Our learning and continuing interest in the Drawing out the Self process led Judy and me to imagine a project where we could support and encourage other facilitators to explore the use of creative learning approaches in literacy programs. Meanwhile, in the fall of 2001, I had begun working with a group of women at The Learning Centre on an action research project about community resources and services. As it happened, all of the women in this group had participated in one of the Drawing out the Self courses, and we continued to use art and singing as ways of connecting and exploring in this group. As women identified resources they knew about, some also told about how they had had to access those resources, such as social services (welfare) or the food bank, after they had left abusive partners. One story led to another, and it soon became clear that all of the women in the group had experienced or were experiencing violence in their lives.

During the time I was working with the women's group, I attended the final institute of the New England project that Jenny described (see p. 5). While engaged in an arts-based activity during the institute—I was doing embroidery—I mused about the women's group at The Learning Centre and their experiences of violence, about the Drawing out the Self work that Judy and I were doing, and about Jenny's work and the New England project. As I stitched away, I decided to talk with the women at The Learning Centre about how the issue of violence had been coming up each week, and about whether they wanted to focus their research in that area.³ I also began to imagine a project that would build on Jenny's research and practice, the New England Project, and Judy's and my work with creative approaches. In an "aha" moment, violence and learning, which had been a backdrop in the Drawing out the Self work, shifted to centre stage.