Curating Art Therapy: A call for submissions

Curating Art Therapy: A call for submissions: If you are interested in contributing to this archive of art therapy objects please email me – Dave Edwards – at daveedwards54@gmail.com

I am pleased to announce that the article written by Barrie Damarell and myself about the Curating Art Therapy exhibition has now been published and is available online @ http://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/atol/article/view/1323

Exhibition Review. A Personal History of Art Therapy in Less than 100 Objects

by Naomi Perry

Abstract

There are few words publicising the exhibition but enough to raise interest in ‘A Personal History of Art Therapy in Less than 100 Objects.’  The image of a notebook, its spine strained by its contents, is secured from prying eyes by a single band of rubber. The contrast of the natural tan of rubber and the dark book cover, enhances the mundane.

Full Text available @ http://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/atol/article/view/552/pdf

About the contributors

Michael Atkins trained in Sheffield (Claremont Crescent), graduated 1998 and worked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the NHS from then on, more or less, until August 2015. Now no longer registered, no longer employed, no longer a member of British Association of Art Therapists. Still creative, still playing, still have sense of humour, and looking forward to the future.

Bethan Baëz – Devine: I am an Art Psychotherapist with a range of clinical experience both in the UK and abroad. Within the UK, I have worked therapeutically in a variety of schools and offered training to staff. I currently hold the position of Art Psychotherapist with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in Staffordshire. More recently, I established an Art Therapy programme within a YMCA and held the position of external Clinical Supervisor. With another Art Psychotherapist, I support the co-ordination of the BAAT Region 9 group and I also facilitate creative non- residential retreats for therapists under the umbrella of The Potting Shed.

Sonia Boué studied Art History at Sussex University, and qualified as an Art Therapist at Sheffield University. Sonia is a multiform artist who works with themes of exile and displacement. Recent work includes the BBC Radio 4 programme The Art of Now: Return to Catalonia, which focused on inherited traumatic memory. In 2016 Sonia discovered she was autistic and her new project is the Arts Council funded, Museum for Object Research, which includes a professional development initiative for autistic project leadership.

Cecilie Browne: I was born in Paddington, London in 1963. I have been living and working in and around Sheffield most of the time since 1983. I am an artist, art therapist and community artist and also have a post-graduate diploma in environmental art therapy. I work in a variety of media in a range of contexts with people of different ages, backgrounds, culture and experience. I am constantly intrigued by the variety of human expression and experience while finding solace and inspiration from spending time in nature and with trees.

Joanne Casey-Castley trained as an art therapist at The Northern Programme, Sheffield/Leeds Beckett University.  Completed in 2015 and graduated in 2016.  Has since qualified as a teacher and is applying her therapeutic approach to her work with both adults and young people.

Shelagh Cornish has been in continual practice with children, adolescent, parents, families, and adults in inpatient, outpatient and the community, presenting mental illness diagnoses amongst other troubles for more than 27 years. Previously Lead Art Psychotherapist in Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, and Strategic Lead for the profession in Derbyshire Health Care Foundation NHS Trust until 2012, she is currently a Senior Lecturer and researcher on MA Art Therapy University of Derby (since 2002), Senior Lecturer Nottingham Business School Nottingham Trent University, BAAT Registered Clinical Supervisor, BAAT Registered Private Practitioner, HCPC Registered Art Psychotherapist, Registered Member MBACP, Member of BAAT SIPP-SIG, Member of ATCAF -SIG, a Systemic Practitioner and practising artist/musician. Further information can be found at www.heartening.co.uk

Barrie Damarell: Barrie retired four years ago after working with people with learning disabilities for thirty years. He has published several journal articles and book chapters. He also served on the editorial boards of The International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape, and, until recently, ATOL: Art Therapy Online. He lives in Devon.

Carmen Edwards is a psycho-spiritual coach and creative workshop facilitator from Sheffield. She is also a graduate of the Arts; both from the University of Sheffield, theatre and performance BA and Leeds Beckett University interdisciplinary psychology MA.  Her inspiration and medium for her work include theatre, dance, writing, fairy-tale, transpersonal and archetypal psychology, spirituality and the natural world.

David Edwards trained as an art therapist at Goldsmiths College, graduating in 1982. Since qualifying he has worked in a range of clinical and educational settings; mainly with adults. Over the past four decades David has also written, run workshops and lectured widely on art therapy and related topics. His book ‘Art Therapy’ was first published by Sage in 2004. A second edition was published in 2013. Semi-retired, David currently works as a clinical supervisor in private practice in Sheffield.

Julie Edwards (formerly Leeson) trained as an Occupational Therapist and started working in the NHS in 1981 and has mainly worked in and around mental health ever since. Julie first encountered Art Therapy in 1982 at Stanley Royd Hospital in Wakefield and since then has had a long standing relationship with the discipline, as both a colleague and a manager. On a personal note, she is married to an Art Therapist!

Andy Gilroy is Emeritus at Goldsmiths, University of London, having spent 35 years as an art therapy educator and researcher and, latterly, a senior manager at the College. She has published widely e.g. Art Therapy, Research and Evidence-Based Practice (2006), Art Therapy Research in Practice (2010), Assessment in Art Therapy (with Tipple, R. and Brown, C) (2012) and most recently, ‘Art Therapy in Australia: taking a Postcolonial, Aesthetic Turn’ (with Linnell, S., McKenna, T. and Westwood, J.) (2018, in press). Andy’s ‘encore’ career has seen her continuing to write, draw and garden.

Helen Greenwood was employed full time for 30 years as an art therapist in adult mental health within the National Health Service then, self-employed, she provided supervision and teaching. She is now retired. Her areas of interest have been working with people diagnosed with psychotic illness or psychotic thought processes, and also those adults who have endured abuse, deprivation or early trauma in childhood. A number of papers and chapters have been published, based on this work.

Janet Havemann Bowser: Since qualifying with a Masters in Art Psychotherapy from Derby University, I have predominately worked with children and adolescents with mental health concerns.  I run workshops for schools on the benefits of Art Therapy and a range of topics including Attachment and Self-care.  I facilitate experiential Art Therapy groups and enjoy working with families and the dyadic relationship between parents and their children.  I believe passionately in the potential for art to be a medium of communication; www.tobloom.co.uk

John Henzell: I was born in 1938 in Manchester where my mother was from, my father was Australian. In 1941 my mother, two older sisters and I moved to Western Australia followed later by my father who had served as a ship’s surgeon in the merchant navy. I received my schooling in WA, followed by Art College, before going back to Britain in 1959 to work as an art therapist in the NHS. I returned to Australia in 2001 then again to Britain in 2017. Underlying all these years was a playing off of what I saw outside my skin against what I saw behind it, no mere abstract construct but a picture album that became myself which I sometimes try to describe to, or search for, in others.

Ali Kitley Jones: Graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University, Class of 2010 Art Psychotherapy Practice MA. Founder member of SYArts, Ali also works as an Art Psychotherapist at 35 Chapel Walk on Monday’s and Art and Wellbeing coordinator at The Art House Sheffield. In love with my new Granddaughter, Morocco and colour, especially the perfect blue, for which I am searching.

Terry Molloy was employed in the field of art therapy for over forty years, and taught on the Art Psychotherapy training course for over twenty years, before retiring to develop his personal art practice. He was involved in the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) since its early days, was a BAAT Council Member for several years and Vice-Chair for two. His practice as an art psychotherapist included work with adolescents in special education, adults with learning disabilities and with adults in private practice as well as in secure, acute and long-term psychiatry.

Laura Richardson: Laura was born in Walsall in the West Midlands, and studied English and American Literature at the University of East Anglia. Following a period of working in a collective and as a volunteer counsellor in Oxford she came to Sheffield to study art therapy in 1987. She also holds a BA in Fine Art, and an MA in art psychotherapy research. She has worked in Sheffield in the voluntary sector with children and families, in the Social Services mental health day service, and for 26 years in the NHS mental health service before retiring in December 2017

Kate Rothwell is an art psychotherapist working in private practise, the NHS and prison service.

Katya Somer qualified as an Art Therapist in 2008 from Goldsmiths College, London. Having moved to Sheffield in 2012, Katya currently works as an Art Therapist at Bradford District Pupil Referral Unit where she works with 13-16 year olds excluded from mainstream education and as a Mental Health Practitioner in the Child and Adolescent Mental health Service in Rotherham. Alongside this work, she is an associate with the charity Art Therapy Yorkshire, offers sessional work in schools and has a small private practice.

Nick Stein is a practicing art psychotherapist, musician and artist. He is particularly interesting in dream imagery, the psychotherapy of cumulative trauma and the ideas of an archetypal psychology. Since 2004 he has been the programme leader for the MA in Art Therapy offered by the University of Derby and before that was working within Forensic Psychiatry.

Karl Tamminen has worked in the NHS for 29 years, 26 of them as an Art Therapist in low, medium and high secure mental health services. Currently his working week is split between the dual roles of clinical specialist in forensic art therapy and as the trust wide Professional Lead for Arts Therapies in the Humber NHS teaching Trust.

James D. West qualified as an art psychotherapist in 1994. Since qualifying he has been self-employment and in private practice, working mainly with elders, adolescents, people with learning disabilities or addictions. He is also a clinical supervisor. James is the current coordinator of the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) Self Employed, Independent and Private Practice Special Interest Group (SIPPSIG) and was co-founder and coordinator of the BAAT Addictions Special Interest Group (ADDSIG).

Mark Wheeler has been an Art Therapist for over 25 years, working in Child & Family Therapy NHS (CAMHS) and a small private practice. Mark undertakes direct work with individuals, families and groups, as well as offering clinical supervision to many mental health professions. Mark engages people in conversations about and with their images. These may include drawings, paintings, sculptures as well as family photographs. Mark also facilitates workshops and training events. Mark arrived in the arts therapies via photography, becoming interested in the psychological dimensions of making and viewing images.

Chris Wood is an art therapist and an educator with the Art Therapy Northern Programme: a base for training and research in Sheffield (part of SHSC NHS Trust and Leeds Beckett University).

Michele Wood: Since qualifying in 1987, Michele has worked consistently as a practitioner, educator and clinical supervisor. She is currently employed by the University of Roehampton and the Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead. Michele is an international authority on art therapy in palliative care, and has research interests in the use of digital technology in art therapy.

August 2018

A call for submissions

If you are interested in contributing to this archive of art therapy objects please email me – Dave Edwards – at daveedwards54@gmail.com

Please note: To be included in the archive all submissions must follow the specified brief:

1. The submission of a photograph or scanned drawing - of sufficiently high quality - of an object - made, found, gifted, purchased or which has in some other way - has played a significant role in their professional life.

2. A brief description of the reasons for choosing this object.

3. Brief biographical details.

The knife

The knife comes from a time when the Art Psychotherapy Department at Goldsmiths College was situated in a tall Georgian house near the main campus buildings. A small room at the back of the house had been converted into a makeshift kitchen with a door opening onto a pleasant garden area. The door was left open during summer months, which created a rather cozy, comforting domestic atmosphere; it also provided a route to an open space where some staff members could enjoy a much needed cigarette! The kitchen often became the site of many interesting discussions, perhaps enabled by being away from the stresses and professional discipline of the teaching rooms and studios. The kitchen was mainly used to prepare tea and coffee in the short breaks between teaching sessions and meetings. Sometimes it was also used to store, prepare and serve food for end of year parties and occasionally, the impromptu picnics that sometimes surrounded the firing and opening of the raku kiln built in the garden. All this led to the accumulation of a motley collection of cutlery and crockery in the kitchen unit drawer, the knife in the image being one of these items.

 When I took on the role of admissions tutor the knife somehow migrated to my office and became a paper knife to open the increasing mountain of mail that then came my way. There it remained until I retired from the college. Its second and final migration was to my desk at home. I took it without asking - who would I have asked? I think I just wanted, as well as the usual retirement gifts and cards, a very ordinary everyday souvenir of all those years.

The knife itself is somewhat unremarkable. A friend recently suggested that it looks rather like a steak knife of 70’s Berni Inn style. A rich host of vintage connections there- at least for people of my vintage! The hardwood handle and brass rivets have stood the test of time well and have acquired that smooth, comfortable patina that comes with constant handling. The blade, once sharp has moved on from being capable of inflicting an accidental cut, although the point could still be a potential hazard. I haven’t tried to sharpen it; I like it just the way it is. On one side of the blade is the inscription ‘Argyll Stainless Steel’. On the other side is stamped ‘Foreign”. These two terms seem contradictory, although in these days of possible UK reconfiguration, perhaps apt.

I think the knife has found a good home. As well as still using it for opening post, I often reach out for it for purposes such as scraping of scratching through a thick layer of oil pastel, or for cutting through a folded sheet of drawing paper to make smaller pieces; its softened serrations leave a nice fluffy edge as opposed to the very precise one which a sharp blade would make. It puts me in mind of things beyond the purely professional aspects of Art Psychotherapy; the friendships, support, shared beliefs and ideals of like-minded colleagues.

Terry Molloy was employed in the field of art therapy for over forty years, and taught on the Art Psychotherapy training course for over twenty years, before retiring to develop his personal art practice. He was involved in the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) since its early days, was a BAAT Council Member for several years and Vice-Chair for two. His practice as an art psychotherapist included work with adolescents in special education, adults with learning disabilities and with adults in private practice as well as in secure, acute and long-term psychiatry.

A Handbag?!

In 2013 I was given my grandmother’s handbag. 

It summoned her to me, opening a cache of memories of childhood visits to her dusty flat in Barcelona. As a child I never questioned why my family was spit between England and Spain, and I grew up with a second home blissfully located on the beaches, streets and squares of Barcelona. 

I lost contact with my Spanish roots when my grandparents came to live with us in Birmingham, back in 1975, shortly before the death of the dictator - General Francisco Franco. I had lived my Spanish idyl in the last decade of the Franco regime with a strange atmosphere - which I now know was infused with an unspoken traumatic memory of the Spanish Civil War, and my father’s rupture from family and homeland. 

My encounter with the handbag was almost overwhelming. It seemed to embody my grandmother’s presence which at first was a joyful reunion, but the shadow of the Spanish conflict soon caught up with me as I uncovered a painful family history. 

My father suffered with a serious clinical depression for most of his adult life - a condition managed with pills and electric shock treatments. He was never offered a talking therapy and this was another unspoken history (of mental illness ) but the anxiety he lived with was evident. I believe that children receive and inherit hidden trauma and often blame themselves for their parents’ unhappiness. 

I loved my dad, and although I didn’t understand his struggle I wanted to make things better. Looking back I was probably drawn to art therapy by a need to heal my family history and the way it had played out for all of us. I felt that the not talking was a kind of prison. 

I trained as an art therapist in Sheffield in 1986 - 1987, and developed a tentative painting practice through the experiential group work sessions on offer. This early training set me on my way, and forms the backbone of my current professional practice. I now work as an artist and mentor to other artists, I also run community group work sessions. I no longer work as a therapist, strictly speaking, though in a broad sense my art therapy training informs everything I do - even the research for my projects. 

I mainly use objects as my inspiration for the many branches of my work, but inheriting my grandmother’s handbag seemed to open a portal to the past. 

Between 1975 - 2013, it had taken up residence in my mother’s wardrobe high up on a shelf, and was used to store old currencies and cancelled passports. So much had happened in my life - too much to detail here - while the handbag waited for me. Or so it now seems. 

The accompanying poem came to me during a series of broken nights in which I dreamt vividly of reconnecting with my past. I felt my grandmother was guiding me, almost speaking to me though the handbag. 

This prompted me to create my overarching, Barcelona in a Bag, project which is ongoing. Through it I seek to create a body of work which responds to the Spanish Civil War, and digital iterations of my work can now be found at Tate Britain, BBC Radio 4 and the Bodliean Library, among others.

Barcelona in a Bag

Sitting on mother’s shelf

housing the euros and the francs

and the cancelled passports

it sat emitting messages.

My time was then but it is also now.

Come, claim your histories, your map!

Too heavy then for grandma’s arm

bought with vigour by your hands, now frail

Unknowing how weighty it would be.

A real handbag! you thought. 

But it smarted in her hand

and finally the bag came to me.

Now abuzz with interference, (a large radio-player)

a boom-box with a heartbeat

the handling so right

nestling under my arm

My smooth-haired dachshund of a bag.

The longed for remembering’s yap

that summons thirteen years of summer

Now is the time to draw on her.

(What innards!) And her pale lining unfurls 

a recipe for cinnamon sand. 

It runs through your fingers

the sweet smell lingers

it’s time for cinnamon sand!

It’s a flan of a bag.

My crema Catalana to your creme brûlée.

On a maritime stroll her buckle winks and flashes

morse code.

I am the baton, I am the beat

and the fuzz of time is nothing to me.

Sonia Boué studied Art History at Sussex University, and qualified as an Art Therapist at Sheffield University. Sonia is a multiform artist who works with themes of exile and displacement. Recent work includes the BBC Radio 4 programme The Art of Now: Return to Catalonia, which focused on inherited traumatic memory. In 2016 Sonia discovered she was autistic and her new project is the Arts Council funded, Museum for Object Research, which includes a professional development initiative for autistic project leadership.