Drawing-a-Day

2/26/10

Grant Shumate

2/28/10

Doodle

2/28/10

Doodle

2/27/10

Kristen Marshall

3/2/10

Grant Shumate

My first conference

I attended my first art therapy conference this weekend. And it was, well, amazing. I was in a room full of peers who truly understood what all this means, the art and therapy and what we all want to do with our lives. No one asking "art therapy? Is that real?". It was great.

I went to a lecture about working with individuals who label themselves as transgender. And it was an eye opener. I know a lot about it already, the language that is used, what it means to a person, all of that. What I hadn't thought about was the lack of resources for that population. During a survey almost all therapist said they would refer the client. I get that, transgender can be difficult to understand for some, but where do you refer them to? There isn't any formal training offered, and most that go into this population do so due to personal reasons. Makes me wonder if I might want to work with this population. Guess only time will tell.

Just a Little Bit of Pixie Dust

So since I am no longer a true studio major, and my art time is now art therapy time, this blog is now about both. I will add my art as I do it, and write about my life in art therapy.

My art therapy class this semester is art therapy with children, and I am excited about it. Even though I don't plan on working with children, I do love doing child-like things. I am still working on a pastel series about that thing: adults doing child things. So this class is about being able to tap into the innocence of childhood and being able to connect to the imagination of a child. As I was sitting in class this week, learning about this class will be like, all I could think about was how in-touch I still am with the Livvie of the past. It is the one thing in my life that I feel you have to keep. It allows me to find beauty in the simple, to not feel guilty for talking to my dog and thinking she knows what I am saying. This class is about the importance of remembering what it was like to have a stick that was a sword, to believe in flying cars that your aunt drives. It is going to be an amazing class.

There is something about tapping into that feeling, the feeling of excitement that only being a child can have. I find it interesting what I feel like after blowing bubbles or playing with sidewalk chalk. I feel free and at ease. It takes me back to a time when everything was easy, a time when my biggest worry was finding a lizard under a log. There are no bills, papers, or money in this world, it is just pixie dust, flying, and saving the world from Skeletor. It is important to mot lose that joy, that ability to fly. I think that something comes out when adults do this, something healing. It is that healing power of childhood that makes art therapy great, that makes it work on a deeper level. Crayons are the secret to healing.