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 do therapy yourself. After all, 'you can only take your clients as far as you have traveled yourself'.

So these were the years of dealing with my own mind as well as trying to gain some understanding as to what went on in other people's minds.

These were the years too of living in a small flat. I had no proper studio, but that didn't stop me from carrying making art. I switched to 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 wrote many poems and I called this small project "Poem of the Day!")

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.

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...

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

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 I was 24-25 years old. They have a raw energy that still touches me when I see them today.During 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 (focused on art and shamanism) I decided to drop these images from my website but looking at them again, I changed my mind.

As the years pass and my life's journey continues, these images have taken on additional layers of meaning. Today (25 year after making these images) I am a shamanic practitioner Over the years I have performed shamanic healing sessions with thousands of people.

I still use art and creativity constantly, in manifold ways.

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

I also teach sacred art courses internationally. Today I do not work as a an art therapist but I often use healing principles from art therapy.

SACRED ART COURSES

HOW MUCH DEEPER TO DIG?

I have 'come home'.Today I have a deep inner clarity about my path in this lifetime: being a shamanic mother, painter, teacher and author!

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 see how a human mind can become fragmented and disintegrate. The same goes for people suffering from diseases like Alzheimer's or brain tumors.

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), puerperal psycbosis, bipolar disorder.

It was fascinating to see Art Therapy in action, to see that it does work. That some people could draw or paint things they were unable to face or unable to put in words.

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

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

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

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 addressing this.

The second was that there was an assumption that even our own artwork, from this point onward, would only exist in service to understanding our clients better. There was no encouragement or expectation 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 develop 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 and believe in: the bliss of making my own artwork, creating sacred containers for others to connect to Spirit and make their own unique "en-souled" artwork, using powerful group and ceremonies that bring noticeable shifts in consciousness.

And I came full circle: today I make generous use of core (healing, dynamic) principles of art therapy!

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