M
ELISSA HEDLUND LOVES WORKING WITH CHILDREN. MORE IMPORTANTLY, SHE LOVES SHARING THE IMPACT
AND POWER TO COMMUNICATE THAT CREATING ART PROVIDES. HEDLUND HAS ENJOYED ART SINCE SHE WAS A YOUNG GIRL. SHE LONGED FOR A WAY TO COMBINE ART WITH HER OTHER PASSION OF HELPING PEOPLE AS A POTENTIAL CAREER. WHEN SHE CAME ACROSS PAT ALLEN’S BOOK, “ART IS A WAY OF KNOWING”, HEDLUND FOUND HER CALLING AS AN ART THERAPIST.
Hedlund pursued her calling and learned that art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses art therapists and the creative process of art-making to holistically make changes to the mind, heart, body and soul that foster growth, healing, mindfulness, connections, or whatever you may need in that moment in time. Yet, Hedlund still felt something was missing from her path. She had worked in a variety of settings, everything from relational trauma to an inpatient psychiatric hospital to working with cancer patients. “I just never felt at home,” explains Hedlund. “Each job was amazing. But I knew that each was temporary for me and that I was working towards something. I didn’t know what at the time so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept moving and learning”. In 2010, Hedlund received a call from a friend who asked if she would be interested in being the Art Director for a summer camp at a church in the east-side community of Aurora, IL, a western suburb of Chicago. Despite the camp being located in a “bad neighborhood”, Hedlund felt curious and adventurous. She accepted the job. The children in the camp came from at-risk families that were severely under-resourced. The only meal that many of the children had all day long was at the camp. Some had experienced violence and significant trauma in their young lives. It was Hedlund’s job to create art with these children. She went to work. “The children arrived at the camp defeated, looking at their feet and not very excited about being there,” remembers Hedlund. “By the end of the two weeks, they left singing, smiling, dancing, and with a sparkle in their eyes. They were living in the moment and connected to the light”. Hedlund’s life was changed forever as she discovered what had been missing in her career up to that point. The Light of the Heart was born in Aurora’s east-side community working with those children. This not-for-profit community art therapy project provides high quality art therapy programs to at-risk and under-served youth in the Aurora community.
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