CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
OF DEFINITION AND
TERMINOLOGY
Art Therapy
Art therapy has a history problem. With roots in psychiatry and art history this makes sense – rare are those among us who are willing to examine where the disciplines overlap.
Unfortunately, a lack of inquiry into the art historical roots of the field and a diversity of approaches to contemporary art therapy practice has led to misunderstandings and problems with defining the field in a contemporary context, particularly in a global one. In a sense, art therapy can be defined in a similar way to outsider art – “by what it is not” (Rubin 2010, p.26).
At this point, we have seen that many similar ideas regarding creativity appear in both psychiatry and art; it is therefore appropriate to bridge the gap between art therapy’s history and the history of art. Art therapist Linney Wix (2000) has noted the “brief and limited history” (p.168) of art therapy in the United States, and has sought to reconcile some of the divergences with related art practices in an effort to position the field back where its roots are – in art. Therefore, rather than present a comprehensive history (see Junge 2010 for the history in America; Hogan 2001 for history in Europe), I am instead hoping to show how art therapy and outsider art continue to be defined similarly, and yet how each holds a precarious position in relation to a larger art world. There is also a stark parallel between the development of art education as a modern field and the development of art therapy, a topic that deserves greater study. The focus here will be primarily on the role of the studio in art therapy’s history, and how it fits into contemporary practice.
Once again, using the continuums of art/not-art; the art product as tool/art product as aesthetic object; sick/healthy; and inside/outside culture will help situate the many forms that modern art therapy takes.
The Emergence of Art as Therapy
Art therapy – in its developmental stages – encompassed elements of occupational therapy, fine art, and art education, in addition to the roots laid in psychiatry. In a 1922 article in which he discussed how the definition of the field benefited from “a freer conception of work, from a concept of free and pleasant and profitable occupation – including recreation and any form of helpful enjoyment as the leading principle (p.2, original author emphasis), Adolf Meyer helped define the groundwork for what was becoming occupational therapy. Meyer’s discussion of occupational therapy could almost verbatim be applied to the development of the different forms of art therapy as a practice:
I am convinced that a premium should be put on the production of things that are finished in one or a few sittings and yet have an independent emotional value. They must give the satisfaction of completion and achievement, and that in the eye of the maker and of those for whom he has tried to work. (1922, p.7)
Of course, what differentiates occupational therapy from art therapy is the latter’s focus on creative expression, but the goal of artmaking can be considered this same sense of accomplishment and empowerment.
This idea that the process of artmaking had therapeutic benefits for the creator was expanded by those who worked within health contexts as the earliest practitioners of the field. Adrian Hill, an artist, established some of the earliest art therapy programs in England’s hospitals during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and is also credited with first coining the phrase “art therapy” in 1942 (Hogan 2001; Robson 1999).
As with many of his predecessors, Hill’s own experiences in life inspired him to experiment with art as a new model of therapy (Hogan 2001). In this case, Hill, afflicted with tuberculosis, found artmaking to be an important element of his convalescence, and went on to encourage others in recovery to access this process as a healing component. Hill was a practicing artist, and was interested in what modern artists were attempting with their focus on investigating the processes involved with creation; it is crucial to note that despite his lack of medical training and his career as artist, Hill went on to be recognized as a pivotal force in the changing notions of mental health care in the 20th century.
Edward Adamson, also an artist, worked with Hill and would go on to work with Eric Cunningham Dax, another important early voice in art therapy. Adamson “refused to align himself with any theoretical position or join groups” (O’Flynn 2011, p.52), therefore allowing for a variety of methods and fluid paradigms within which to work. When Adamson worked with Hill in the early 1940s, he described the work that they did as a kind of occupational therapy using art (Jungels 1985); later, when he worked with Dax at Netherne, the colleagues experimented with “art both as treatment and diagnostic tool” (O’Flynn 2011, p.47).
However, Adamson’s work was predominantly focused on the use of art in a studio setting within the hospital. He created an atmosphere that was nondirective, noninterpretive, and nonintervening, which supported patients in their free expression of creativity (Jungels 1985; O’Flynn 2011). Adamson also set up the art studio as removed from the main hospital building, which allowed patients to physically remove themselves from the hospital atmosphere, but also required them to make the decision – and effort – to get there. Even this seemingly minor change had the desired effect of increasing empowerment and self-direction on the part of patients who, for the most part, were limited in their opportunities for choice. Adamson also continued with the trend of exhibiting patient work, both to boost patients’ self-esteem and to help change public opinion and reduce the stigmas related to mental illness. About the same time as Dubuffet was “formalizing” the idea of art brut, Adamson began his own collection, now known as the Adamson Collection of Art. He was fascinated by patients who would use whatever was at hand as art materials, and was inspired by the inner drive to create he witnessed within the institution’s walls. Adamson’s interest in spontaneous production and the potential for all people to be creative led him to notice how this universal creativity can actually become stifled in “higher functioning” individuals (Adamson 1984).
It is likely due to the fact that these early practitioners held identities as artists and were engaged with modern art forms that led them to prioritize making over analyzing. In Adamson’s perspective, interpretation on the part of an analyst is most often just “the therapist’s projections of their own beliefs onto the work” (O’Flynn 2011, p.52).
Adamson would also work with Cunningham Dax, whose 1953 Experimental Studies in Psychiatric Art explored the potentials of artmaking as beneficial within a psychiatric environment. The title of his work is significant; from the start, Dax is very clear that he is dealing with theoretical unproven theory, and hence, he attempts to undertake experiments in his practice to find evidence that art therapy actually works.
In the analytic fervor of the profession at the time, Dax did see a value in using art for its diagnostic potential, but he may have been the first to make a clear distinction between art produced for clinical purposes and art created “as therapy,” and a recognition of the usefulness of both approaches. He sees five ways in which art can be used within the psychiatric context: as a form of recreation or occupational therapy, in which the patient is able to produce a concrete product; as a cathartic experience that both provides the patient with “emotional release” and doubles as a tool for diagnosis and treatment; as a marker of patient progress; as a means of patient expression within the psychotherapeutic context, allowing for interpretation of symbolic imagery; and as a form of research to better understand mental illness (Dax 1953, pp.15–16).
An interesting element about Dax’s idea of using art in therapy is that in his ideal, there would be a partnership between a teaching artist – who would be responsible for maintaining the appropriate artistic environment and drawing out the creativity of patients – and an “analyser” or a psychiatrist who could then interpret the patient’s artwork (p.21). He was very adamant that neither should infringe on the other’s position; it was essential for the patients to feel comfortable and supported by the artist in the art room, and in his eyes this would also remove any tendencies for patients to try and please the psychiatrist with the “right” answer. He also made distinctions between how art was to be used with different populations within the hospital – those that were considered chronically ill typically created in more open studio-like sessions: “the atmosphere is different, freer, less orderly, noisier, with less self-consciousness and a comparative indifference to inspection” (p.23). On the other hand, for his “experimental” sessions, he made sure materials and processes were standardized, and the patients were aware that their productions would become part of their case file and treatment material. Hill, Adamson, and Dax are all pivotal figures in the development of art as therapy, which would be the groundwork for the development of the modern studio program.
One of the longest running and most respected studio programs in the world is the Haus der Künstler (Artists’ House) at Gugging Hospital in Austria. Psychiatrist Leo Navratil established the program over the course of the 20th century with input from both psychiatric and artistic communities. An interesting point about the Artists’ House for our purposes is that when it is discussed in literature, it is almost always clarified that this is not an art therapy studio – it is a workshop “with other than therapeutic objectives” (Fol 2015, p.88).
Navratil began his studies of the use of art in the psychiatric context with inspiration from early figures like Machover and Prinzhorn; initially, he had patients draw figures for him upon intake, yet as a form of observation as opposed to use for diagnostic purposes (Navratil 1994). In part, the way Navratil approached his patients informed his willingness to experiment with new methods of treatment like the studio. He considered schizophrenia to be “an extreme of the continuum of human psychological experience” (Cardinal 1972, p.23), thereby seeing the people he worked with as individuals, and as artists, instead of perpetuating a hierarchical dichotomy in which they occupy the role of patient. Navratil (1994) bridged the gap between clinician, educator, artist, and advocate perhaps most effectively: “What the hospital is doing in the Artists’ House is not preparing patients to re-enter society in the role which was once theirs, but rather offering them a new social identity” (p.210). In this sense, art is normalizing not in that it resituates someone back into a “normal” community, but instead, because it normalizes the artist identity of the individuals who create.
The above examples all show how, in the early days of what constituted art therapy practice, as with now, there was a range of ways of thinking about the art product and the individual creator; Hill, an artist, presented his programming as a form of psychotherapy that could be implemented in any public hospital (Hogan 2001), working within existing paradigms of sick/healthy and ideas of treatment, while Navratil, a psychiatrist, was willing to reconsider the boundaries related to sick/healthy, treatment, and what it means to be “inside” or “outside” of culture (Navratil 1994). Hence, a fluidity of practice did not even adhere to specific backgrounds of practitioners, demonstrating just how much the ideas of both art and therapy are subjective according to individual usage.
American Art Therapy’s History Problem: The Studio
While the individuals noted above were influential in establishing and spreading the discipline around the world, in America, the written history of art therapy as its own discipline is intrinsically tied to a more psychotherapeutic practice. There is often an omission of some of the field’s influential founders who emphasized the art component of art therapy; as discussed, in part this is the result of the lack of preservation and presentation opportunities related to the art product.
We take accepted histories for granted, particularly given that it is very rare that research is done into alternative histories, no matter the field. In the United States, Wix has done an excellent job of reestablishing the importance of studio work in art therapy’s history by reexamining the contributions of Mary Huntoon (Wix 2000) and Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (Wix 2009). For Wix (2010), part of the problem is that the history of the field in America is dominated by the history of the American Art Therapy Association, and thus, omits the diverse practices that led to the field’s growth; the existing historical accounts do not place the same importance on “art therapy’s aesthetic, art-centered past in which the experience of making art was central” (p.178), as they do on the select few individuals as “founders” of the field. An example of this is Junge’s (2010) statement, “The formal profession of art therapy is thought to have begun and flowered in the Northeastern part of the United States” (p.5). Therefore, individuals like Edith Kramer and Margaret Naumburg are placed in the roles of “founders,” which essentially ignores the history of practice in the Midwest, West Coast, and abroad in favor of the academic, published individuals in the Northeastern United States.
A perfect example of this omission is Florence Cane. While her work is discussed in the field of art education, she is typically only mentioned in passing in art therapy. In fact, it was only halfway through grad school that I learned her name – and that she was Naumburg’s sister. As early as 1924, Cane began writing about her views advocating for undirected creativity and authentic creation when working with children, and she, as opposed to her sister, was the one who originally developed the use of scribble drawings for spontaneous creation (Junge 2010).
The Midwest’s Menninger Foundation Hospital is an important place in the development of art history in America. The Menninger Hospital encouraged “art as cathartic activity” (Jones 1983, p.25), allowing patients to experiment with creative expression from the earliest days of its establishment. Mary Huntoon, who worked as an art therapist between the 1930s and 1950s, emphasized free art expression, and integrated this process into her work at the Menninger Hospital. Huntoon did not leave nearly as many writings as Kramer and Naumburg – of course, contributing to her lack of historic coverage – but we can see her preference for what would be considered a studio-based, art-as-therapy attitude towards art therapy (Wix 2000). Huntoon avoided diagnostic and interpretive viewing of patient artwork, instead emphasizing the process of making art as therapeutically beneficial, but also the importance of the product. Huntoon’s method of facilitation differentiated her practice from that of occupational therapy and even from more traditional methods of art education; the emphasis was creativity, not technical proficiency.
Huntoon founded a small gallery-museum at Menninger to collect and exhibit patient artwork and share it with the community. She referred to the individuals she worked with as “students,” not patients, and believed that being able to share their work with the greater community both within and outside of the institution would promote empowerment and self-esteem. Huntoon even created a pamphlet for discharged patients that encouraged them to maintain their painting practice outside of the facility (Wix 2000).
Huntoon’s program was renewed when Don Jones and Bob Ault started a program at Menninger in 1951 (Jones 1983). Jones and Ault, like Huntoon before them, focused on the artmaking benefits for the patients at the hospital, in the vein of education as opposed to psychotherapy. By this time, Kramer and Naumburg were establishing a scholarly basis for art therapy – as a discipline – and the Menninger therapists were aware of what they were doing: “Art Therapy was ‘something else.’ It meant art analysis done by a handful of women on the East Coast and was spelled with a capital A.T.” (Ault, as cited in Wix 2000, p.122). It was not the analytic or diagnostic potentials of art that excited Ault and Jones, it was the healing they perceived as inherent in the artmaking process, no matter what it was called.
Jones first became interested in the works of hospital patients when he was employed as an attendant at Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. From 1943 to 1946, he collected the works he came across, admiring their creation as coming “out of inner impulse and psychic necessity” (Jones 1983, p.23); Dubuffet and his peers in Europe were admiring these same qualities in the works they gathered from institutions throughout Europe. Jones’s work at Marlboro State also helped inform his use of art as a means of processing his own experiences. His first-hand encounters with early 20th century asylum care exposed him to the realities that both patients and employees faced, and he created a number of paintings during this time, which he believed helped him process what he saw and experienced (Jones 1983).
Ault also had an active studio practice, which, like Jones, allowed him to experience first-hand the benefits that producing art can have. As Junge (2010) notes, Ault “always identified himself as an artist” (p.122), and this identity was integral to his understanding of the practice of art therapy. After his years at the Menninger Hospital, Ault opened his own art center, “Ault’s Academy of Art,” established in 1978 in Topeka, Kansas. There, Ault would hold classes, create his own art, and seek to expose and familiarize people from any background with art (Junge 2010).
The Menninger Clinic art therapists all, significantly, identified as artists; hence, they were willing to eschew formal guidelines for their practice in favor of allowing spontaneity and freedom of expression, rooted in their own creative experiences. However, as with Hill, Adamson, and Dax’s contributions from abroad, they are typically overshadowed by a growing clinically-oriented research base, that, particularly by the latter half of the 20th century, was unfortunately centered in the Northeast. Hence, we also have a very limited look at art therapy practices occurring on the West Coast as well.
Tarmo Pasto, a psychiatrist working in California, is perhaps the best American example of a counterpart to the European doctor-collectors of the early 20th century, yet is not often discussed in art therapy history. In his writings, Pasto explored the crossovers between art and psychological processes, such as the components that make a strong painting – and how and why this is perceived as such by the viewer. In “Notes on the Space-Frame Experience in Art” (1965), Pasto looked at how parallelism, symmetry, and the basic constructs of a painting help draw the viewer’s eye, and hence, are perceived as more or less successful depending on their use of space; this is, in many ways, like Prinzhorn’s conception of successful configuration. Pasto uses the work of Breughel, Rembrandt, and El Greco, among others, to illustrate this idea, but interestingly, also concedes the trouble he has supporting his thesis, because “most of the art produced in any epoch does not meet the rigid standard of artistic excellence this thesis demands” (p.306).
Pasto’s writings show his interest in the crossover between creative expression, psychology, and fine art, but one of his biggest contributions to art and culture in general was his discovery of the Mexican-born artist Martín Ramírez. Pasto provided Ramírez, his patient, with materials and support, and exhibited his work. Given Pasto’s experience, training, and theories on art, his promotion of Ramírez meant that the latter successfully satisfied all of those elements that Pasto saw as the elements that cause a work to be compelling – and rightly so. Ramírez’s haunting tunnels and lively caballeros have become highly sought after in the outsider art market and beyond, now selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and his legacy was recently cemented with his placement on a special edition USPS stamp.
Pasto also significantly helped contribute to the legitimization of art therapy as a mental health field, even if it was unintentional. In the 1960s, he received support from the National Institute of Mental Health to categorize forms of artwork from institutionalized individuals (Junge 2010). Federal support for an arts-related mental health program was the final link in connecting art and mental health on a governmental level.
Kramer and Naumburg
Despite active art therapy practices around the world, it is Edith Kramer and Margaret Naumburg who are both considered to be the “founders” of the modern discipline of art therapy in America, and each represents a different approach to using the arts in therapy. Kramer’s work is often used to define the field as “art as therapy,” given that she believed the process of artmaking was inherently therapeutic (Kramer 1971, 2001), while Naumburg, whose interest was in psychoanalysis, is often used as the figurehead of art psychotherapy.
Kramer, an active artist herself, crossed boundaries of art education and art therapy – indeed, her work was often published in journals and books related to each discipline. Perhaps this basis in education and her studio practice is what fueled Kramer’s emphasis on the aesthetic potential of art created in any circumstance: “To imply that there must be a sharp division between therapeutic creative activities and art is mistaken” (Kramer 2002, p.221).
Figure 3.1 Bagger Machine and Children, Edith Kramer, 1959. Credit: The Museum of the City of New York/Art Resource, NY.
While her focus was on the process, Kramer didn’t neglect the product; instead of using it for analytic purposes, she viewed the product as a way of seeing the “success” (or failure) of the process of sublimation that guided the artmaking process (Kramer 2000). In Kramer’s view, the art therapist straddled the roles of facilitator, educator, and artist, and so he or she must actively practice all three. She advocated for an increase in studio work in art therapy education, and called for art therapists to maintain active studio practices of their own (Wix 2010).
Naumburg typically represents the other end of a continuum of art therapy, the art psychotherapy framework. Often credited as the “mother” of art therapy, Naumburg’s ultimate contribution to the field was defining it as its own profession, one allied with mental health and psychotherapy (Junge 2010). This alliance with an established field allowed her to push for art to be recognized as a valid tool in psychotherapeutic treatment; thus, most of the initial literature of the field is rooted in psychoanalysis (Kramer 2002).
Naumburg’s more psychotherapy-related practice of art therapy makes sense given her background as an educator and “academic” with a personal interest in psychoanalysis; at the same time, Kramer’s focus on the art part of art therapy also makes sense given her active studio practice and artist identity.
Naumburg approached her practice as “art in psychotherapy, not art as therapy” (Junge 2010, p.40), thereby setting the stage for what would be decades of debate over the proper definition of what art therapy really “is.” The art product, in Naumburg’s view, was inconsequential as an aesthetic object, but it was the crucial component of her analytic framework. She used “free association” scribble drawings (Kramer 2002) to unlock the barriers to the unconscious, and is perhaps ultimately responsible for the loose definition of “art” used in the field of art therapy. Naumburg was, however, a proponent of encouraging “free” expression – quotes hers – which, as the term implies, was a sort of guided and directed form of artmaking that was “free” in that it did not adhere to the educational tenets of technical proficiency (Naumburg 1973, p.57). However, the end goal of this expression would be to produce material that could be used for diagnostic purposes; Naumburg’s intent in her research was to find a way to use “free” expression like a projective technique that could be used in the clinical process.
Naumburg and Kramer also worked exclusively with children; however, their ideas were applied to work with adults, whereas many of the earliest psychiatrists and art facilitators from the US and elsewhere had started their practices working with adults. While this does not discount Naumburg and Kramer’s insight into educational processes and encouraging expression in youth, it is important to consider when applying their frameworks to the entirety of the field’s growth.
Perhaps more so than Kramer, it is Naumburg’s early works that unfortunately provided context for many of the stereotypes that are formulated about the field of art therapy; Vick (2003) notes, in particular, the use of “specific, assigned drawings; finger painting; and the role of the therapist in divining the ‘true meaning’ of the drawings” (p.8).
Of the sisters Cane and Naumburg, Wix (2000) wrote:
Cane carried the art “pole” while Naumburg carried the therapy “pole.” The “poles” carry very different weights in the history of art therapy in the United States. While Margaret is known as the mother of the profession, Florence is rarely mentioned in art therapy literature. (p.169)
In part, this was likely due to the fact that Naumburg was allying her work with an existing mental health field, itself gaining in visibility and popularity with the growth of psychotherapy and analysis. It was likely easier for Naumburg to promote acceptance of art therapy, a “new” field, by granting it the authority of what was already established. Therefore, once art therapy was “accepted” as an offshoot of psychotherapy, the artmaking, education, and aesthetic components of the practice were left behind. Kramer actively advocated against this loss of the “art” in art therapy and Wix (2000) has made great strides with breaking down the “official” history of art therapy in the United States, and reintegrating figures like Cane and Huntoon back into the primary dialogue.
Alternative Histories from Abroad
During the 20th century there was clearly a host of activity related to using the arts in a mental health or healing context, considered the origins of art therapy – but does this unnecessarily reduce art therapy’s history to a Western perspective?
Mulitalo-Lauta and Menon (2006) discuss the role of art as a healing element in Pacific Island cultures, noting how it has, in many forms, been used for at least 3000 years: “art therapy is an old practice using Samoan art works, ceremonies and rituals that are restorative and empowering for individuals, groups and society as a whole” (p.22). However, these centuries-old practices are rarely noted in most histories of the development of the use of arts in therapy, because in many ways “art” and “creative expression” in a Samoan context mean something different than in a Western context. Samoan Chief Tuianna Salevaogogo used stone carving in the 17th century in his daily routine, and “considered it as therapy for relaxation and creativity” (p.26), and the Samoan ritual of Ifoga is a form of community therapy, in which an individual who has “wronged” another individual chants, dances, and sings with the wronged individual and members of the larger community, as a form of communal healing (p.28). While both would be considered a form of art therapy in Samoan culture, the perpetuation of a gap between Eastern and Western classical art traditions has led these activities to be generally omitted.
Similarly, in the Gulf, music has been an integral component of healing since at least the 10th century (Weber 2012). Early healers considered it to be a way to restore the body’s “rhythm” – mental, spiritual, and physical – and in the 17th century, it was being used in hospitals in Egypt, along with forms of storytelling and drama. While making visual art is a challenge in Islamic cultures due to issues with representing the human body in pictorial form, the use of calligraphic writing is considered to be an art form, and has been used since at least the 14th century as a “soul-nourishing accomplishment” (Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Amuli, as cited in Weber 2012, p.60).
Even in America we can see how the European view of fine art influenced the ways in which the healing arts were considered in a cultural context. For example, the practice of quilting, typically considered a folk art and dating back to the earliest days of America, can be seen as a form of group therapy, in which the repetitive act of sewing and producing allowed women a safe space with which to tell their stories to each other, and yet, these activities rarely factor into discussions of the history of art as therapy.
Art Therapy and Art Education
The connection between art therapy and art education – historically and now – is palpable, and both fields benefit from a fluidity of ideas. As will be discussed, studio programs are a modern day cross-section of therapeutic and educational approaches, and, as we have seen, many early art therapists were art educators. Additionally, art education also helps us understand the term self-taught in better detail – after all, what does it mean to be “taught” art?
The definition of artistic training – both in the school level and at the professional level – had significantly changed by the 20th century. For centuries, artisans and apprentices learned technical skills through repeatedly copying and looking at the “masters” – and it was not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the idea of art education as a means of facilitating idiosyncratic expression came about. In Read’s definition:
Education…is the fostering of growth, but apart from physical maturation, growth is only made apparent in expression – audible or visible signs and symbols. Education may therefore be defined as the cultivation of modes of expression – it is teaching children and adults how to make expressive sounds, images, movements, tools, and utensils. A man who can make such things well is a well educated man. (1951b, p.165)
While for centuries the goal of art training or education had been to produce “professional” artists, by the 20th century, it was finally taking the form of encouraging individuals to find their own idiosyncratic visual language. Perhaps one of the best-known schools of art to emerge in the 20th century, the Bauhaus, emphasized design and understanding of the basic components of image making over technical skill (Hopkins 2000).
However, the Bauhaus also took art education to a new level by showing how experiential teaching methods would produce far better “results” in terms of student proficiency and understanding than rudimentary lessons. Read (1951b) describes the “tactile exercises” of the school, meant to familiarize art students with multisensory ways of thinking about their materials and work:
Various tables were constructed with different materials arranged in rows – for example, fabrics, metals, bits of bread, leather, paper, porcelain, sponge, etc., and the student learned by experience to distinguish and interpret the various sensations aroused by these materials, or by these materials under pressure or in vibration. (p.156)
The Bauhaus was instrumental in developing the careers of a number of prominent artists and it went on to influence how art educators around the world approached the “teaching” of creative expression – something that was now considered to be innate to all, but also something that needed to be experienced and encouraged, not taught.
In fact, a greater exploration of art education and art therapy leads to an overlapping history in more ways than one.
1 Menu, Kenya Hanley, 2016. Credit: The artist and LAND Gallery.
2 Paix Christi (double-sided), Aloïse Corbaz, Mid-twentieth century. Crayon, colored pencil, geranium-flower juice, and thread on machine-wove paper. Credit: American Folk Art Museum/Art Resource, NY.
3 Výslech II. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Credit: The collections of The Jewish Museum in Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague Photo Archive.
4 Abstraktní Barevná Kompozice. Watercolor on paper from Terezín, 1943–1944. Credit: The collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague Photo Archive.
5 Untitled, Marlon Mullen, 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. Credit: The artist, JTT, New York, NY and NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA.
6 E! Entertainment Platter, Michael Pellew, Jr., 2016. Credit: The artist and LAND Gallery.
7 Red Bus, Eric Nelson, 2013. Credit: The artist and Pyramid Inc.
8 Artforum, Karen May, 2016. Credit: NIAD Art Center.
9 Untitled, David Albertsen, 2012. Credit: Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, CA.
10 Untitled, Donald Mitchell, 2015. Credit: Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, CA.
11 Lil Joe, Dorrie Reid, 2016. Credit: NIAD Art Center.
12 Landscape, Mary “Mimi” Wielatz, 2016. Credit: The artist and Pyramid Inc.
13 Miro, Picasso, and Dali, Nicole Appel, 2016. Credit: The artist and LAND Gallery.
14 Untitled, William Tyler, 2015. Credit: Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, CA.
15 Laurel and Hardy, Garrol Gayden, 2012. Credit: The artist and LAND Gallery.
16 Bust of a Woman, Linda Haskell, 2016. Credit: The artist and Pyramid Inc.
17 Self Portrait and Friend, Raynes E. Birkbeck, 2016. Credit: The artist.
18 Lunch Box, Carlo Daleo, 2016. Credit: The artist and LAND Gallery.
19 The End, Garrol Gayden, 2016. Credit: The artist and LAND Gallery.
Figure 3.2 Výslech II, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Credit: The collections of The Jewish Museum in Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague Photo Archive. (See Color Plate 3)
Frederika “Friedl” Dicker-Brandeis, art educator and artist, attended the Bauhaus and was instructed by such notable figures as Klee, Kandinsky, and Schlemmer (Wix 2009). There, she was encouraged to develop what Wix deems an “aesthetic empathy” (p.152) – a framework that allowed her to bridge the gap between education and therapy, particularly relevant in her work with children from the Czech concentration camp Terezín. Through creative expression, Dicker-Brandeis’ use of art with emaciated children “helped them build inner resources to honor their own sense of reality” (p.152), a form of survival in harsh circumstances.
Figure 3.3 Abstraktní Barevná Kompozice. Watercolor on paper from Terezín, 1943–1944. Credit: The collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague Photo Archive. (See Color Plate 4)
It is clear that Dicker-Brandeis was practicing a form of “art as therapy,” perhaps more in what we would today consider an educational model, but it was not intended to “teach” children art as much as it was about helping them mentally survive. Wix notes how Dicker-Brandeis’ students’ lives were often ended in the gas chamber, and yet, she persisted in helping them find mental strength and inner fortitude, no matter what happened to or around them. Dicker-Brandeis’ ideas also went on to help “establish” art therapy directly thanks to her former student, none other than Edith Kramer (Wix 2009). Unfortunately, Dicker-Brandeis herself was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz; her legacy is crucial to art therapy, and needs to regain a position as such.
In 1943, Victor D’Amico, art educator and chairman of the Museum of Modern Art’s Committee on Art in American Education and Society, stated that “the use of art in therapy is one of the most significant developments in modern education” (p.9). D’Amico addressed both what will be called art psychotherapy and art as therapy by allowing that “qualified” psychologists can use art products for diagnostic purposes, but that “more important than diagnosis is the use of art for healing. The simple experience of creative expression has a healing effect” (p.9). D’Amico cites artmaking as a form of sublimation – “the art experience serves as an emotional or mental purgative” (p.9), a way to practice problem solving, and ultimately, as a way to establish a greater sense of self-control.
Viktor Lowenfeld is another pivotal figure in art education, art therapy, and even museum education; he collaborated often with D’Amico at MoMA, who hired him as a lecturer after the Jewish Lowenfeld was forced to escape the Nazi regime. Lowenfeld brings a unique perspective to these fields because he worked with such a range of individuals, from blind and partially sighted children in Vienna, to his position as art professor at Hampton University, a historically Black college in Virginia, where his work with students would break down both racial and educational barriers (Holt 2012). In fact, almost the whole of Lowenfeld’s career was spent bringing access to those kept to the margins of modern society:
We are all by nature more or less endowed with intrinsic qualities and no one has the right to draw a demarcation line which divides human beings into those who should receive all possible attention and those not worth all our efforts. (Lowenfeld, as cited in Drachnik 1976, p.17)
For Lowenfeld, it wasn’t about using art for diagnostic purposes, or even to teach it in a vocational manner; instead, education was about encouraging each individual – no matter their age or level of functioning – to be able to learn how to freely express him or herself in a unique voice.
While Lowenfeld’s contributions to the ideas of childhood and creative development are apparent in most of the literature related to art education and art therapy, less so is he discussed in the context of a social-action framework (Holt 2012). His work at Hampton with students who were facing a reality of segregation and institutional racism showed his willingness to transcend accepted boundaries of inside–outside or us–them, boundaries that he himself was confronted with during the Nazi occupation. For example, eschewing a Eurocentric traditional perspective on the arts, he helped foster a unique style amongst his students at Hampton by exposing them to work from Africa, as a way to increase a relationship to a heritage that preceded their current marginal status in America (Holt 2012).
With deinstitutionalization, there came a growing need for educational programs and techniques that could address the needs of people with disabilities, severe mental illness, and those who simply had problems adjusting to the educational means of the time. It was not until the mid-1970s that people with disabilities were afforded the same educational rights as others, finally granted access to public education; typically, art classes were the first step in the process of “inclusion” (Wexler and Derby 2015). Lowenfeld’s work was also crucial to the development of special education; his 1947 Creative and Mental Growth traced how creative development could be broken down into stages, an estimated timeline of “normal” development. Hence, comparing the work of someone with cognitive disabilities to a “normal” child would help support a diagnosis. What differentiates Lowenfeld from other theorists is how careful he is to caution the use of this material in such a reductive way: “Progress of the development of a human being is very flexible, and rigid criteria of what is normal are not valid” (1947, p.253). Instead of simply labeling a child as mentally retarded and unable to progress from different stages, Lowenfeld believed it was the role of the educator/therapist/facilitator to increase and/or tailor stimulation to the unique individual, in order to draw out creativity. In Lowenfeld’s view, “there is, however, no basic difference in the work of the retarded individual and the work of a normal one” (p.253); the difference, instead, is the methods used to approach each individual. Lowenfeld’s work, then, was almost always a cross-section of roles of educator, therapist, and artist. He recounts the progress of a young woman with down syndrome that he worked with in which a process of encouragement, modeling techniques, and material selection were used to bring “her out of the emotional and mental isolation that prevented her from being an active member of her group” (p.256).
However, despite a clear crossover between art therapy and art education, the relationship between the two has seen its own share of infighting and stereotypes, which heightened by mid-century, as both disciplines sought to establish unique identities. A 1961 art education textbook summarized art therapy as requiring specific “conditions” in order to be successful: “all creative work must be produced without any influence or interference, praise or reward. It must never be displayed or shown to relatives, friends, or other patients” (Keiler 1961, p.57). And yet, as we have seen, by 1961 most art therapy practices were actually far closer related to art education than either side was necessarily willing to admit. Luckily, the chasm did start to close; in a 1974 note about an exhibition of work from Danvers in 1972, art therapist Shaun McNiff notes that:
Distinctions between ‘art education’ and ‘art therapy’ are minimized with the hope that people working in both fields will learn to share their experiences and perceive themselves as cooperatively working toward the common goal of the growth of the total person through art. (1974, n.p.)
Despite influential members of both fields distancing themselves from each other in the early days of establishment, by the latter half of the century, recognition had been made that the overlap could not be ignored.
Museums, Art Education, and Art Therapy
I was recently giving a tour of MoMA’s permanent collection works from the 1960s to a group of older adults from a Manhattan retirement community. As we discussed Louise Nevelson and her passion for education, I shared an anecdote about the artist: in 1942, she submitted one of her designs to a MoMA show for occupational therapy, winning fifth prize. One of the tour participants shared that she had been one of these early practitioners of occupational therapy – in her words, the “girls” were told to put on “silk dresses, heels, and lipstick” and were bused in to help veterans and active servicemen with recreational activities – including art.
I bring this up because it shows how museums are so powerful in shaping our culture. MoMA was at the forefront of engaging the community of New York City in the programming and exhibitions it offered in the early 20th century, but it also demonstrates how engaging with art in a museum setting can be a powerful way of connection with the self and with others. The participant was able to connect her own past with that of Nevelson’s, providing first-hand insight to the rest of us, and a meaningful connection for her.
Cultural institutions have played a significant role in the development of appreciation of both outsider art and art therapy, but rarely are these contributions mentioned except in passing. From its earliest inception in the late 1920s, MoMA regularly exhibited and accessioned the work of “self-taught artists” and held a number of exhibitions and workshops focused on art therapy, art education, and in particular, the use of art with veterans and children.
Children and the Museum
From the period of 1938 to 1959, a staggering 72 exhibitions were held at MoMA for the benefit of and/or displaying the artwork of children in a “Young People’s Gallery.” Every year a holiday festival which focused on engaging young children with learning about modern art and making their own work was held, and particularly throughout the war, the museum made an effort to use art as an educational and expressive device for children from all over the world.
It is important that MoMA’s programming was equally as much about learning to appreciate art as it was about making art. A series of exhibitions were designed to be “rented” by schools and institutions around the world, in order to expose children to modern art no matter where they were located. Along with these exhibitions would be teaching guides and opportunities for hands-on experimentation.
Read participated on the selection committee of a 1941 exhibition, Children in England Paint, which showed the work of children aged four to 16 years. Read notes the “universal characteristics of the human psyche” which are inherently expressed by the child, “unspoilt by social conventions and academic prejudices” (Children in England Paint 1941, p.1). In fact, many of these exhibitions compared the art of children from other countries with children living in America to show universal creativity and creative practices, and would travel to be shown abroad as well as at the museum itself.
It was not just MoMA leading the charge on finding new ways to engage children with art. In 1918 a “Children’s Art Center” was developed by a curator from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, who in 1913 had invited ten children to curate a show of prints. Interestingly, these children were not members’ children, but those “classes of children that are growing up in an environment in which art is not reckoned as a factor of any importance” (Caswall 1918, p.410). The selected prints were sent out to community and “social settlement” centers as a means of engaging even more children and bringing art into these typically dreary settings. With its vegetable garden for children, huge windows and arched doors, and rotating exhibitions, the center would be an ideal place for many of the populations served by art therapists today.
MoMA and the War
The onset of World War II during MoMA’s early years of development clearly had an impact on both the exhibitions held and the programming designed. In addition to “art sales” meant to raise funds for the war effort, MoMA also displayed exhibitions and created programming meant to serve the needs of veterans.
The first of these, 1942’s US Army Illustrators of Fort Custer, Michigan displayed “authentic soldier art produced spontaneously” (p.1) by the men stationed at the base. MoMA’s Director of Exhibitions Monroe Wheeler states in the press release that his visits to the base and experience of the dedication to artmaking supported there were the impetus behind the show: materials were donated, studio space was set aside, and classes were given to those who were interested. Wheeler saw the benefits of the program as providing a better camp morale, a way of exposing the life of soldiers to a greater public, and a way of archiving Army activities.
Two shows were held in 1943 that are important for our purposes. February’s The Arts in Therapy exhibition was comprised of a contest component, displaying work selected by an awards committee from submissions from artists, craftsmen, and the general public for ideas for occupational and therapeutic creations and processes that veterans could use in their recovery. In addition, there was a “psychotherapy section” that showed the use of artmaking in psychiatric and recreational settings, including work from the Vienna Institute for the Blind (provided by Lowenfeld), work from the psychiatric division of New York’s Bellevue Hospital, drawings from the Children’s Ward at New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital (lent by Naumburg), and work from the Clinic for Social Adjustment of the Gifted, provided by Cane – somewhat interestingly titled as “Art Consultant to the Clinic” (1943, p.5). As noted earlier in the chapter, Louise Nevelson earned fifth place for her toy design of a horse-shaped child’s seat, and a rug executed by Louise Bourgeois received an honorary award.
In June the same year, Occupational Therapy: Its Function and Purpose. The Arts in Therapy focused on the effects of occupational therapy, which the press release notes as “specifically prescribed for each individual,” showing the work of patients to display the benefits discussed (Occupational Therapy 1943, p.1). In addition to photographs of veterans recovering through the use of artmaking, it also showed the work of institutionalized patients: a “schizophrenic” and “mentally disturbed boy” (p.2), and works from people with other physical and emotional disabilities. Broken down into sections, the exhibition shows how much MoMA was involved with the early stages of art therapy:
•Section 1: Panels showing patients at work and examples from each following section
•Section 2: Exhibits from Bellevue Hospital: Psychiatric Division (broken down into subcategories for each set of work: the body image in art, psychopathological problems, schizophrenic problems)
•Section 3: Case material from psychiatric practice
•Section 4: Work done with the unemployed
•Section 5: Work done by service men at USO centers
•Section 6: Work done under Dr. J. Louise Despert, Cornell Medical College and work done under Margaret Naumburg, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital
•Section 7: Work done with blind and partially blind students, under Viktor Lowenfeld
•Section 8: Development and adjustment through free expression, under Florence Cane, Clinic for the Social Adjustment of the Gifted.
In 1944 MoMA opened the “War Veterans’ Art Center,” which was intended to address a “national allergy to education” that was keeping many veterans from seeking out new opportunities for learning upon their return (Art for War Veterans 1945, p.1). The Art Center was meant to expose veterans to art, but also engage them with the artmaking process, including such activities as “painting, sculpture, ceramics, industrial design, jewelry, silk screen printing, graphic arts and allied subjects” (p.1).
Figure 3.4 Students at work. 1944–1948. War Veterans’ Art Center, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gelatin silver print, 4 x 5” (10.1 x 12.7 cm). Victor D’Amico Papers, III.A.4. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.
For the 1945 exhibition showing off the work created in the first year of the Center’s existence, in which it saw 439 veterans visit, D’Amico stated: “The primary function of the War Veterans’ Art Center is not to find artists, but to help veterans find themselves” (Art for War Veterans 1945, p.2). The “principles” of the center were: to help veterans achieve personal satisfaction through manageable projects, to provide individual instruction to help veterans identify a personal style and goal, the stressing of creative expression over formal skill, but also an introduction to the “fundamentals” of art, meant both as a prevocational tool and as a means of helping veterans feel more comfortable creating (pp.2–3). D’Amico saw a pattern emerge in the process of the veterans, an early focus on artmaking as “emotional release” (p.3), followed by a period of self-discovery and imagination. These processes, benefits, and results show how the overlap between occupational therapy, art therapy, and art education was increasing along with a sociocultural need – and how cultural institutions were providing access.
The Center “closed” in 1948, reopening as the “People’s Art Center,” now offering classes to adults from the community, in addition to continuing educational initiatives for children. With MoMA’s expansion in 1951, a new permanent center for display of and hands-on experimentation with art was opened. Comments from participants in their own words often accompanied each exhibition, such as: “At 69 I find myself a freshman in your art class. After 43 years of pharmaceutical practice I find, in the stimulating yet relaxing experience of trying to learn the art of painting, a keen satisfaction” (Paintings by Amateurs 1955, p.3). MoMA’s outreach ranged from working professionals to school children, each given a unique opportunity to engage with art – and the self.
Modern Museum Education
The legacy of museums engaging in this crossroads of art therapy and art education continues throughout education departments today. Lectures have long fallen out of style, and instead, most museums hold a form of “gallery discussions” – where an educator gives a tour of work and elicits the responses of participants as a means of furthering discussion and engagement. The process in its entirety is meant to be hands-on and experiential, with artmaking components in galleries or onsite studios followed by discussions; focus is on individual discovery and connections rather than on art historical or critical knowledge.
Perhaps because there is no specific “training” that prepares one to be a museum educator, there is no set “style” of how best for educators to encourage participant engagement. An interesting example of an after-effect of this is given by Olga Hubard (2015), who discusses her experience as an educator with the question most art therapists know very well – “how does this make you feel?” Hubard recounts how her first supervisor explained to her that this question was useless in gallery conversations, and yet, throughout her own practice, she learned the importance of asking it – when one knows how to ask it. An interesting point Hubard raises is how the idea of eliciting the feeling states of viewers can actually draw out more nuanced conversation – each viewer will be affected by a work in a unique way, and hence, will feel something different when looking at it, sharing a unique perspective.
Museums also serve an interesting role in a contemporary sense when it comes to the continuum of inside–outside culture. Both the pinnacle of the cultural institution but also the predominant portal for a community’s access to art, museum education programs serve as the in-between, essentially the ways in which museums can connect with all communities, not those of a traditional cultural class (Franco 1992). Once again, there is the idea that engaging with art – in both making and viewing – can have larger benefits for individuals of any background, and the importance of breaking down barriers to cultural institutions, perceived or otherwise.
Theoretical Frameworks: Defining Art Therapy Today
Clearly, the history of art therapy in the 20th century is diverse, and many aspects have yet to be explored in detail. In a modern sense, this history has allowed for a variety of theoretical frameworks that allow practitioners to tailor their approaches to each unique individual, and to specialize in a form of practice that best suits their own training and comfort level. The downside of so many “definitions” of art therapy is that defining the field in a contemporary sense is increasingly difficult. As discussed, art therapy and outsider art can be thought of as similar umbrella terms that describe a spectrum of different interpretations and definitions focused around the idea of artmaking and the idea of therapy.
It is partially because of the historic embrace and emphasis of the therapy aspect of the field as opposed to the art aspect that has led to issues with differentiating methods of practice from related fields like social work. Without art, the profession is no different than any other type of counseling. As Thompson (2009) defined it:
Art therapy as a contemporary art practice strives to restore the primacy of art and to achieve a balance between artistic practices and psychotherapy. It calls on the active development of the artist identity in the patients and in the art therapist. (p.159)
It is this “balance” between interest in the person (artist) and the product (artwork) that tends to blur, making a definition and cohesion difficult. How the art therapist conceives of the process at play, as therapy or as artmaking, will inform how he or she sees the person, as artist, client, or patient, and the product, as artwork, diagnostic tool, or case material. This means defining what the focus is on a professional level, and from there being able to tangibly trace the required skills, training, and job opportunities available therein. As Allen (1992) wrote, “the human phenomena in which art therapists are presumably interested is art making and the effects of art making on human behavior and emotional life” (p.25). Understanding psychological concepts and techniques is essential for understanding the primary and secondary human processes related to making and viewing art but, in this sense, art therapy can appear as closely allied with Surrealism as it does with psychoanalysis (Hogan 2001).
As with outsider art, art therapy needs to be looked at as a continuum. While the major unifying factor of all art therapy approaches is the inclusion of art, how that idea is defined and used informs the way a therapist practices. As Schaverien (1989) summarized:
Art therapy is in the position of being between two fields; rooted in art, it is a hybrid of cross-fertilization with psychoanalysis. Thus, it has roots in art history, aesthetics, in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Different art therapists choose paths at varying distances from each of these positions, some nearer to one aspect, some nearer another, but what distinguishes the art therapist from her psychotherapist colleague is her knowledge and formative experiences in art. (p.155)
Thus, the conception of the field as posed between the poles of art as therapy and art psychotherapy is ripe for debate and exploration. However, because it is the art that differentiates the field from others, it is the art that should therefore be promoted to emphasize our unique approach; Moon (2002) believes that “by embracing art as the central component of our professional vision, we strengthen the authenticity of our work as art therapists” (p.32).
Historically, the biggest debate in the field of art therapy is the split between defining it as art-as-therapy or as art psychotherapy (Stoll 2005). We see it in the establishment of the formalized field in the first two places to do so, Britain and America, where an ongoing struggle between the two frameworks led to differences of opinions and splits in the ranks. This remains evident today in the “official” definitions of the field, particularly that of the AATA, which seems to be a laundry list of possible outcomes and techniques as opposed to a specific method of practice.
That being said, many contemporary art therapists advocate for dissolving the perception of boundaries within the field. Alter-Muri and Klein (2007) speak to a “postmodern” perspective of art therapy, in which fluidity and flexibility is emphasized:
A postmodern perspective informs a multifaceted therapeutic approach which negotiated the border between individual integrity and community values, blurs the distinction between home and studio, and validates all forms of image-creation with the overall purpose of healing and social empowerment. (p.82)
Their approach is also interesting to conceive of in a time when multiculturalism in art therapy is a topic of discussion.
Art Therapists as Artists
As demonstrated, art therapists throughout history often came from backgrounds in mental health, art, or education, and the same can be said for modern practitioners. However, at least in the US, art therapy education and training focuses on mental health as opposed to either education or art. Hence, one of the most neglected topics in art therapy is the art therapist’s identity as artist. The split between art therapy and the contemporary art world has led to no impetus for a crossover, and so, art therapists are not well-represented in the contemporary art dialogue.
However, those who do call for art therapists to be in touch with their identity as artists are also those who tend to work in the context of art as therapy. Kramer was adamant that the artist-identity was equally as important to the field of art therapy as the work itself:
I advise you to fight for part-time jobs; to educate administrators to the strange phenomena that two part-time persons work more efficiently than one full-time person when it comes to artist-therapists, so that you’ll have time and energy for your own art; so that you will be able, out of your own commitment, to generate enthusiasm for making art in the individuals in your care. (2000, p.24)
With an active studio practice, art therapists would be better equipped to access and use the unique tools that enhance their practice, namely “the technical ability, the empathy, and the commitment to art necessary to assist others” (p.120).
Allen (1992) spoke to the effects of shared artmaking between therapist and artist as beneficial. Allen believed that an art therapist working as an “artist in residence,” creating work onsite, could help clients see aspects of artmaking at play, including the “problem solving, risk taking, and self-fulfillment” (p.27) that come from the creative process. Moon (2002) encouraged art therapists to regularly exhibit their work, as “the act of self-exposure involved in displaying our art publicly may lead to empathy for our clients in their acts of self-exposure within the therapeutic session” (p.56).
Art Therapy and Aesthetics
Aesthetics naturally becomes part of the discussion when a product is seen as a work of art; however, this doesn’t mean works must adhere to a set standard of beauty or tradition. Comparing the ideas of “good art” to “kitsch,” Kramer explained: “three elements seem essential; evocative power, inner consistency, and an economy of means so that the quality of the work would be diminished if anything were added or omitted. Such work conveys an inner unity that gives great satisfaction” (2002, p.220). Kramer’s perspective echoes Pasto, Prinzhorn, and others in that there is no rigid boundary of what makes a work “good” except for the response of success it elicits in the viewer.
Kramer is not the only art therapist to have addressed aesthetics. Henley (1992) found that “a model of aesthetics and even art criticism can be constructed that is commensurate with the aims of art therapy without diluting the intent of either discipline” (p.153). He also saw the benefits that an art critique can offer within the art therapy setting (2004). In their work discussing postmodernism and art therapy, Alter-Muri and Klein (2007) cautioned art therapists to consider their own “notion of aesthetics” (p.84) and how this preconceived schema affects response to and recognition of art therapy products as art – or not.
As discussed, a viewer inherently applies his or her own perspectives and lived experience to finding the “meaning” in a work, or even just figuring out his or her own response. Even art therapists and professionals will have a tendency to see what they want to see in a work, falling prey to a sort of aesthetic countertransference. Schaverien (1989) posited that art therapists are susceptible to a triangular form of countertransference, incorporating the “artist/client,” “therapist/spectator,” and the “picture” (p.56), particularly relevant in the case of analytic art therapy, but a phenomenon that can also be seen in a tendency to prioritize “pretty” art therapy pictures as a measure of success (Weiss 1992).
The Studio Program: Art Therapy, Art Education, or Something Else?
When it comes to the question of studios for artists who, for one reason or another, aren’t working in a traditional context, the use of the term “art therapy” becomes even trickier. As an art therapist working in a studio day habilitation program for adults with developmental disabilities I can honestly say I never practiced art therapy, but I used it all the time.
However, despite the growing attention paid to studio-based practice (see Moon 2002; Allen 1995), it still seems to occupy a blurry position in the larger conception of art therapy, in part because art therapy is out of touch with art in a historical and contemporary context. Judith Rubin’s epic Introduction to Art Therapy: Sources and Resources, published in 2010, has a section on “Places We Practice” that makes no mention of any studio programming.
A point of clarification that may need to be raised is the difference between the theoretical framework of studio art therapy, and the studio program as discussed throughout this book.
In the 1990s, Pat Allen furthered the historical link between art therapy and studio practice, establishing the studio art therapy movement as an “alternative to clinification” (Allen 1992, p.22) – or a way to combat against the growing role of art therapists-as-social-workers. Allen advocated for a return to the valuable framework laid by Cane, Huntoon, Ault, and Jones, rejecting the “trend in overemphasizing the clinical orientation” (Vick 2003, p.12) in favor of the process of making art.
I use the term studio program to describe any formalized program that is meant to facilitate the production of and promotion of work created by professional artists who do not work within traditional contexts; this inherently discludes the communal studios of contemporary artists while it includes everything from inpatient open studio programs to studios for artists with developmental disabilities. Somewhat ironically, not all studio art therapy practices fall under what I call studio programs.
Alice Wexler, who has spent significant time and research exploring the efficacy and benefits of studio programs for disabled populations, sees these centers and the art process as allowing the expression of “the artists’ own narratives and self-representations, bringing art and education closer to eroding the boundaries between normality and disability as these terms are defined by Western cultural standards” (Wexler and Derby 2015, p.128). Not only do studios mark a move away from limiting the expression of disabled individuals as “not normal” in a medical and sociocultural sense, they also help secure a place for these individuals in a greater public conscience as worthy of attention and capable of creative expression and communication through art.
The ancillary benefits of studios range from the social to the economic. They provide individuals with a supportive environment that helps the artist to continue to create and grow his or her artistic vision and personal style in a community of other like-minded individuals. Hence, the studio program is more than art education, art therapy, or just artmaking, it is a systemic approach to helping individuals thrive as individuals within a community.
As will be discussed, one of the recurrent definitions of an outsider artist is an individual free of inspiration from an outside or cultural environment. While it was seen as a positive characteristic by champions of art brut, in reality, it was a limiting viewpoint that ignored the presence of cultural influence in artists like Wölfli while making sure that creators could never engage with their surrounding culture or history, or risk being forgotten. Studios, then, caused panic in Thévoz and other art brut formalists, as any growth or outside influence seen in an artist’s work must then be attributed to over-reaching educators or facilitators. This unfortunate stereotype can easily be discounted by the multitudes of contemporary work from studio programs that is infused with cultural references.
The modern studio program typically welcomes outsider visitors with open arms; while this is obviously the best way to act as a gallery and sell work to the greater public, it has the added effect of educating the larger audience, to whom most of these individuals have been hidden throughout history. Per Wexler and Derby (2015): “art centers educate audiences by promoting the work of disabled artists as valuable artifacts that represent meaningful experiences and ideas” (p.138). By interacting with artists – and in turn, allowing artists to interact with the general public – there is an organic form of inclusion happening, where all individuals are on equal footing, the artists as artistic creators and the visitors as receiving audience.
Figure 3.5 View of Abstract Preferences exhibition at NIAD Art Center’s Gallery (2016). Credit: NIAD Art Center.
Finally, the sales aspect of studio programs allows for the potential of self-support for individuals that exist in the contemporary social services structure who have little or no financial prospects or stability. While this may seem to create a dual relationship for the art therapist as both therapist and sales agent or gallerist, the therapeutic benefits of both the artmaking and art selling can in some ways link both roles under the larger art therapy umbrella.
Studio programs also provide an opportunity for further discussion of the relationship between outsider art and art therapy – and a widening of definitions in both areas. For the studio art therapist, outsider art provides a bridge to the fine art world. In considering the history of exploitation of artists labeled as “other” and the nuances of associations to terminology choices, the art therapist in the studio can help to facilitate the needs of the artist and the gallery, collector, or general public in the sphere of outsider art. Historically, psychiatrists such as Prinzhorn served an intermediary role between the artist and the promotion or preservation of his or her works; in a way, the contemporary art therapist can assume this role as a “case manager” in the art world, ensuring proper treatment of the artist and reducing potentials for exploitation.
Most programs provide artists’ statements to buyers that are created in conjunction with the artist him or herself, so that the information often focuses on the formal or thematic qualities of the artist’s style, as well as his or her interests and/or processes – and never on the clinical. Many of these statements are only a few lines, but some individuals choose to share full pages of information – a range of disclosure that parallels the practice of many contemporary artists. Therefore, becoming familiar with the history of issues of exploitation and the voyeuristic search for lurid details that have persisted throughout the development of outsider art can help inform art therapists about how and why careful promotion that balances confidentiality and respect for the artist as an artist is crucial. Spaniol (1994) has written on the logistics of exhibiting work from an art therapy context, and her approach includes artists in the control of dissemination of information related to themselves or to their artwork, thereby reinforcing the individual’s connection to a larger community, in his or her own unique voice.
Conclusion
A major concern with the idea of outsider art is that the art product becomes removed from the artist (except in the form of biographic details) in order to enter the market; art therapists then, should look more deeply into the benefits of reconnecting the individual with the process of handling the work after its creation, as it moves into a larger art world. While art therapists, educators, and artists, both historically and contemporarily, have recognized the empowering benefits of exhibiting work, there is also the fact that art has the power to change public perceptions.
This idea of art as catalyst for social change is particularly essential in many modern community-based settings. In New York City, community centers and day programs serving individuals with mental illness, homelessness, and a variety of other issues are implementing art therapy programming into their structures. In the early 20th century, many of these individuals would have been considered the ideal outsider and would have likely been institutionalized; however, in community-centered mental health treatment, they are receiving assistance in a more community-centered format. What continues in some of these cases is the production of art, by which I mean aesthetic products, not “kitsch”; by closing the door to work created in an art therapy context, contemporary and outsider art risks excluding many of these productions. However, a reconnection with the contemporary art world – where outsider artists are increasingly given recognition – requires an effort from art therapists to question accepted histories and modes of practice.
Clearly, the continuums of art/not-art, art as a tool/art as an aesthetic product, sick/healthy, and even inside/outside of culture play into the issues of contemporary definitions plaguing art therapy. Partially, it is the practitioner’s individual conception of all of these continuums that ends up identifying his or her theoretical approach, which, as noted, often changes from context-to-context. Hence, in a studio setting, art is being created, its use being as an aesthetic project, and identities like “patient” are thrown out in favor of more inclusive roles like “artist.” On the other hand, an art therapist working with adults in a private psychotherapy practice may find that artwork is serving a secondary role to the process at hand.
However, particularly in the US, as greater steps are being taken to integrate art therapy deeper into a mental health context, it is necessary for art therapists to question what it is that makes the field unique – the art – and to embrace the wide-ranging history that supports its legitimacy.