Art Intervention: Behind The Scenes By Shelly De La Rosa
Who knew a mood board would cause an impact on people?
When I was first introduced to the task of creating my own art intervention, at first I had no idea what that meant or how I would orchestrate it. My art education professor, Marissa, gave my class and me full control which coming up with the idea and conducting it. When I was thinking about what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted an intervention about spreading positivity or making people happy. As I was brainstorming, I started reflecting on my life in the past year and how the pandemic and lockdown really affected me mentally. I remember one day during the lockdown, I was having a bad day with my mental health. I isolated myself from my family the whole day and I was accompanied with my thoughts worrying about the world and the future. I then decided to make a list on the notes app of things that I’m grateful for today. I listed even the little things and found myself cheering myself up. I looked at that list and realized how lucky I am to things and people in my life. So that list gave me the idea for my art intervention. I decided why not have people start thinking about the things they are grateful for and things they’re looking forward to achieving And since it’s art, why not gather participants to get crafty as well.
Soooo, my art intervention was all about creating a mood board!
With what’s happening to the world, everyone needs cheering up and a distraction from the world’s evilness. I thought creating a mood board was a fun and creative way to start thinking about your personal happiness and goals. My goal is that when they create their mood board, they’ll feel inspired again and gain that drive of achieving their goals.
When I created my mood board, it was a bit difficult at first because I gratefully already have so many things that make me happy. But I didn’t know how to interpret that in images or art. My list of happiness wasn’t materialistic things but rather more deep meanings like self-confidence, Self-love, and career goals. Then I remembered that there aren’t any rules for making a mood board. I can add ANYTHING like symbols that could represent more to you. Nobody has to understand what everything in the mood board should mean except you. After I was done with my creation, I was SO HAPPY with it. I loved how it turned out like the color scheme and the variation of images and symbols.
Now it was time to ask other people to participate in my intervention. I gave my participants a gist of my purpose for the intervention and told them that they have full control over creating their mood board. The outcome exceeded my expectations. I loved witnessing their creations through Canva and noticed that each mood board was so different and unique!
I asked a few how they felt after creating one and my friend Shyan said, “I felt relieved after completing my mood board because I was able to visually see my goals and what drives me".
While my other friend said that it got them out of their comfort zone, "At first, I felt out of place because I'm not a creative person but this pushed me and I loved how it came out!"
In the end, I’m so happy that it turned out a success, and a thank you to my Professor for an amazing class this semester! Definitely one of my favorites <3
