What originally drew you to the field of art therapy?
It really began back while I was just a little guy. I remember the kitchen in my childhood home being filled with cabinets, and most of those cabinets were filled with all kinds of art and crafty materials. They were filled all the way up. The art materials always spilled out and I remember loving having it all cascade down into my lap and make a big mess. It was the best! When my younger sibling was born with special needs, I took on the older brother role with such pride. We were inseparable. Throughout my youth and teen years, I feel fortunate that I always had at least one peer or adult at any given time who encouraged a valuing of my imagination, sensitivity, and supportive nature. Looking back at my high school and college experiences, I always chose psychology and art classes, as many as the high school would allow and as many as I could manage in my college schedule. It took until undergraduate years for me to hear of the profession of art therapy for the first time. I signed up to take a course where I had the role a studio art mentor in a local community art studio, and from that very first day at the studio I kept hearing from within me a resounding “This is it! This is my calling!”
Can you tell us about your academic journey?
I graduated from high school in Missouri in 2006 having spent those four years either in art classes or in my imagination (where I was also making art). My St. Louis Community College experience from 2006-2009 were some of the best; I was surrounded by teachers who were active artists: painters, figure drawers, comic book artists, printmakers and designers. Experiencing their passion for their craft was so influential. Next, I attended Webster University from 2009-2011, where I originally pursued a fine art degree and geared up for art therapy as the career I ultimately wished for. From there I left my home state to head to Boulder, Colorado for Naropa University’s Transpersonal Art Therapy Masters program, from 2013-2016. The spiritual, professional, and psychological bootcamp of these years were like nothing else. I think I’m *still* settling from it all -the pains, breakdowns, and breakthroughs that I needed to experience and traverse for my own well-being. The care and accountability of some exceptional teachers, therapists, friends while at Naropa, and the years since, have been priceless. It kind of floors me each time I reflect of those years! In the six years of being out in the world fully practicing art therapy, I’ve become an LPC, an ATR, and am actively providing LGBTQAI and queer counseling, EMDR therapy, and racial trauma/social justice work -and I count on the art process facilitating much of it.
Can you talk about the power of art therapy in your life and work?
Art is life blood. In both personal and professional areas, I cannot imagine my life without it, truly! Through my own art-making over the years, and whether I was aware of it at the time or not, I used art as a means of challenging myself, experimenting with something new, building patience, connecting with Flow, and -to use Elenor Ulman’s beautiful phrase- to create the ground for my inner world and my outer world to meet. Art has always been there for me. It has validated the most badass moments of my life, as well as having been there to traverse the painful ones. There was one specific, very painful year of my life, 2016, during which I only got up and out of bed to create art. There was no space for anything else to matter; in fact, nothing really did matter. With the support of my dear art therapist at the time, art-making kept me from breaking completely. What could be a more powerful medicine than that? This all isn’t even to say how fantastic it is to bring art to my clients as a therapist. I can’t tell you how many times I have experienced clients having been blown away by the impact of their art-making process and images - we have seen art hold incredible amounts of anger; see it tend to deep childhood wounds; provide building blocks to self-respect and self-esteem; give form to ones’ spiritual allies; see it give ongoing patience during relational conflict; sooth social anxieties; give metaphor during major life transitions; express sadness, dread, love, desire, envy, fear. Some times and with some clients, their art-making is one of the few things that makes sense to them to do, that feels worth it. That really resonates with me.
From your point of view, what is the most important thing to keep in mind when working as an art therapist?
There are a handful of tethers I frequently come back to to help guide my work. One of them is that as human beings we have an inherent need to create and to express; we have this integral drive to, what Ellen Dissanayake describes as, “make special”. I feel we have an ethical duty to our clients to assist in their making special of their lives and experiences. Another truth I find important to keep in mind is the spiritual invitation of art-making, what Shaun McNiff (who is probably my favorite art therapist) states is a way to articulate “the soul’s uncensored purpose and deepest will”. I feel it’s essential to look to the art and to our clients for understanding what arises within the imagery and in sessions. We need to follow the image, what our clients are saying, and how they are relating to their artwork in real time, so that we don't hijack the unfolding process or try to interpret the work for the client. The client (and perhaps the image itself) will always be the expert, which is such foundational respect for the work we do. In a larger sociopolitical context, I feel it’s important for art therapists to be ready and willing to discuss what art therapy is and is not when asked of the public, to spread accurate information, and to best intervene when we see art therapy being misused or misrepresented. “How can I best respect the art, the client, the profession, and the public?” is a great mantra to be connected to.
What are some important self-care practices you recommend or practice?
Some of my favorite practices are yoga for stretching and healing my body, painting with oils, playing video games, baking (and hoping I don’t blow up the kitchen -I’m not very good at it), talking to a long-distance friend, and going to see live comedy. Both my personal and professional self benefit from consistent self-care -they remind me I am human, I have limits, and I am worthy of self-love. I feel connected to integrity when I practice self-care disciplines while supporting my clients to practice their own; so, what I recommend, I also practice. If I support clients in taking some needed time off work, reengage an old friend, disconnect from screens at the end of the day, have soothing smells, tactiles, or music available -I make sure I tend to my self-care routines as well. There is also a growing understanding for me of how “hustle culture” and working ad nauseam is connected to white supremacy values, so if I take breaks to assess the pace and quality of my work and my being, I believe I can also positively influence my clients, my officemates, my community, etc. "Where is my inherent worth that is not attached to gain, accumulation, growth, or progress?" is a powerful question that I continue to ask myself.
Are you working on anything now that you’re really excited about?
Yes! I have been working on a painting that centers on my relationship with the Bodhissatva of Compassion, Kuan Yin, who serves as a daily resource and spiritual ally for me. The image shows Kuan Yin and myself engaging in mudras with one another, each hand gesture symbolizing aspects of spiritual and psychological work that I choose to keep in my awareness, for the benefit of myself and my clients. Our two bodies in the image are filled with waterfalls, lotus blossoms, gold, and galaxies -some of my favorite things. Working on this painting is a ritual -I speak to Kuan Yin, ask for her guidance, and feel her limitless embrace and encouragement. I also keep this in-progress painting within my visual range during my sessions with clients so that I can invite her awareness, compassion, tenderness, perseverance, and wisdom to support the therapeutic space when necessary. I deeply attribute her open-hearted strength as a support for me in times when I feel myself becoming callous, reactive, or numb to my clients, when I struggle with the general challenges of being a therapist, and when I reflect on the ongoing pain of being flesh and blood human.
How important is it to collaborate with your art therapy colleagues?
Very! There is a wellspring of knowledge, skill, motivation, and creativity in our art therapist collective that I think we can all benefit from giving to and receiving from. Nothing feels worse that siloing myself, feeling all dried up, or just spinning my clinical wheels without some outside perspective and reality-checking. This questions has me think very acutely of being on the COATA board prior to and during the pandemic. Being connected to dedicated art therapists during that time of abundant isolation was so so nourishing for me. I also get the sense that art therapists -at least the ones I know- really know how to roll through some tough shit with grace! It feels great to have colleagues who I admire surrounding me, whether we connect over coffee, art-making sessions over Zoom, group supervision and consultation, or social media-savvy art therapists on the other side of the planet. (By the way, any art therapists who are reading this and want to connect with me, I would love that!)
How have your professional collaborations benefited your career?
They’ve helped me in many ways. During my agency work for the first few years out of graduate school, I collaborated with others to build and run an art therapy group for youth on the Autism spectrum. Collaborations have helped me secure an office space in the Santa Fe Art District of Denver for my private practice this year, which has been fantastic. Collaboration helps me to see client challenges in fresh ways, helped me get really clear on if and when burn out is building, and also to keep tending to my artist identity as much as my art therapist identity. They help me to learn about various frameworks, decide what trainings I most want to pursue, and keep me informed about community events to check out. My integrative approach to therapy pretty much relies on ongoing collaborating with various artists, therapists of different backgrounds, public office people, fellow Buddhists, other business owners, etc. Collaborations essentially keep me excited and keep me growing. They are great elixirs.
How is/can art therapy be used for social justice?
The creative arts as a whole is the perfect conduit for social justice work. Social justice-minded art therapy shows up in many public contexts: acknowledging and honoring the indigenous peoples of the land/location upon which an art event occurs; creating public murals that both involves in its creation and its display members within the local community; sharing ephemeral or performance art that resists being commodified or sold for individual capital; giving gallery access and wall space to underrepresented/excluded artists from the “White cube” elitism found in many art arenas. In the context of individual therapy sessions, I specifically invite exploration and dismantling of white supremacy culture with various activities and frameworks. We use frameworks like Helm’s White Racial Identity Development Model to see where my White clients identify; Pamela Hays’ ADDRESSING Model to name the various intersectional identities and privileges present between myself and my clients; and Resmaa Menakem’s focus on somatic healing of racial trauma that bodies of all colors experience in their own forms. I’m especially energized by bringing into discussion (as well as using art-making, mindfulness meditations, and journaling/poetry-writing) the 15 characteristics of white supremacy culture articulated by Tema Okun. We get to explore questions like: What images come to you when you reflect on Perfectionism? What does Whiteness look and sound like for you? What does Blackness look and sound like to you? What visuals, sounds, or sensations come to you when you think of Power, Accumulation, or Being Qualified? Create an image representing Quantity vs. Quality. What do Right/Wrong, Either/Or, and other Binary relationships look like? How does your body or imagination move when you hear the words Community or Connection? There is so much richness to hear and see when we look at our racial and social biases, conditionings, and traumas with curiosity, courage, and the language of the arts. And I think for art therapists, the arts always provide an invitation to listen more, to talk less, and to witness with an honoring how our clients experience traumas, privileges (and lack thereof), and discriminations due to all sorts of social factors.
