ART THERAPY | International Teacher, Author, Painter and Forest Witch in Europe and Globally

ART THERAPY

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

After finishing Art School, there was some unfinished business: for most of my childhood I had wanted to be a medical doctor.

This was not to say I regretted studying Fine Art and Art History. Far from it! Those were supremely happy years and even today painting is what keeps me sane and 'sound of mind'. Today I also know myself better than I did as a 17 year old faced with a Big Decision.

I now know that I don't have the right personality for coping with life as a doctor in the main stream health care system.

I decided to train as an Art Therapist.

My first job in the UK was working with children with special needs in a secondary school.

As part of the art therapy course working in education was balanced by a placement in Acute Psychiatry at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington. All this was geared at gaining as wide a range of work experience as possible.

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

OUT OF TOUCH

MEMORIES

Training as a therapist requires you to do therapy yourself. After all, 'you can only take your clients as far as you have travelled yourself'.

So these were the years of dealing with my own mind (in recovery from severe childhood abuse and scapegoating) as well as trying to gain some understanding as to what went on in other people's minds.

I had no proper studio so I switched to making smaller work on paper: mono-prints (i.e. making unique 'one off' prints using oil paint, that cannot be duplicated) and mixed media.

I also made writing a poem a daily spiritual practice (which I still follow today, 35 years later).

I found myself producing two kinds of images: images that reflected on states of mind (sanity & mental illness) on the one hand and images that evolved around processing and re-visiting my own childhood on the other hand.

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

International Teacher, Author, Painter and Forest Witch in Europe and Globally

In my self-healing work a Blind Bird often took me to a little red house where there were many rooms. Over time I opened every door.

THE BLIND BIRD AND LITTLE RED HOUSE

GROWING INTO MY OWN SKIN

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

Art Therapy offers a very special dimension in the sense that in addition to the client and therapist there is a third party in the room: the image (painting, clay figure or other art object).

The artwork can act as a container until the time is right for the content to be revealed or unveiled.

In About Painting (a page elsewhere on this site) I have explained how this is true for my own paintings as well: sometimes it takes years, or an observation from an outsider, for me to suddenly 'see' what's in my own painting!

I made these images when at age 24-25 (I am now approaching my 60th birthday). They have a raw energy that still touches me when I see them. At Open Studio events there is always someone who is moved more by these mono-prints and mixed media images than other (prettier or more technically accomplished) work.

SO MUCH SADNESS

UNANSWERED EMBRACE

ABOUT PAINTING

Merging two separate websites (one focused on art and one on shamanism) I initially decided to drop these images from my website but changed my mind.

As the years pass and my life's journey continues, these images have taken on additional layers of meaning. I still use art and creativity constantly, in manifold ways. I teach courses in sacred art (all over the world) and I also do shamanic art sessions with clients.

Often my clients are set an art (or other creative) project as homework.

I do not work as an Art Therapist but the training has been very useful as I often use foundational principles from Art Therapy in my shamanic work with people.

SACRED ART COURSES

HOW MUCH DEEPER TO DIG?

ANGEL NO MORE!

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

COMFORT EATING

TEENAGER

SOCIALLY AWKWARD

Working in Acute Psychiatry was mind-boggling, a true initiation.

It was scary to witness how a human mind can become fragmented and disintegrate. Often due to a level of pain and trauma beyond what a human mind can process.

Another form of fragmentation happens in people suffering from diseases like Alzheimer's, or a brain tumor.

I had the opportunity to work with people suffering from disorders that for me had only been 'terms in books' before: schizophrenia, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), post-partum psychosis, bipolar disorder.

It was fascinating to see Art Therapy in action, to see how and why it works: some people can draw or paint things they are unable to face or communicate put in words.

Artwork can provide a means of placing something outside ourselves so we can face it, honour it, celebrate it.

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

Ultimately artwork is mysterious: it is "Other", a third presence in the room: made by us but not us.

By creating we connect to the powers of a Creator or Creative Universe, the Ineffable, The Uncreated, Transfinity, Sacred Mystery

By making art we become our own silent, yet eloquent, witness. We place something outside of ourselves until we are ready look at it and "own it".

DISINTEGRATION I

DISINTEGRATION II

DISINTEGRATION III

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world

There were two (main) reasons why I did not commit to a professional life as an art therapist. The first was that a spiritual framework (or dimension of engagement with Spirit/Deity/Higher Power) was absent. In my mid-twenties it was already clear to me that true and lasting healing cannot occur without involving this dimension.

The second reason was that there was an assumption that even our own artwork, from this point onward, would exist in service to understanding our clients better. There was no encouragement for establishing ourselves as professional artist (of any description or medium). To me that was an unbalanced way of being in service.

As I followed my calling to train in shamanism and developed my own sacred art courses, I discovered that, over time, I had arrived at a way of working and being that combined all things I hold so dear: the bliss of making my own artwork but also creating sacred containers for others to connect to Spirit and make their own unique "en-souled" artwork. Harnessing the power of groups, ceremonies and deep (collective witnessing on the level of soul) that brings profound healing, noticeable shifts in consciousness (and not infrequently, miracles).

Shamanic teacher, painter and author in the UK and the world