The Healing City Summit is an annual event hosted by Healing City Baltimore that includes five days of virtual unity, community building, and healing. This year, Wide Angle’s Design Studio was invited to present a session during the Bmore With Youth day on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021.

I worked with Ms. Becky, Design Studio Instructor, and Jayla, Design Studio Student, to create a session called “Create Your Own Calm: Creativity for Self Care.” At first I was a bit nervous but I was able to gather enough confidence because I knew Ms. Becky and Jayla were there for me every step of the way.

“Everyone gets stressed, and stress is very normal. Whether you think you are creative or not, creativity doesn’t always take place in the form of art, and that’s ok! Everyone is creative in their own special ways, and that is the true work of art!”

– Jayla Brown

During the presentation me and Jayla and I shared our own work and how being creative helps us to deal with stress.

"Being apart of the healing city summit was definitely a wonderful experience for me. Being able to speak my part on using creativity for self-care, sharing my art and how it’s helped/helping me and hopefully helping others stay stress-free made me feel like Healing City was like a home. A home that was accepting of any and everyone that was brave enough and willing to speak up about what they’ve gone through or are still going at the moment. And it’s kinda like as new people are walking into this home they become the next person to help somebody else that comes through. To sum it up, Healing City is like a beautiful chain of speaking up, helping others, and accepting someone new"

– Jayla Brown

To conclude, I hope that this presentation helped people realize that there are others that struggle with stress, anxiety and depression. And, that there are multiple ways to deal with stress especially through creative art. For example, most people I know use photography or painting to relieve stress. 

Working on the session made me feel like I could do more with design than I thought I could. It made me feel like I was helping Healing City make a change by just one step at a time.

Want to learn more? Here’s a link to a Nearpod board that we created during our session that has a ton of crowd sourced ideas for how to use creativity for self care and check out the recording of our presentation below!

“I began taking pictures in Middle School, 8th grade to be exact. I was a super shy person and I was not used to change. I was always afraid of leaving middle school and not seeing my friends and I thought my happiness was leaving me. I went outside one night and looked up at the stars and noticed how beautiful they are. If I can capture the beauty in the world then I won’t be afraid of what’s to come.”

– Ke’Asia Alston

MEET THE AUTHOR

Ke’Asia is a 16-year-old photographer with a passion. She likes to take pictures of the beauty around her. She is also a member of Wide Angle’s Design Studio.