TED Therapeutic Art with Sophie*

Wednesday, July 1st 2026
1pm PT * 3pm CT * 4pm ET
1 hour

RSVP to Jacque art@tedcommunity.org

July is Graves’ Awareness Month. This month’s art prompt invites us to reflect on our lives, our care, and our growth through the metaphor of a garden.

Art Prompt: My Life as a Garden

Inspired by gardens being in full swing this time of year, this group will focus on creating our own imaginary gardens. Plants and the layout of a garden can hold many metaphors. Does your life look like a garden where different types of plants are all mixed together randomly, or are the plants sorted by variety and evenly spaced? What plants may represent you and your loved ones? What is the equivalent of a garden junk corner (where one may hoard empty pots or hide away dead plants) in your life? What do weeds in your garden represent? How do you care for a garden and how does that reflect the way you care for yourself? The metaphors are endless!

Suggested Art Materials: A wide range of art materials would work for this prompt. You could use markers, colored pencils, or paints to depict your garden. If you have, or can find, seed catalogues or magazines with images of plants, collage would be a great medium. Nature items could be collected and used to create a more 3-dimensional artwork (E.g. sticks could be used to divide different areas of the garden and leaves or picked flowers could represent plants).

Zoom Credentials:
Contact Jacque: art@tedcommunity.org

*Sophie Restall is an Art Therapist (ATR-P) and an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) with a passion for using creative expression to help people flourish.

TED ART & Creative Studio with JACQUE*

Saturday, July 18th
1pm PST, 3pm CST, 4pm EST
1-2 hours

RSVP directly to Jacque for Zoom Log In: art@tedcommunity.org

Session Name: “Wings of Awareness, Wings of Hope”

In honor of Graves’ Awareness Month, let’s each create and decorate a butterfly as a personal expression of awareness, strength, healing, and hope.  The butterfly symbolizes the thyroid gland, reflecting the thyroid’s distinctive butterfly-like shape.

You may hand-draw, trace, or cut out a butterfly, design it in any way that feels meaningful to you, or use one of the templates available through this link as inspiration:  Butterfly Templates for Inspiration

The templates can be opened, downloaded, and printed, and are formatted for standard 8 ½ x 11-inch paper.

Once completed, the individual works of art will be brought together to form a collaborative collage.  Each piece will stand as its own unique expression, while also becoming part of a collective artwork representing the many voices, stories, and connections within the Graves’ and TED community.

Every butterfly tells a story, and we would love for yours to be part of this special Graves’ Awareness project.  Whether your artwork reflects strength, healing, struggle, hope, or transformation, your contribution will help create a powerful collective piece that honors connection, resilience, and the hope we carry together!

Suggested Supplies:

• Butterfly outline, template, or sturdy paper/cardstock for creating your own shape
• Pencils, pens, markers, colored pencils, or pastels
• Paints, paint pens, watercolor, or ink
• Scissors and a glue stick
• Collage materials such as magazine images, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, or meaningful printed words
• Fabric, ribbon, yarn, buttons, beads, or other textured materials
• Found objects, including natural materials such as small sticks, bark, dried leaves, flowers, grasses, feathers, seeds, or shells
• Or anything else that inspires you

*Jacque Boogher is the Director of TED ART & Creative Studio, a TED patient, and the highly talented leader of our monthly TED ART sessions as well as our special projects.