Working with your hands, through arts and crafts, helps improve fine motor skills and muscle coordination, allows you to express yourself when communication is difficult, and gives you a sense of fulfillment and social connection. These are important in enhancing one’s health and well-being at any age.
Painting can be as structured or as unstructured as you want it to be. Try getting a basic painting kit, find a lovely spot to sit by the water, and just use primary colors to paint what you see on paper or canvas. This basic painting method can help ground you in the present and reduce stress.
If you know paint is not in your wheelhouse – putting a puzzle together, knitting, or working with ceramics will give you the same health benefits. Finishing a piece of artwork, puzzle, knitted hat, creating a planter pot, or whatever you choose to try, will give you a sense of accomplishment that will increase your self-esteem. If it doesn’t, you just need to find a craft that does.
Everyone is different. I found landscape painting would leave me feeling inadequate most of the time, but acrylic pouring and resin gave me a release that helped grow my love of paint, chemical reactions, and color combinations. If you’re interested in trying ceramics, Blaine-Birch Bay Park and Recreation (BBBPRD2) has pottery classes for kids and adults starting in July and August.
Arts are not limited to painting but can include writing, music, photography, and acting. So, if you enjoy writing, try enrolling in a poetry, fiction, or nonfiction writing class at your local community college. I took a fiction writing class one summer, years ago, and I began writing short stories that helped me work out my emotions creatively, which I still do.
Wondering where to go for arts and crafts? The Blaine Library offers monthly adult crafting group meet-ups on the second and fourth Monday of every month, where you can bring your crafting equipment and craft in the company of others. Blaine Senior Center offers arts (watercolor, Zentangles, and acrylics) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and crafts (crafting and knitting circles) on Thursdays. Call Blaine Senior Center at 360/332-8040 for more information. BBBPRD2 has classes in Still Life Drawing, Rock Painting, Expressive Self Portrait, and Guided Landscape Painting starting in July. Check out our website (bbbparkandrec.org) to register.
Need some arts and crafts geared to kids? On July 18, kids can make a wind chime with a pinwheel. On July 25, learn about the importance of cedars in Coast Salish culture as you weave a mat for the library. Get your teens into art by signing them up for the library’s 3-day art camp starting July 16. Call the Blaine Library at 360/305-3637 for more information. If your kids are interested in acting, BBBPRD2 has a Youth Drama Camp for 5 to 12-year-olds starting in mid-July.
If you just enjoy appreciating art, please check out the Blaine Arts Council’s The Wave Art Festival at Marine Park on July 27 and 28, where you can find different genres of artwork displayed and for sale.
We have a very artistic community around us and it’s great to know how much is out there for everyone to enjoy.
Laura Nesse is the activity coordinator at Blaine-Birch Bay Park and Recreation District 2.
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