Katherine Relf-Canas

Katherine Relf-Canas splits her time between freelance writing, teaching and other projects. She also volunteers for PSE, an NGO that runs a unique school in Cambodia that serves and supports children and families in poverty. She is now involved with the recently established American Friends of PSE. She has written for blogs and contributed to literary sites and parenting magazines since 1996. Katherine began writing about the healing power of art for this site in 2012, and dedicated the project to her mother, Connie Relf, who worked as an artist and died in 2010.

Articles:

The Bitter Taste of Grief: Art and Healing

“Take the bitter taste of this night and move on…” This evening, I read that phrase in a New York Times article “Mexico Earthquake, Strongest in a Century, Kills Dozens.” The reporter had spoken with Mexico City earthquake survivor, Alberto Briseño, who managed to share words of hopeful resignation amidst the chaos. “Moving on,” Briseño said, “it’s what Mexicans do so well.” By a strange conjunction of events, the day of this historic earthquake, September 8, 2017, was already marked on my calendar. Weeks ago, I’d written “Rocky Behr’s estate sale” there. I’d wanted to go to the estate sale, which was happening […]

Ode to an Urn Maker: Commemorative Urns of Eliza Thomas

Ceramic artist Eliza Thomas has a unique practice of creating commemorative urns and offering them to those grieving a loss. Hearing of this work, I was intrigued, and tried to track her down. When we finally meet at Caffe Borrone in Menlo Park, we are just a short walk from Stanford University. Next door neighbors to Kepler’s Books, Borrone’s is also not far from longtime haven of progressive education, the Peninsula School, where Thomas has taught Nursery-8th grade art for 35 years. Creating Connections Deep human connection is a thread that you’ll find expressed in one way or another in […]

A Daughter Remembers Her Father’s Creative Legacy

My father, Geoff Relf, a longtime San Diego advertising and communications figure passed away July 28, 2015, at 85, after battling cancer, surviving his wife, Connie by five years. The couple met at the University of Washington and moved to San Diego in 1956, then to La Jolla in 1959, where they raised four children: Terrie, Robin, Kirk, and Katherine. He was born in Tacoma, Washington, the son of Henry Clark Relf, an international lumber broker and De Lonto May Kirk, who met at the University of Washington. He was fond of sharing stories of his precocious childhood endeavors and […]

Healing through Expressive Arts: A Conversation with Patricia Rojas-Zambrano

Exploring the field of art therapy through a series of interviews with practitioners in the Bay Area and beyond has become a new focus for me. Last month I met with Patricia Rojas-Zambrano after learning about her art journaling workshops through a chance meeting with a regular attendee. I caught her in the middle of an art journaling exchange project between a group of immigrants and refugees from several Latin American countries, and a group of young Maya Kakchiquel women living in the Guatemalan Highlands. The field of Creative Arts Therapy makes a distinction between expressive arts therapy and traditional […]

Life Coach Empowers Clients Through Story and Craft

“What now?” It’s a phrase we might utter when we’re dealing with too much in our lives and maybe waiting for a let-up after a cascade of troubles, tragedies and grief strike us. It’s also a question we might ask when we are seeking some direction in our lives. We all get stuck. For those feeling stuck or unraveled by events in their lives, life coaching can provide an avenue for change, growth and self-discovery. It’s different depending on whom you work with, just like therapy. Through her life coaching practice, 3 Speed Life Coach, Joanna Weston brings a unique […]

Heart-Shaped Door: A Story of Kids and Art

“What do you think you’d want to draw that’s at home?” asks Gary Vasgerdsian, an artist who today is wearing his volunteer hat, participating in a unique program called Kids & Art. The two youngsters he is addressing are Bay Area kids who belong to a very special population of children. Their lives have been touched by cancer. Looking around the room here at the Peninsula Museum of Art, it might not be apparent who in this group is undergoing cancer treatment. At first glance, you might think these are kids doing an “ordinary” art workshop. Just by looking you […]

Artist who Lost Mother Collaborates with Family Writings

In the San Francisco Bay Area with its forward-looking culture, we take notice of what’s new. We thirst for innovation. Bay Area artist Belinda Chlouber finds fascination and value in exploring and mining the past. I spoke with her in her San Mateo home studio about a recent series of multi-media work. Currently she has pieces that are part of a group show in San Mateo California art space Flywheel Press. Part of her recent body of work will be on exhibit at Oklahoma State University Museum of Art’s Postal Plaza Gallery in a one-woman show from June 16 – […]

Man Who Lost Parents As a Child Speaks Through Art

If you have spent any time in La Jolla, California over the last decades, you might have seen Chris Canole in one of his many incarnations. This year, for the entire month of August, a series of drawn portraits and illustrations by this local polymath was on display as a one-man show at the Pannikin cafe. A playful conceptualization on the term retrospective, the artist used the show to look back on his life and inward as well. We all have key people for whom we are grateful, but Canole emphasizes that it’s doubly true for him. His parents died […]

LifeLines: Using Art to Heal Grief

By Katherine Relf-Canas and Nina Koepcke Art is often made alone. When an artist creates something outward-facing and externalized, usually isolation is the ideal environment. But isolation isn’t always good, especially when we’re facing grief. Isolation is not good for us when we are going through tough passages in our lives. It was the urge to create community through making art that helped propel two friends, both dealing with the death of a child, to create a unique art/therapy group back before that concept was common. The artists, Nina Koepcke, and Lois Stuart resided in the San Francisco Bay Area (San […]

Five Artist Perspectives on the Numinous Quality of Portraiture

I asked the five artists whose reflections appear below to write about what I call the numinous quality of portraiture. I want to thank them for providing me with their insight and for their personal responses. Each commentary is different and uniquely speaks about the authors’ life, experiences and craft. I will be adding additional artist statements in a follow-on piece. In portraits, many different qualities are at play all at once. Portraits seem to be a sign of love: of a person, of artistic ideas and family history. Sometimes one of these predominates, sometimes all three. For a portrait […]

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