It’s been 5 months since my last post. I’ve been stuck for things to write about and away for a lot of the summer. Now seems to be as good time as any to resurrect the blog as I now find myself practicing art therapy, following three years of training at Roehampton University, though still trying to make sense of what it means to be both an artist and an art therapist. With this in mind I spent part of my summer putting together a funding proposal to set up an art/ art therapy peer mentoring group to determine whether there were others like me wrestling with similar concerns.
The function of the group was primarily be to create a forum for individuals to talk about their own artwork and art making process, and to foster discussions about the relationship between art and therapy. And, whilst the funding proposal was unsuccessful, there was enough interest from other artists to suggest that there was need for a group like this (even if it meant meeting on an ad hoc basis).
The artists who were identified as being suitable for this group are primarily artists and art therapists and most are either currently training as art therapists or have completed their training within the last 8 years (though not all). Having met together for the first time last month, most people said that they hoped being part of the group would primarily enable them to develop their art practice, citing that despite making artwork, either at home or within a studio context, they felt isolated and needed to be ‘backed up’ by other like-minded artists. Others identified a need for honest feedback when presenting their work and clarification that what they were expressing visually made sense.
Our next meeting together will be in mid-November where we’ll be running a Pecha Kucha event out of someone’s living room. Pecha Kucha is a form of presentation where, traditionally, those showing their work present 20 slides for 20 seconds each. This promises to be a great opportunity to get to know one another a bit better and to learn about each other’s art practice.
