Using Pencil Tip Erasers to Message: Art for Many Places and Spaces

Matching Mental Health Services to Students Who Need Them

So, I was thinking about mental health and how we connect those who need help with the many available services. Sure, there are shortages of personnel but we have many services that go untapped.

I still remember, in this vein, when I was a college president and we shared a dashboard with the trustees at every meeting. One of the data points was a number representing visits to our counseling center, a key resource that often went underused in my view. Each data point had an accompanying arrow — green up/down, red up/down and yellow neutral.

At one meeting, a trustee asked: “The counseling visits are up and you are showing a green arrow up. Isn’t this supposed to be a red arrow up?” I paused and looked at the chart again to make sure I was seeing what the trustee was seeing and that we had interpreted the data correctly.

I replied: “No, the green arrow up is spot-on. We are better off when students seek help. The more visits to counseling services, the better off we are. And, even if we need more counselors, it is money well spent in terms of student retention and success.”

I raise this story in the hopes that we can develop many avenues for destigmatizing mental health concerns and increasing the matching between programs and people. And, sadly, oft-times the people who need counseling the most discouraged from partaking for a myriad of reasons — stigma, culture, fear, parental influence, personal demons and the list continues. Indeed, we often preach to the choir at meetings as those who attend may be those least in need of the proffered messaging.

Common Objects to Message Effectively about Mental Health

More recently, with all the trauma in our world, I have started using even more art to message. I have been using “turning forks” (forks with musical notes) to create symbols of the effects of trauma being re-activated. We commonly use the terminology “re-triggered” which is a bothersome nomenclature for me on many levels. There’s an irony too: we are worried about the impact of trauma reactivation and how it produces outsized behavior and yet we use a term to describe that reaction that reminds us of other trauma — shootings.

As I have been trying to think about ways to engage more folks accessing mental health services, we can use art to message and we can message in ways that are not offensive and might even be appealing and funny and engaging. What follows are several of my recent works which I’ll desconstruct momentarily, all available here: https://www.artpal.com/karengross#i3.

The point is to message through a common object that takes on a different role in the art rendition. The common object in this case is pencil erasers, something used by children often to erase mistakes (which are inevitable). Indeed, how good to realize that we make mistakes and can erase them and redo what we did in error.

These pencil tip erasers come in all colors and more recently in different shapes. I have used the original shaped pencil caps (tips) to message about diversity and feelings and identity and trauma and the state of our crazy world but note that when tipped on their sides in some of the images, the pencil tips look like arrows — pointers. Consider sending people off to make good decisions using art — erasers turned arrows.

The point of the pointy erasers on the point of a pencil is to message that we can and should identify what we are feeling and thinking. We can identify positive and negative thoughts and feelings and behaviors.

Feeling the Blues?

The above image, titled Feeling the Blues, plays off the word “blue.” Yes, there are the Blues — as in music. There is the color blue — with its many shades. And, there is the idea of feeling “blue,” as in feeling sad. If the art can help someone who IS sad recognize that feeling (name it), then we can tame it, to use an architecture for addressing trauma that I commonly employ.

Now, here’s another image with a message:

It is titled: You Can’t Erase Me. Ponder the many meanings of this. The person depicted is blue in color and we do discriminate against blue people (and black and brown and yellow and orange people). Just read The Book Woman At Troublesome Creek.

But, we oft-times consider that we can ignore or erase people who aren’t like us. We can segregate them. We can treat them badly. We can create hurdles so they do not rise up and are kept down.

And, we also want to “erase” trauma, although it can’t be erased. It can be ameliorated and recognized but it doesn’t go away. One of the hardest things to accept if one has been traumatized is that the trauma once it happens is “with you.” It become part of the luggage you carry, often invisible luggage (what I call the Invisible Backpack).

So, with the erasers signaling erasure, the message is the opposite as evidenced by the title: erasers do not work to eliminate people or trauma. Some things and all beings can’t be erased. You can have as many erasers as you can find and you still can’t erase another person.

Other Messages

Consider this image:

It is titled Green Pieces. Yes, at one level it is a play off the similar name of one of the most known environmental organizations: Green Peace. And with that play on words, it is referencing (through green) the need to pay attention to both the environment and to Peace.

But, this piece also is about being or feeling green — and in that context, green has many meanings. It can be a reference to being inexperienced. It can refer to being jealous. It can refer to being ill. Bottom line, one can interpret the green eraser tips as one chooses — art that speaks to a person as an individual.

One last example:

This piece is Titled Mellow Yellow. First, it is about how color can affect feelings, as in “Blue” above. And, we do use color in rooms to message to those within them. And, we should use color on walls and stairwells in schools to message — although we commonly use gray plaster with little or no message except “bland.”

Perhaps this Mellow Yellow piece also suggests the shadows we cast — and those can be positive and negative. We, as people, aren’t isolated and in the larger world, our presence has an impact whether we intend it to do so or not. Note too that the shadows differ although the ordinary objects are all the same. Light (and life) treats us all differently.

The color yellow has many other meanings — happiness and sunshine. It can also reference cowardice and egoism. In traffic signals, it means pause. And sadly and pejoratively, we refer to some people as “yellow,” a term to reference ethnicity and not in a positive way.

Yet again, this eraser art messages differently to different people.

Classrooms and Children

The pencil tip art can be done by children and adults alike. They can create images on backgrounds of their choosing (these allow for light and shadow) and colorful eraser tips of their choosing. And, perhaps children and educators can identify other common objects that can be used to create art and messaging and protest statements and feelings of a wide ranging sort and concerns about diversity. We can use erasers to help us get at what we are thinking and feeling and how we are behaving. It is art that allows us through titles to message through words and then to back up the words with imagery

In a very real way, this is a multidimensional way of getting at feelings and thoughts and behaviors. And, given the state of our world and the levels of trauma and toxic stress and social anxiety, we need all the tools we can muster.

Pencil erasers. And beyond.

Post Script

I have been reflect on collecting all my existing and to be created works with eraser tips together into an amazing table top book. The book would include one sheet of metallic paper and some eraser tips at the end — so kids (and adults) can see and then create all on their own again and again by photographing what they produce. Thoughts of readers of all ages welcomed.

Second Post Script

Some have asked how one gets prints of the eraser art. They are available for purchase through ArtPal and you can order prints and canvases and framed pieces. Enjoy and I hope the images bring joy to the hearts of children and adults. https://www.artpal.com/karengross