or other abuse and a variety of other city people. Most participants are in the low-income bracket. Out of this amazing diversity of people, an inclusive community of creativity and care grows and blossoms during the weeks that the class meets. Individuals return to take other classes during the year and become part of the larger SPIRAL Arts community that includes the board, committees and volunteers. Participants frequently help teach other classes and workshops or assist at art festivals.

Teachers at SPIRAL Arts are companions on the journey of faith and creative expression. They come from local churches, the art community, the Maine College of Arts and the neighborhoods being served. They emphasize the creative process rather than the final products--experimentation and playfulness rather than perfection. Participants learn life lessons--not simply lessons in art.
 

By offering experiences in art and creative expression, SPIRAL Arts reaches out to many previously untouched people who do not relate to any church community. For numbers of isolated people in Portland, the traditional invitations into church do not work. SPIRAL Arts invites them into the presence of the Holy in a whole new way.

Doorway to the Soul

As participants begin asking deeply spiritual questions that arise from their artwork, a forum for exploration of spiritual issues continually evolves through one-on-one sharing and group discussions. This happened dramatically in the "Art and Prayer" class, in which participants sculpted clay into images that described their spiritual lives.

A special education teacher and active church member, Judy Swanson, and her husband, have attended SPIRAL Arts classes for several years. Judy experienced multiple personality disorder, the result of severe childhood abuse. After years of intense work, she integrated her many selves into her one self. Her spiritual life and her artwork were "important parts of me that I was struggling to own, being a multiple personality," she says. "It certainly contributes to increasing how I value those parts. The manner in which we gather and share our work is incredibly safe, allowing us to explore far deeper. The climate is created where taking risks is very much what SPIRAL Arts is about. We can be silly or serious or exploratory....I feel more alive and accepted spiritually at SPIRAL Arts than in any other community, including my church."

In addition to offering classes, SPIRAL Arts also provides workshops and retreats in local churches. One church painted and sculpted at an overnight retreat called "Creativity and the Spirit." Others have explored the story of Jesus' mountaintop transfiguration with clay, mural making, song-writing, litany composing, drama and altar decorating. Retired United Methodist pastor, Helen Zigmund summed up the SPIRAL Arts secret of success: "I'm struck by the tremendous witness of the people taking the classes, of SPIRAL Arts' accepting people where they are. How often does that happen? That's exactly what Jesus did!"

Priscilla Dreyman, founder of SPIRAL Arts, is a United Methodist minister in Portland, Maine. In her work as a sculptor, she discovered the relationship between art, faith and healing.

You may contact SPIRAL Arts at 156 High St / Portland ME 04101.