art therapy is wild magic

creative expression supports our depths, our clarity, and our courage for freedom

FOR all beings, regardless of age, or background, or prior creative experience, creativity helps call us alive to our life.

Creativity is part of the essence of how life moves, how innovations are unfolded, how grief is tended, how psyches find center and expansion…

SYMBOLS THAT EVOKE MYSTERY

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TEXTURES THAT OFFER SENSORY MEANING

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THE LUSCIOUS FEELING OF MOVEMENT THROUGH PAINT, PASTEL, CHARCOAL, CLAY

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THE JOY OF COLOUR, SO VIBRANT AND TENDER

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RESTING INTO EDGINESS AND THE SURPRISE OF THE UNKNOWN UNFOLDING

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SYMBOLS THAT EVOKE MYSTERY • TEXTURES THAT OFFER SENSORY MEANING • THE LUSCIOUS FEELING OF MOVEMENT THROUGH PAINT, PASTEL, CHARCOAL, CLAY • THE JOY OF COLOUR, SO VIBRANT AND TENDER • RESTING INTO EDGINESS AND THE SURPRISE OF THE UNKNOWN UNFOLDING •

Art Therapy is liberating for silenced and uncertain places

There are currents we already have word-shapes for. And there are aspects of experience that we have not found words for yet. There are aspects of our experience that we have had to un-know, dissociate from, or deny, in contexts of marginalization, trauma, or mocking. The river of our experience is deep and vast, and the aspects that we have not found verbal language for yet can speak so eloquently through line, colour, texture, shape.

art teaches us that we don’t need to know where the path will lead, or what the outcome will be. just cross the threshold of the blank page, lean into the first step, and the next…

We can feel into experience with nuance and curiosity as we commune with that flow through us through art materials. Oh, so profoundly nourishing, dear heart, to welcome this creative current of truth and wisdom telling in a visual medium..

Reflecting on this magic unfolding in creative words, or movement, or dialogue is a way to speak and explore from the depths that ripple beneath, beyond, and through the mundane experiencing.

what does it mean to be an art therapist?

To be an art therapist is to be curious about the world of image, symbol, texture, colour, line, unfolding, evoking… to be curious about the unspoken, to be interested in the unknown, the unfolding, and the mystery… to be interested in dreams, visions, felt senses, and instinct… to be supple in the realm of art supplies and found art materials.

I entered the world of therapy through the door of image, through the door of art. After a number of years supporting women working through the tides of violent relationships I turned to art as a way of releasing and exploring and found art therapy as a living current of healing in the world.

I completed my graduate training in Art Therapy at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute 1999-2001, finding profound exhilarating and life-affirming beauty in this graduate training program that centered aliveness of depth.

Since then, I have also trained extensively in Movement Based Expressive Arts, Dance Therapy, Play Therapy, Theraplay, Drama Therapy, as well as Movement Improv, Theater Improv, and Vocal Improvisation. The arts are a place of the deepest magic in my own life, and I see how these forms of expression, voice, vision, and exploration call humanity into softer nuance and clearer resonance.

I am a Registered Canadian Art Therapist, and proud to be so. Since 2001 I have been teaching in Art Therapy, offering the tender magic I have been learning. I have taught with the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute with trainees, Canada House in Austria and America House in Germany - offering workshops for Immigrant and Refugee Youth, The Toronto Art Therapy Institute and The Winnipeg Holistic Expressive Arts Therapy Institute with students learning to be creative therapists, and The International Summit for Expressive Arts Therapy in New York and Los Angeles with credentialed therapists finding ways of being abundantly present with life.

For the past two and a half years, I have served as a faculty member at the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute. I am infinitely humbled by the beauty of improvisational creativity in all our forms.

To be an art therapist, for me, is to be a flowing curious heart and soul.

ART THERAPY EXPLORES DIFFERENT MATERIALS AND MOODS

  • ECO ART THERAPY

    Creating images outside or in the studio with Earth elements, such as this image sculpted out of sand on the beach during a morning dance practice - to communicate the joy found in dancing by the ocean and the sense of presence and place I was feeling.

  • Found Materials

    Gathering bits of this and that, like with collage, to compose mixtures that express and communicate something important and meaningful. The act of gathering, ripping, layering materials feels like putting puzzle pieces together and can feel very satisfying and integrative. This image was created to explore the experience of becoming an Elder in Communities that I am part of, and the experience of accompanying the creative life force in younger folk who are finding their way.

  • Traditional Art Materials

    Making use of pencils, pencil crayons, pastels, paints, clay, and mixed media elements to express what needs to be formed into a whole, such as this image about the experience of the disorientation of a car accident when airbags deployed.

    The process of making is a place where meaning and emotion unfold, where we find the threads that are resonant that perhaps we did not realize we were carrying.