AATA Conference Early Bird Registration Now Available

Early bird registration for the 2010 American Art Therapy Association national conference is now available online.  For more information about rates and what is included in the various packages, visit the AATA conference conference & event registration page.

Project Girl: Media Literacy & Empowerment

Several Naropa art therapy students fulfilled their 2009-2010 practicum experience or civic engagement requirement in the Community Art Studio in conjunction with the Boulder Youth Body Alliance.  Boulder Youth Body Alliance (BYBA) empowers youth to reclaim a positive body image. Through a variety of grassroots projects and activities, teens take action, reclaim their voices, and make a positive difference in their communities. BYBA peer educators and activists learn how to stop trying to change their bodies and work to change the world instead.

A variation of a national program called Project Girl was offered to middle school and high school girls in Boulder County.  Project Girl (PG) is an after-school program that combines art and media literacy into a unique educational program aimed at encouraging adolescent girls to become more critical consumers of contemporary media advertising and entertainment. The purpose of PG is to help girls become literate in all media forms—TV, internet, movies, magazines, newspapers, billboards, books, product labels, and music—so that they control the interpretation of what they see or hear rather than letting the interpretation control them.

To read all about the hard work of Naropa students and Project Girl

check out the blog: projectgirlboulder.blogspot.com 

or watch the video below created by PG practicum student Chelsea O'Neil

Photos from the Project Girl Exhibition on the Naropa campus:

iMovie as an Art Therapy Tool with Children

In the fall semester of the second year of the Naropa art therapy program, students take a child and adolescent populations course.  Through readings, discussion, practice sessions with children, experiential exercises and assignments, students focus on understanding development, art assessment, approaches to treatment and the practice of art therapy with a variety of child and adolescent populations.

Each student is paired with one child, ages ranging from 4-12, for a practicum art therapy experience.  In the Fall of 2009, Donica Snyder (pictured right) created a six session art therapy treatment plan that encouraged her child client to write his own myth, manifest his own characters and setting using art materials, and use photography and iMovie to put it all together in a stop-animation short.  Check out the amazing project that was created over the course of six sessions!  A great example of technology as a tool in the art studio.

Women in the Arts Documentary

In a predominantly female field, sometimes it is nice to hear the voices of other women.  The documentary Who Does She Think She Is?  follows the lives of 5 women who are maintaining a relationship between motherhood and art making.  Our program is full of mothers-to-be, new mothers, and experienced mothering extraordinaires (we have some great fathers too) who are attempting to juggle their commitment to the field of art therapy, their own artist identities, and their educational and professional goals.  This film is a wonderful look at expectations and conflicts that may arise in the lives of women when they attempt to "have it all."  For more information about the film, watch the trailer below or visit whodoesshethinksheis.net.

Art by Ft. Carson Soldiers on Display

photo source

A new exhibit called 'Conflict|Resolution', will run through June 20 at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (just a car ride away from Boulder).  The display features artwork produced by soldiers in an 11 week art therapy Creative Expressions workshop.  To read more about the program and the current exhibition visit this article or visit http://www.csfineartscenter.org/

For more great information about ways that art therapy is helping to support combat veterans, check out these wonderful resources:

Combat Paper Makers

They Drew Fire

Exposure Therapy for Soldiers

International Art Therapy Association

A Chance to Give Back

Photo Credit

Through a blog I follow for creative inspiration, Mon Petit Poppet, I discovered a big-hearted sewing activity that began with another blogger, Dance for Cheese.  The directive is to sew a reversible pinafore for little girls and/or plain elastic-waist cotton shorts for little boys who live at the Dago Dala Hera Orphanage in Kenya. 

Knowing that many of the art therapy students at Naropa sew... I thought this would be a great activity to use our creative talents that will be life enhancing indeed!

The fabric shop that started this activity is located in Melbourne, Australia.  A young Melbourne woman spent time volunteering at the orphanage this past Christmas.  She was struck that the children there did not have adequate clothing and that the orphanage did not have enough funds to supply any.  Her mother works at the fabric shop and she and her co-workers began making the reversible pinafores which the orphanage had requested upon contact.  Soon customers noticed the pinafores in the back of the store and they too joined in.  Through the wonderful world of blogging... the news has spread. And now I pass it on to you.

Want to be involved? All you need to do is make a girl's reversible pinafore and/or boy's elastic-waist cotton shorts that are ready to be shipped by June 4, 2010.  They are collecting these items for children of many ages - so you can make them in the child's size of your choosing! I would be willing to gather the items made and send them off in one package.  I will also find out the address of the Melbourne blogger, who has offered to have items shipped to her so that she can drop them off a the store, and I can share that with anyone who contacts me (annicejohnson@gmail.com) to send their pinafores and/or shorts. 

- Annice Johnson, Class of 2011

Art Therapy Association Mentor Program

 "The American Art Therapy Association is expanding its professional development service offerings, including the implementation of a new Art Therapy Mentor Program.  The Mentor Program will specifically target student members of the Association enrolled in art therapy graduate programs, and new professionals who are entering the field.  The talents, experience, and wisdom of the Association's seasoned Credentialed Professional, Professional, and Retired Professional members will provide the cadre of mentors to ensure that the next generation of art therapists has the support needed for success.

The Art Therapy Mentor Program had its official launch at the Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas this past November.  As of January, 2010, 34 of the Association's members including mentors and mentees are now actively participating in the program."
- AATA Newsletter, Volume XLIII, Number 1 Winter 2010, Page 18

For more information about the AATA Art Therapy Mentor Program, please visit the website or send an email to mentor@arttherapy.org.

To become a member of the AATA click here.

AATA Scholarship Opportunities

American Art Therapy Association (AATA) Awards are granted to student members who have been accepted or are attending an American Art Therapy Association approved Graduate Art Therapy Program (that's us).  You can find all information regarding the application process on the AATA website.  The deadline for application packets is July 15th.  All students are encouraged to apply!

In 2009 a Naropa art therapy student received a scholarship specifically designed to provide financial support to students interested in attending the annual AATA Conference. This fund is available to 3 student members who can demonstrate financial need, enrollment in an AATA approved art therapy program, prior involvement in art as healing events and potential for becoming a leader in the AATA community.

Other scholarships available include:

AATA Anniversary Scholarship Fund (1 award)
Available to a stude]npt with a current GPA of at least 3.25 who can demonstrate financial need and acceptance and or enrollment in an AATA approved graduate art therapy program.

Myra Levick Scholarship Fund (1 award)
Available to a student with a current GPA of at least 3.00 who can demonstrate financial need and acceptance and or enrollment in an AATA approved art therapy program.

Rawley Silver Award for Excellence (1 award)
Available to a student whose academic record or prior experience is deemed excellent (3.50) who can demonstrate financial need and acceptance and or enrollment in an AATA approved art therapy program. Where there is no financial need, a $100 honorarium will be granted.

Cay Drachnik Minorities Fund (1 award)
Specifically designed for the purchase of books, this fund is available to members of an ethnic minority group who can demonstrate financial need and acceptance and or enrollment in an AATA approved art therapy program.

Pearlie Roberson Award (1 award)
Specifically designed to provide financial support for a project, undertaken by a student or professional member of AATA that targets multicultural aspects and capacities of art therapy.

Prasad Family Foundation-International Student Scholarship (2 awards)
Specifically designed to provide financial support for international students enrolled in an AATA Approved Graduate Program.

Student Testimonial:Taylor

For my practicum I co-facilitated a multi-generational group of women, with classmate Chelsea O'Neil, who strove to empower themselves against the debilitating effects of mass media advertising. This unique peer-based initiative was unique in its use of art to increase positive body image, self- awareness, self-confidence, and relational bonds. Every week about seventeen women met in a community based studio setting to engage in arts-based directives, thoughtful discussion, and deconstruction of truths espoused by the media. 

While I knew that looking at magazines often left me feeling badly about myself, it wasn’t until I began co-facilitating this group that I realized I carried a degree of responsibility for allowing media content to decrease my self-esteem. Through leading this group I gained a more expansive awareness, which served to lessen the media’s impact on on my self-sense. I began to notice the subtle tricks used by advertisers to manipulate my self-doubt. I found myself browsing through magazines in check-out lines having “Aha!” moments. I wanted to tell the woman in line next to me why women are held to an impossible ideal of beauty – but of course, it makes us want to buy everything! The time to share these “Aha!” moments was in the studio. 

We laughed, cried, got angry, made art, sang, danced, posed, and made fools of ourselves. Slowly we began to reclaim the tools that would strengthen us, the very tools that the media went to great lengths to obscure – our connections to one another and more importantly, our connections to ourselves.

- Taylor Siemon, Class of 2011

To learn more about the artwork created at this practicum site and 

the experiences shared in the Naropa Community Art Studio, visit:

http://projectgirlboulder.blogspot.com

The Class of 2010

* Photo Provided by Jennifer Harkness

Naropa University’s Commencement Ceremony was held on Saturday, May 8.  Congratulations to the graduating class of 2010!  And a special mention to Sue Wallingford for receiving the "Naropa Faculty Award of Excellence" (voted on by the students) during the ceremony.

Naropa Students to Present at 2010 AATA Conference

Four Naropa art therapy graduate students have been selected to present two presentations at the 2010 American Art Therapy Association (AATA) Conference in Sacramento, California.  Here are a couple of short blurbs about the presentations:

Laptops & Twitter & Blogs, Oh My!

Chelsea O'Neil & Donica Snyder

Can we responsibly integrate technology into the practice of art therapy without jeopardizing the therapeutic alliance? We think so.  An overview of both sides of the technology debate will be presented as well as examples of technology being used to build relationship in therapy and within a larger community context.

Art Therapy on the Home Front: 

Coping with Military Deployment of a Parent

Beth Fisher, Annice Johnson, & Chelsea O'Neil

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought about unprecedented cycles of deployment.  The increasing frequency of these cycles has resulted in raised stress levels for military families.  This presentation will identify the implications of military deployment on the psychological development and mental health of children within military families.
 

  
We'll see you in Sacramento!

Semblance of Self

2nd Year Art Therapy students revealed their student exhibition: Semblance of Self on April 30th.  The collection is a culmination of a semester of work in the Art Therapy Studio: Process and Materials course.

Course Description for PSYT624 
Art Therapy Studio: Process and Materials
Contemplative practice is carefully integrated with the investigation of various art processes and materials throughout the semester. The open studio model is followed, allowing for students to practice mindfulness through process painting, drawing and sculpture projects. Commitment to personal and transpersonal imagery is encouraged as an essential part of understanding one's identity as an artist, the purpose of the therapeutic community and contemplative models for practicing art therapy.

A new way to stay involved, connected and up to date...

Welcome!  This blog is a place for art therapy students at Naropa University to share news, events, art work, photos, writing and other interesting blurbs with the world.  

If you would like to contribute to a blog post, please contact Chelsea O'Neil at coneil@students.naropa.edu.