The first totem making workshop, led by Thais Mazur engaged many of our clients by showing them ways to re-image their bodies by making totems representing themselves or their struggle with cancer.

Students had a variety of materials to work with, including fabrics of all colors and textures, locally collected wood, items that they brought from home, beads, feathers, string, and other materials.
Workshop participants also made faces for their totems out of clay. Here you can see instructor Tais Masur heating the clay to harden it.

Workshop space was donated by the Mendocino Arts Center, in the village of Mendocino. Below are pictures of workshop participants hard at work.

Here are a few of the finished works of art that the students created.

Rita Martinez, the patient advocate from the CRCMC who put so much dedicated time and work into organizing this event, says that there are plans in the works to schedule this workshop for clients in the Ukiah area. If you are interested in attending a workshop like this, please contact the CRCMC. We would like to make this a reocurring event.