In the course of the six-week Healing with Nature Mosaic Program, participants experienced the incomparable power of nature to bring healing, comfort and a sense being held in something bigger. Through immersion in the restorative inner and outer environments of the Frick Environmental Center and Frick Park, participants rested in nature, communed with nature, and gathered elements from nature to impress into clay medallions for inclusion in the mosaic mural.

Each session began with a healing circle, a safe space for
participants to share their grief, their compassion, their hopes and their gratitude with one another. Through sharing together, a gathering of individuals became an intimate community of mutual care and support.

The creative endeavor and living metaphor central to this program was gathering shattered and broken pieces together to form a collective mosaic of heart and healing. Integral to the mural are precious artifacts from lives lived and loved – broken plates, mirrors, keys, hearts, and shells – as well as remnant pieces of the Tree of Life Synagogue building. These pieces come together to form a collective mural – broken mirrors forming a tear dropping into a pool of water, tiles, memories and artifacts forming
healing ripples.

Susan Spangler and Ted Cmarada have been working together as psychotherapists and community organizers for over 40 years. Their experiences accompanying individuals, families and communities through grief and and the impacts of trauma and traumatic loss inspired them to conceive of and to offer The Healing with Nature Mosaic Program. Ted and Susan share a love of nature, music and the arts, and a passion for social justice and the healing power of community. Most recently, as members of the Lively Pittsburgh team, they worked to actualize the AgeFriendly Greater Pittsburgh Neighborhoods Initiative. Their shared passion continues to be engaging creative processes to help activate, empower
and enrich communities throughout the Pittsburgh region.
Susan and Ted are married grandparents of three energetic grandchildren and shameless fans of their dog “Zoot.” In their leisure time, they enjoy playing and singing together in a band called “Joy Street!”.

Laura Jean McLaughlin received an MFA in ceramics from West Virginia University. Laura Jean’s work has been exhibited in over one hundred galleries and museums, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Montgomery Museum of Art, the Ohio Craft Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Delf Norona Museum, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, the Baltimore Institute of Art and The State Museum of Pennsylvania. She is a recipient of the Maggie Milono Memorial Award from the Carnegie Museum of Art and three prestigious residencies from Kohler Company in Wisconsin. Laura Jean’s ceramic work has been featured in various periodicals, including: Germany’s New Ceramics, Korean Ceramic Art Monthly, Ceramics Monthly, Clay Times, American Style, American Craft Magazine. Her work is featured in the following books: Confrontational Ceramics, 500 Figures, 500 Teapots, 500 Bowls, 500 Cups, Poetic Expressions of Mortality. She received an NEA Grant for a project working with the Hmong refugee community at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, a Mid-Atlantic grant for a large mosaic installation in Baltimore, as well as a Mid-Atlantic Fellowship at WVU. Laura Jean Has created over 100 collaborative mosaic murals and installation throughout the city of Pittsburgh and as far away as Tolne Denmark. She also created a large set of mosaic mural steps with the Southside community and two long mosaic sculpture benches for Library Park at the Carnegie Library in Carnegie, PA in addition to a porclain tile mural for the Andy Warhol Museum. Her work is in the collection of the City of Pittsburgh, The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Carlow College, three campuses of Community College of Allegheny County, The Andy Warhol Museum, the Porter~Price Collection, Kohler Art Center, Kohler Company, and HBO in New York