An Interview With Martita Mestey
Altruism over anxiety, teach more kindness, inspiring our children to embrace their heart intelligence. Children naturally lead with their hearts, and this needs greater awareness and acknowledgement, to embody and maintain throughout life.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole Porter.
Nicole Porter is a clinical art therapist, musician, and founder of the Emerald Sketch, a nonprofit that mobilizes creative arts therapy teams to support children and families after mass disasters and traumatic events. A lifelong singer and songwriter, she creates music that blends therapeutic insight with joyful connection, most recently on her Kindie rock album You and Us Fun Machine Dream Vol. 1. Rooted in play, emotional awareness, and family rhythms, the album offers uplifting songs for children and grownups alike, created to inspire healing, presence, and fun.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Thank you for having me! I’ve always been drawn to creativity. Music has been in my family for generations — my grandparents sang, played piano, flute, and even built instruments, and my parents were big rock and roll lovers. I grew up surrounded by sound and story. Becoming an art therapist felt like a natural step, especially after learning how powerful creative expression can be for diagnostic and treatment purposes. Working with children who’ve experienced horrifying trauma, art and music give them a portal to experience safety, to be seen, and to express things that words will never unfold.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
The most interesting moments, I make art or music to reflect, and always happen in the deepest space of privacy and confidentiality among the children. The most remarkable moment in my life was choosing to show up for the children and families of the Sandy Hook School tragedy in Newtown, CT. Among the eleven female clinicians who responded immediately, I was the first and only one trained and prepared to direct the child therapy that first week. It was an eye-opening moment into the desperate and essential ongoing crisis in American culture for greater child mental health response. I never know exactly where the children are going to take me creatively, or emotionally — the metaphors are all magical and range from outer space to imaginative deep sea exploring. Each session is a unique process into the depths of joy, tragedy, or sometimes neither, for each child or person.
Fun Machine Dream Vol. 1 came out of a very emotional time in my own life, caring for my mom at the end of hers, and the songs helped me stay connected to joy, play, and healing. Now I want that same feeling to reach other families too.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I skipped the mistake, and showed up. Ha ha ha, truly this is a difficult question for me, as my work is focused on helping children and families recover from severe trauma. The greatest mistake in any creative arts therapy session is skipping the creative arts process. The only time I made that mistake the client feedback truly helped me integrate the impactful benefits more readily, and therefore always emphasizing the art therapy.
Where there is humor is when the puppets introduce themselves during play or performance, whether in person or virtually, children of all ages light up with joy. They engage brilliantly with the puppets and appear to have so much fun laughing and carrying on with their live puppet confidante. I am always amazed at the cherished and intimate insights shared with the puppets. The best characters are of course those inspired and created in art therapy sessions.
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
Our mission has always been to support children and families after trauma through creative arts therapies. First, Emerald Sketch was inspired in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, then team members responded to the Emanuel A.M.E. Church tragedy in Charleston, SC and from there forward the response continued. Historically the Emerald Sketch implements clinical training for various regions in Europe, India, and most significantly Gaza, Ukraine, and Poland, helping clinicians on the ground master skills needed for active war response.. With Fun Machine Dream Vol. 1, I wanted to create children’s music that could do the same, songs that help children feel seen, regulate emotions, and connect with the grownups in their lives. The music is playful and joyful, but it’s also full of intention. It’s part of a larger vision to make healing more accessible, creative, and loving for every child.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
The children, I sort of freeze on this type of question -though the stories are abundant, they are so immensely personal. For a moment, I’ll pivot to my earlier days working on a geriatric psych unit, where consistently each week I would visit as the art therapist and lead group art therapy sessions. One non-verbal woman with severe symptoms of major depressive disorder, and dementia typically would lie in bed all day, mute. Each day I would go in the same method, greet her, invite her, and wheel her to session. Each day I would give her art supplies and share the same direction with her regardless of how different she may have presented to the general eye. For several weeks she sat mute, multiple staff members seemed to make whimsical remarks at what they appeared to view as useless techniques. Then one session she appeared first to make eye contact, freely picked up a pencil, and she drew. Next she spoke, eloquently, and quietly. From then on, most sessions she would engage with me, the art therapy session continued to be the one, and only time she was able to share organized verbal expressions.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Absolutely. First, we need more funding and long-term support for creative arts therapy (aka psychotherapy) in secure community centers, children need private, expressive outlets built into their everyday environments. Second, we need stronger training for educators and caregivers around trauma-informed care, emotional literacy, and child development, especially in underserved areas. And third, we need to value children’s music and the arts not just as entertainment, but as powerful tools for deep thought, complex learning, and human connection. Supporting organizations like the Emerald Sketch helps make that possible.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership is very much about assessing strengths and solutions, — an invitation — to connect, to co-create, to care. Personally, I shine bringing people together for a collective purpose, and fostering a group ethic to work in synchronicity, thoughtfully. Whether I’m with a family leading a therapeutic experience, or on stage with my puppets, I do my best to model presence, flexibility, and trust in the creative process. Leading is about creating predictable, and visible boundaries — this nurtures creativity, especially during uncertain or emotional moments.
The recording process of Fun Machine Dream became exactly that for me. The initial recording with Luther Dickinson, Marco Giovino, and Wyndham Garnett happened to align and take place days before I was holding my Mom’s hands at the end of her life. This ignites a unique and rare mystique to the album — echoing the power to conduct with both strength and vulnerability. In the darkest times, music helped me lead by bold example — staying joyful, gentle, loving, and open.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each. 4& 5 I love
1 . Say what you do want to see. This became a core idea behind Good Vibes Only. Instead of “don’t jump on the chair,” try “I love when you sit so tall like that.” It sounds small, but this kind of positive reinforcement can totally change the atmosphere. Children brighten when they feel seen for doing something right — it builds trust and cooperation faster than any timeout or punishment ever could.
2 . Art therapy deserves a seat at every table. Whether we’re talking about school reform, disaster response, or mental health funding, the arts are too often treated as optional. However art therapy continually has helped children recover after school shootings, war, abuse, and deep loss. I’ve fostered the benefits again and again. We need policies that include licensed creative arts therapists in emergency planning, healthcare, education, and beyond — because children need non- verbal integration to overcome genuine symptoms of trauma or disorder.
3 . It’s impossible to comprehend the impact the lives of those you help will have on your own life. When deep in the clinical transactions of processing trauma with the young survivors of the Sandy Hook School tragedy, the lost children began to come to life in my dreams. The stories and the creative memories from the living children painted the pictures that danced in my mind. The clinical experiences can be very difficult to manage, and takes great care, clinical supervision, and family awareness to sustain significant amounts of child trauma work.
4 . Money matters, yet action and scientific interventions make change. The first most difficult three months of active therapeutic response I provided for Newtown, CT was 100% voluntary. I assessed the community child mental health needs, and acted on that information implementing treatment opportunities. After that initial three months enough funding came in to repay the work that had been volunteered, as well as sustain art therapy programming for the surviving children through June, 2025. The choice to respond, being humane, actualized eleven and half years of funding. Stay focused on the mission, rather than the metrics.
5 . How devastating the child mental health crisis has become. I’m from the 1900’s and am preaching to the people to please put down the devices around the children. Keep them out of the hands of the youngest children. Allow children to wiggle, make noise, be seen, and be heard. Look them in the eyes more often. Scribbling enables deep thought, pick up those pencils and start scribbling together. No judgements, just drawings.
Altruism over anxiety, teach more kindness, inspiring our children to embrace their heart intelligence. Children naturally lead with their hearts, and this needs greater awareness and acknowledgement, to embody and maintain throughout life.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
If I could inspire a movement, it would be to implement creative arts therapy group programming into how we care for children everywhere. Imagine a group creative arts therapy session for children daily or at least weekly. Contemplate music, art, storytelling, dance, all the ways children naturally express themselves and work through big feelings. What if every school, shelter, clinic, or home taught children through these forms of sciences? When more adults are trained to connect with children through creativity, we see stronger, more compassionate communities. I foster this with the Emerald Sketch and my music, and I’d love to see that spirit grow.
For easy access, and affordability the Emerald Sketch offers an app for adults. The Emerald Sketch app introduces the viewer day by day to the different art therapy sequences implemented in the trauma response program in a pleasant format that is easy to follow individually or in small groups.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Gandhi has many mindful quotes that bring great meaning to me. This one resonates most recently, as when I am truly in service of others, I dissolve, ego and all, a raw sense of pure bliss. Becoming one with the child or children is the truest sense of success, when they see themselves shining brightly, through the relationship.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves, co-founders of the Just Keep Livin Foundation, were paramount in raising awareness and funding after the Uvalde tragedy. When the proper people align with the best possible support systems, creative arts therapy truly could be implemented as needed due to American terrors. Especially for our youngest children in need.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Download the Emerald Sketch app program here: https://emeraldsketch.passion.io/ You can visit https://www.emeraldsketch.com/ to learn more about the art therapy programs and community work. For updates on You and Us music, you can follow on Instagram at @youandus.music. If you’d like to read more about Fun Machine Dream Vol. 1, please see this thoughtful review from Phil’s Picks: philspicks.wordpress.com review. And for art therapy and community awareness focused content, follow @emeraldsketchart. Be part of the Emerald Sket community!
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
Social Impact Heroes: How Nicole Porter of ‘You and Us’ Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.