Artist Liz McKenna hopes that by teaching young children to be expressive through art, they can avoid such illnesses as eating and sleeping disorders.

How is your engine working today?”

It’s an analogy Liz McKenna uses to have youngsters discern how they’re doing—is their engine running fast, and angry? Even a child can comprehend that a car constantly running in high gear will burn out.

McKenna works with children ages six to nine at a North Delta elementary school each Friday through the Canadian Mental Health Association Delta branch. The children who attend her art therapy studio are kids who have low self-esteem, are not functioning within their grade and are at risk for developing a mental illness.

In her day job, the Tsawwassen resident works with the Richmond Eating Disorders program where she meets with women ages 17 to senior who have anorexia or bulimia.

“It’s the number one killer of young women,” says McKenna.

And a woman’s perception of body image and what’s healthy starts as a child.

“Our culture is sick when it comes to health and thinness,” she says, adding that today women are asked to be 28 per cent thinner than what is a healthy, average weight.

And so it’s through expressive therapy and her open studio that McKenna helps rebuild children’s feeling of self worth.

She emphasizes success as the greatest motivator for children. And in her studio, children can think of themselves as artists.

Whether they are working with clay or paint, making music, writing poetry or acting out Greek mythology, McKenna lets them know what they produce is valuable—and it is, particularly as a record of where they are coming from.

“I’m just passionate about the arts and what it can do to heal you,” says McKenna, at her home studio in Boundary Bay, where after renovations are complete she will accept a handful of private clients.

In the studio environment young kids are given responsibilities and trust they may not be given elsewhere. Seven-year-olds are using glue guns, and collaborate and communicate with their classmates.

“These are children who usually get dragged out by their feet—and they don’t act up in art therapy. They can act out, and use their imagination.”

McKenna had one family create a tsunami to see what they would do in the emergency situation.

“If you find solutions in the arts through creativity you can find solutions in life,” she says.

She hopes art will become more valued in society as a therapeutic tool. The South Delta community can support programs such as McKenna’s through two upcoming fundraisers for the association’s Delta branch.

Victoria Maxwell will hold a benefit performance, “Funny...You Don’t Look Crazy, Oct. 28, 7 p.m. at Genesis Theatre (5616 51St.).

A dinner and silent auction will be hosted at the River Rock Casino Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. with B.C. Minister of Health Services Kevin Falcon as the guest speaker. For more details, call 604-943-1878.