“You Are The Tuning Fork”
*An educational program GAME that turns tension and shame into curiosity with
science-based tools for a new kind of artist. A missing link between therapy and the arts!
Starts Sept 15th, 2025
A Trauma-Informed, Science-Backed Collective Educational Game * for MFA & BFA Arts Programs
1. It calms the chaos.
Artists feel deeply. That’s their gift, and their struggle. It’s also what causes a lot of departmental chaos.
This game teaches students how to feel without drowning.
When nervous systems regulate, drama drops, communication improves, and real connection happens.
2. It turns breakdowns into breakthroughs.
When students learn to recognize stress as biology, not failure,
they stop spiraling. They start creating again.
No more shame spirals or ghosting. Just grounded, resilient artists.
3. It builds real community.
Conflict in the studio. Misfires in critique. Cliques, shutdowns, isolation.
This game gives students a shared language for what’s really going on underneath.
And that changes everything.
4. It helps them perform without burning out.
Performance anxiety. Creative blocks. Emotional exhaustion.
These are nervous system issues—not personal flaws.
This game helps artists stay present, powerful, and lit up from within.
5. It honors every background and brain.
Different cultures. Different neurotypes. Different emotional maps.
This game levels the playing field with tools for all nervous systems.
It’s trauma-informed, playful, and radically inclusive.
🎯 The result?
More art. Less chaos.
More risk-taking. Less shutdown.
More joy. Less fear.
It’s not therapy. It’s not another lecture.
It’s a game.
One your students will never forget.
ACTIVATE THE GAME
: Establish a Your “Rat Pack”
Bruce Alexander’s Rat Park, But for Artists: In the 1970s, psychologist Bruce Alexander ran a groundbreaking experiment called Rat Park. He discovered that rats in isolation consumed large amounts of morphine, but when placed in enriched, socially-connected environments (with room to play, explore, and interact) they largely ignored the drug. His conclusion was radical: addiction wasn’t about the substance alone
it was about the cage.
Artists, like rats in the original experiment, are often placed in high-stress, isolating, competitive environments that ignore the fundamental biology of connection and regulation. What if burnout, comparison, and creative paralysis aren’t signs of personal failure, but symptoms of the cage?
We are proposing to reimagine MFA programs as modern-day Rat Parks for artists.
Art departments already have the studio. We’re helping them rewire the nervous system that works inside it.
Step One: Connect
Every cohort member gets a “You Are The Tuning Fork” bracelet which also contains a QR code for their tool box. Students are immediately given nervous system tools for all kinds of performance issues on and off stage.
This is intended to:
1. Give them a playful unified identity
2. Give them an elegant visual cue to remember they have tools when they are dysregulated.
Make it stand out.
