Classic Client Quote: Can you ever be *bad* at art?

Occasionally, I hear wonderful quotes from my clients at work, which I call Classic Client Quotes.  On this day, a client was graduating the program, and he felt that art therapy had helped him not only emotionally, but also technically and felt his art skills had improved (despite no emphasis on technique or product). On his last day, he stated his viewpoint on how people should not be concerned about their artistic skill level, as he experienced it in art therapy, and that the act of engaging in art is progress in and of itself:

"If you're actually bad at art, you're probably dead."  - Nick Dimira

(used with permission and pseudonym by the client)

Zentangle Workshop!

Some of you may be familiar with the Zentangle method, a meditative approach to drawing created by Rick and Maria.  The Potomac Art Therapy Association (PATA) hosted a workshop at the GW Art Therapy Department led by Certified Zentangle Teacher Chelsea Kennedy, MA, ATR.  She taught us 5 "tangles," or official patterns, which included the Hollibaugh, Paradox, Crescent Moon, Printemps, and Bales.  We had a great time drawing together, a mixture of students and professionals, and put our tiles together at the end for a collaborative mosaic picture of our zentangles (see above).  This is a great method to use with people who feel they cannot draw or don't know where to start, or even for yourself for small moments of refocusing or relaxing.

 

Here is my first official Zentangle Tile completed at the workshop:

 

 

Expressive Therapies Summit 2013

I had the privilege of going to the weekend conference of both the Expressive Arts Therapies as Medicine and the first Mid-Atlantic Play Therapy Training Institute during April 12-14, 2013.  It was a wonderful mixture of not only art therapy, but also dance/movement, play, music, drama therapies as well.  The first day was a symposium where each modality was introduced to the attendees.  The second and third days had a wide variety of offerings, and the panels I attended were very helpful for my particular line of work.  Even better, this was a local conference for me, 15 minutes from home/work, though it was stated that people from 36 states and 6 countries were in attendance.  If you are an art therapist or in a creative arts therapy field, I would recommend this as a training to look into and to plan attending.  It was coordinated by Barry Cohen, ATR-BC and chaired/created by Judith Rubin, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM and Eliana Gil, PhD, APT-S, ATR, LMFT.  Next year's training is slated for April 4-6, 2014.