CASSA Arts Workshop 2022 -- 2023

Dusk

Acrylic on Canvas by James C

Crochet Rug by LaVonda K


Recent CASSA Artwork

Starburst, Acrylic on Canvas by James C

The CASSA Arts Workshop under the direction of Ruth Stenstrom, ATR-BC, completed her 34h year of providing arts services for participants of Clean & Sober Streets. This year the Workshop has been assisted by C&SS Clinical Director Nisha Tracy, LPC,ATR, and George Washington University graduate art therapy interns -- Dalia and Jorja, along with Haley from 2020-21 and Anna from 2021-22. Since the Coronavirus pandemic hit the Washington, DC area in March 2020, Clean & Sober Streets has adapted its program to remain open as a safe environment by working individually and with smaller groups of participants. In addition to its work with substance abuse treatment support, the arts program has provided opportunities to help for participants to deal with the additional stress and anxiety provoked by this pubic health crisis. CASSA Arts Workshop Services Along with therapeutic art groups , our Open Art Studio groups for men and women provide instruction and opportunities for work with fused glass and other jewelry making projects, painting on canvas, drawing, mixed media projects, fiber arts, sculpture, computer music composition, digital arts and photography. In May we began a series of weekly trips to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Gallery and the Museum of the American Indian. The program offers separate art workshops for men and women that are available for creation of independent art projects including work tables, shelves with art supplies for painting, fiber arts and drawings with panels and easels for acrylic painting on canvas or on large pieces of paper. In the fall we began a a new series of special weekly “Duende” process painting workshops. Each week participants are invited to create a new layer over the previous week’s work as a way to enhance ideas, to express feelings and to explore painting techniques. In the spring workshops were offered in altered books, visual journalling, painting on tote bags and dry needle felting. CONTRIBUTIONS 
The CASSA Arts Workshop is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.