The Aphrodite Project
By Lynn K. Jones, DSW
Social Work Today
Vol. 4, No. 6, Page 26

A social worker pairs people who have cancer with professional artists. They journey together cocreating art and discovering new forms of self-expression.

“I was sleepwalking through life before the not-so-gentle tap on the shoulder reminded me that life is not an endless commodity to be wasted.” For Randi, a diagnosis of cancer was her wake-up call, and The Aphrodite Project gave her the chance to make the most of it.

The Aphrodite Project was a voyage into uncharted territory that demanded courage, tapped into hidden creativity, and unleashed the energy that develops from meaningful relationships. Ultimately, it proved to be an experience that redefined lives in unanticipated ways.

Aphrodite, the goddess who was a force for change through her passionate creativity, was the inspiration behind the unique project that Jo-Anne Blatter, MSW, LCSW, proposed to a group of people diagnosed with cancer. Hoping to change lives, she imagined something different from traditional individual and group psychotherapy or art therapy. She wanted to help her clients move in new directions.

A process of creating “collaborative art” had moved Blatter. Inspired by the work of Bolen and Estes, she had attempted to explore some midlife issues by articulating meaningful discoveries that were then interpreted for her by an artist. She called this collaborative writing and art experience “The Aphrodite Project.”

After hanging her collaborative art in her office, she discovered that the paintings stirred her clients to share lost stories of their lives. She decided to develop an Aphrodite Project for her cancer clients, hoping to give them the opportunity to explore and make meaning of their lives through the experience of creating art with an artist.

People diagnosed with cancer enter a frightening world of unknowns. For the participants of the Aphrodite Project, the creative process was also an alien world. Venturing into this foreign realm, however, provided an opportunity to learn how to overcome chaos and discover joy in their lives. It was an inner discovery that, along with developing valued relationships, produced a new understanding of life and its meaning. The art they created served as a container for their grief and isolation, for their hopes and dreams, and in so doing it transformed them in ways they could not have imagined. The experience was a gift of life.

The Aphrodite Project Process
Through the Aphrodite Project, Blatter sought to support clients with cancer. She was particularly interested in those clients who did not participate in the traditional support groups or for whom the services that accompany the acute phase of treatment had ended. She astutely recognized that these were the people who most needed help. Her clients believed that upon entering this chronic phase of treatment, their lives were supposed to be back to normal—but they weren’t. They were open to trying something different. The specter of losing their lives from cancer had prompted a desire to live their lives more fully, to be adventurous, to push the limits. They had been primed for this moment by Blatter, who approaches her work with cancer patients as an opportunity to learn who they are, what their needs are, where they have left aspects of themselves behind, and where their lives aren’t working. “When something like cancer happens, it requires us to look at our lives,” says Blatter.

The Aphrodite Project enabled Blatter to design relationships that each client would find meaningful. Each cancer client, “a creator,” was paired with an artist. Each artist volunteered to be part of the project but was selectively paired with each creator. Marina Walker, PhD, who participated in the project as an artist but is also a psychologist, believes that Blatter’s pairings were critical to the project’s success.

Blatter saw her role as the “navigator” of an adventure on which everyone—creators and artists alike—had embarked. They would go through this together with “a sense of the mystery,” not knowing what the outcome would be and understanding that the journey itself was what was important. As a therapist, it was a challenge to not have an end in mind and yet still provide the guidance that each pair needed. Blatter visited every creator-artist pair throughout the six months they cocreated art. She facilitated the process and kept the momentum going, especially when people felt stuck or blocked or when they ran into obstacles. In addition, she met with the creators and artists in support groups.

Eight creator-artist pairs cocreated a diversity of art: paintings, collages, masks, sculpture, photography, and a CD of a song. In addition, the group made a quilt together. At the conclusion of the project, the art was unveiled at a gallery opening attended by family and friends. That event was an opportunity for all to share how the Aphrodite Project had affected their lives, explain the meaning of the art they created, and celebrate their life discovery together.

A Creator’s Perspective
For Randi, it was her “implicit trust” in Blatter that gave her the courage to participate in the Aphrodite Project. Blatter, who openly said she did not know where this adventure might lead, was a role model for Randi.

As a creator, the challenge for Randi was to take her experience with breast cancer and translate her emotions into something concrete, something one can see and touch. She had an idea for a painting, but after she was paired with a Mexican folk artist, the painting was abandoned. They agreed to make masks together: one mask of Randi before the cancer and one after.

In an intimate odyssey, Randi made her masks and began a process of feeling anew and recasting those feelings with another person. She had never before given herself permission to talk about what she experienced, and telling her story proved to be a powerful journey of self-discovery.

The process of mask making entailed layering strips saturated with plaster of paris on her face to make the form. When the form was pulled off her face, it was “like a weight had been lifted.” Her skin felt like new skin, “like a baby’s skin.” She felt reborn.

The meditationlike process of layering strips of papier mache on the form required a patience that was satisfying; Randi was symbolically rebuilding her life. In painting the two masks, she was able to represent the more anxious, fearful, conservative person she had become in contrast with the freer, playful, adventurous person she was becoming.
The masks gave meaning to her past and future along with a sense of joy in her present life. She found resolution to her cancer experience along with the resolve to change her life. Realizing that all we have for sure is today and that it can be fun and joyous, Randi committed herself to making the most out of every day.

An Artist’s Perspective
Walker has come to believe that the act of making art has the capacity to transmute pain and trauma. “It takes the trauma from us at a cellular level and works the story for us so that we can see it at a new level,” she says. She was paired with Mike and together they painted panels that represented the life cycle of his experience with cancer. They went to the art store together and selected colors of paint; they sat together and talked. Mike, “a non-word person,” was able to express what had happened to him, to tell his story through art, where words had been inadequate in the past.

In Walker’s view, the Aphrodite Project was a magical alchemy that brought people together and created a context for them to experience life in a new way, producing new understandings while having fun. Walker accompanied her creator in cocreating art, but she did not lead him, as she would have in a therapeutic role. She says the experience “brought out deeply human feelings for one another.”

Walker believes the Aphrodite Project mirrors the creative process, which explains why it has so much vitality. Drawing on the work of Rollo May, she says, “When you face the blank canvas or the blank page, you face yourself and the unknown; to resolve that, you have to go inside. When one sits down to make something that represents what they have been through, it is a profound experience of struggle, yet at the same time hopeful. There is almost a rebirth of self; it is an assertion of life over death, and for this reason the creative process is innately life-orienting.”

Walker believes the potency of the Aphrodite Project is in collaboration during the creative experience. She explains, “The experience of going to that dark place and having somebody there with them while they make something beautiful and then bring it back is like a rebirth for people as human beings. It is as if they peered into the abyss of death and came back. It is dancing around those edges that is regenerative.”

As an artist, Walker was profoundly moved by the joy Mike felt in the art they cocreated. She says, “I was witness to something almost sacred that occurred. It feels like trying to capture a butterfly—this beautiful thing that moved through my life and everyone’s life and then it went on its way.” For her, participation was one of life’s rare moments that has proved inspirational in her life as well as in her own artistic process.

The Aphrodite Project Impact
When Blatter conceived the Aphrodite Project, she had no idea how far-reaching the effects would be. One year later, artists and creators still feel moved and enriched by the experience. They speak passionately about the fun they had, about the excitement of experiencing their own creative potential and future, and about how they found renewed vitality—a new vision of their lives.

Aaron, an environmental scientist and a college professor who has kidney cancer, becomes animated when he speaks of his experience. For him, the Aphrodite Project is still alive. He realizes the value of it even more now that he has some distance on it a year later. He describes the Aphrodite Project as “a touchstone in his life” that has made it easier to handle everything that has come along since.

Randi learned that if you close people out because you want to spare them or don’t want to deal with them, you miss giving others the opportunity to help. She realized that life is richer when you are more open to people and experience. Not only has this changed her personal life, but also she feels it changed how she functions at work.

Everyone shared the experience of the positive results of risk taking. This inspired creativity in the artists, and several of them started using new art modalities in their work. Most of the creators have started doing new things in their lives, too. Mike started playing the harmonica; Ann, who wrote a song and created a CD, is taking piano lessons; and Beverly, an artist who stopped painting when she was diagnosed with cancer, has started painting again.

Lives have been profoundly altered through the Aphrodite Project. The paralyzing fear of having cancer, or being with someone who has cancer, has been quieted. Hope and joy have replaced the desperation and devastation in those with cancer. The impact is incalculable. It builds on itself and affects almost every experience. The prospect that it may even change the course of their illness does not seem to be beyond possibility. At the outset, the creators and their artists were involved in the Aphrodite Project to create a legacy before they died, but in the end what they discovered was a new way of living.

— Lynn K. Jones, DSW, is a freelance writer and an executive coach and organizational consultant in Santa Barbara, CA. As a specialist in organizational culture, she supports leaders and organizations in developing mission-driven cultures.

Resources on the Aphrodite Project
The Aphrodite Project was chronicled in a documentary film that was featured at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. Information about the film The Aphrodite Project can be found at www.tidepoolpictures.com.

For information about the Aphrodite Project, visit www.theaphroditeproject.org.