Art as therapy

There’s growing recognition of the health benefits of being creative and framing art as therapy has now entered the mainstream arena. You’ve got high profile people like Fearne Cotton talking about how painting helps with her mental health, while a few years ago, it felt like you couldn’t escape the sheer number of drawing books on sale to help with mindfulness and meditation.

Yet art as therapy, is more than just drawing or playing with paints. It’s a science, a practice and a process fuelled by theory and research.  True art therapy requires study for years and a rigorous approach by a qualified and registered practitioner.

We’re going to be putting a focus on art therapy and the role creativity can have in improving your health and wellbeing.  First, we talk to Iris Whitelock an art therapist based in Ardross, Western Australia, about her art journey and how she became an art therapist. 

Iris specialises in working with women, aged 50 and over, who are seeking meaning and purpose. She’s recently finished a series of workshops for older people living in residential care.

Where do we get our ideas about creativity from and what constitutes ‘good art’?

I think we take on ideas very early on as children, where we’re just soaking up information and the attitudes of our care givers and people around us. We absorb so much even before we learn to speak.

I remember drawing trees when I was in school in Africa and I drew mine as a lolly pop tree, yet the boy next to me drew trees more like those you see in Africa. I was given the impression there was a proper way to draw trees and mine wasn’t it!

I think this view or perception originates from my mother who said there was a right and wrong way to do art. My mother was good at playing the piano but didn’t feel confident with drawing or painting and she was always saying how bad she was at it.

Later on, I decided I wouldn’t let my kids hear me say that I was bad at art or I couldn’t draw. In fact, I did a crash course in drawing horses!

Have you always been involved in art?

I played piano, studied ballet and I sang as a child. I then studied a BA (Bachelor of Arts) in Theatre Arts and I loved set and prop making. I worked as a stage manager for a couple of years before studying an arts management course at the WA Academy of Performing Arts in the late 1980s.   I then left the arts completely to become a management consultant where I focussed on helping people to improve their communication.

I didn’t put things on paper or create visual art until my early 40s when I discovered how important art is to me as a human being.

I was diagnosed with post-natal depression at 42 and I began reading a book called The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron. The book takes you through a series of exercises and one of these involved taking yourself on a date to help make creativity part of daily life.

On one of these dates, I went to the Atwell Gallery to visit an exhibition called Catalyst. The exhibition was all about textile art and they had the most amazing things created by sewing machines. It completely blew me away.

One of the exhibiting artists was there on the day and I said to her: “you must have done art at uni” and she said to me “no, I’m just a housewife!”

It was so comforting for me to hear that. She told me about courses on offer at Heathcote Gallery and that conversation marked the beginning of my exploration of different ways of working with sewing. The exhibition really was a catalyst for me.

How important was this exploration of art to you?

I used to go to the textile workshops and I would sigh with bliss. It was life giving to me and it was something I could totally be absorbed in, while giving me a break from my thinking.

I hadn’t really understood how important that was until I got to the low point of my PND.  Textile art was a lifeline and it set me off on my discovery of art.

At the time my husband thought it was just a hobby but he was shocked when I started to do more courses and collect more stuff!

One of the courses that had a big influence on me was a sculpture course that I signed up to completely by accident! I loved it and the lecturer, Tony Jones, had a profound influence on me. He was so lovely and encouraging, and he showed me that I could do something totally unexpected. This was a revelation.

What led you to becoming an art therapist?

There was a number of different things that led me to becoming an art therapist, which was a term that I was only vaguely aware of at the time.

I was working on a community art project for the City of Melville with a friend of mine. They asked us to do it as a special project which involved nine different groups of all ages and backgrounds coming together to create five double panels of sheer fabric featuring the Wagyl, a serpent from the dreamtime in Noongar culture. The artwork was installed in the City of Melville Council Chambers in 2008 and it’s still there!

Anyway, this friend of mine told me a book called Visual Journaling: Going Deeper Than Words by Barbara Ganim and Susan Fox. I bought the book and there was one exercise that really got my attention. It was a simple process which took one hour, involving me answering eight questions as I was guided through a drawing. It really helped me and I’d use it at night if I was churning through some issues and unable to sleep.

Then I heard about an art therapy course through a friend of mine who was studying her Master’s degree at Edith Cowan University. I looked into the Masters but they had just closed the program at ECU so, after some digging, I discovered there were courses run locally through an organisation called Ikon Institute.   Ikon offered an Advanced Diploma in Transpersonal Art Therapy and I signed up do a two-year full time course after attending an information evening.

Art therapy has allowed me to put together my ability to help people sort out emotional, spiritual and physiological issues by using creativity as a vehicle.

Art therapy isn’t widely understood. How do you explain what you do?

I usually tell people about who I work with rather than what I do. So, I’ll explain that I work with women in their 50s looking for meaningful purpose for the next phase in their lives, something that inspires and engages them and is a worthwhile contribution. I help them get through this via creative exercises. 

A lot of people think there has to be something majorly wrong with you to do any form of therapy. Yet, all of us have blind spots or blocks to realising our potential. Part of the work I do is to help people see what solidified ideas they hold about what they can or can’t do, or the type of person they are. It helps to open up the future for people.

Recently, I completed this project called My Blooming Marvellous Life in Amana Living’s residential care centres. It involved working with tissue paper to create a collage of flowers in a vase. A lot of people said to me that it wasn’t art. They wanted to do a drawing or painting.

But I encouraged them to try it. The feedback has been lovely. They said they made something beautiful and they enjoyed the experience of building the collage bit by bit. People focus on the outcome and often can’t see how they’ll get there, so breaking it down into smaller pieces can really help.

While we were making the collage, I also used the opportunity to encourage people to think about what was important to them and to think about their own contribution to life.

How do you make sure you do something creative every day?

I have a poster in my office – “do one creative thing every day”. I try to stick with it.

Sometimes it’s playing with paint, sometimes it’s sewing – making dresses is very restorative for me.

To be honest, I try to bring creativity into everything that I do. For example, for a long time I have told myself that I can’t cook. When you have a family, cooking becomes something you have to do, and I got bored with this. But in the last year, I’ve started a coaching and facilitating course so I don’t have time to cook every night. My three kids are home at the moment so we divided up the responsibility for cooking the weekly meals.  It’s been really liberating. I’ve found time to do my study and be creative, plus I’ve been more creative with my cooking.

Gardening is also part of my creativity, as it’s a good grounding activity. Everything I look at, I wonder how can I make an artwork out of it.

What advice would you give to people who are nervous about art?

Don’t be afraid! Join tours at art galleries, go along to free talks and remember it’s ok to ask questions. Enjoy the art you see and don’t feel like you have to make a learned comment or critique the work.