Hand-crafted Healing: Art Therapists Create Change

Catherine Quinn, a master’s in art therapy graduate from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee and the programming chair for the Wisconsin Art Therapy Association, found that the process of creating her pieces helped her cope with her own uneasy feelings about the future of the planet. Choosing photography as the base for one of her contributions to the exhibit—a pair of images titled “A Delicate Balance” and “Meltdown”—Quinn transformed old photos through a process that, for her, symbolized the changes occurring in the ecosystem. Quinn first submerged the photos in vats of bleach and allowed the bleach to distort and eat away at the objects and images in the photos. She then dropped vivid watercolor paints onto the photos, allowing them to morph into new images that provide virtually no hints as to what the photos once looked like.

“The process involved many stages, each resulting in slight changes to the images, just as the earth changes imperceptibly every day and we don’t know what the ultimate picture will look like,” Quinn said. “The process was therapeutic in that it helped me express the feeling I have that those changes are indeed occurring, and it was a relief to get that concept out in a visual form.”

Quinn felt that the most important goal for the exhibit was to reach out to the larger community. For her, exploring such a monumental global issue through artwork is a brand new idea that could be an effective way to reach people who may not yet have been able to connect personally with this problem.

“Many people feel overloaded by print and TV coverage of current issues,” she said. Imagery speaks directly to the subconscious, or soul, or spirit, and often elicits a fresh response.”

Quinn is one of many local art therapists who have taken the impetus to explore their field and push the boundaries of creative healing. In addition to her involvement with the WATA, Quinn said she conducts community art sessions and private art therapy sessions at a studio near her home, does art therapy at an ortho/neuro rehab unit at a hospital and contracts with VSAarts of Wisconsin for individual artist-in-residency programs as well as classes for individuals with disabilities. These ventures alone show that art therapists are no longer satisfied with a narrow definition of their field or title.

“We can’t just stay in our ‘little’ world of art therapists,” Quinn said.

To see where the exhibit is now, go to http://www.wiartherapy.com