Artist Biography
I have always considered myself a giver and as someone who is willing to help others before myself. While studying abroad in Florence, Italy in 2019, my art therapy professor, Nicoletta Solomon, helped me realize that in order to guide others through their therapeutic journey, I must first work on healing myself. This realization changed my perspective on how I should live my life. I discovered that because I was giving too much away and keeping too little energy for myself, I could never help others on their healing journey. By creating art and exploring natural environments during my time abroad, I discovered that self-care and mindfulness are the keys to embarking on a healing journey. Exploring and photographing natural landscapes allowed me to be grounded in order to connect with myself. I found that overlooking the grassy hills of Scotland, soaking in their calming and spiritual energy, and photographing the environment felt meditative for me. The grounding energy I felt inspired me to recreate the beauty of natural landscapes through art. I decided to bring the concepts of meditation, spirituality, presence in nature, drawing, and collage with landscape into my thesis artwork titled Essence of Metanoia, meaning a spiritual transformation. Essence of Metanoia demonstrates how integrating meditation and art-making offers a healing approach for people to explore their inner world, which encourages living a more vulnerable and wholehearted life. This authentic expression of the self is important to the practice of art therapy, as the therapist must know herself in order to be empathetic and helpful towards others. Ultimately, through collaging with different paper materials and experimenting with transparency of layers to create landscapes, I communicate how a meditative and therapeutic art process encourages internal transformation and greater connection with the self, other people, and the universe.
Thesis Abstract
Integrating Meditation and Arts in Healing: An Explorative Journey of the Inner World
A consistent meditation and mindfulness practice combined with art making can lead to a greater understanding of one’s own spirituality and inner world, bringing a more complete sense of personal peace and awareness. The purpose of this thesis was to integrate meditation and mindfulness with art making in order to explore one’s inner world and spirituality as well as encourage healing. A literature review presented the areas of arts in healing, meditation/mindfulness, and wholeheartedness/authenticity. A daily meditation practice at home or outside in natural environments was documented through photography, journaling, and mixed media collage. As a result, five mixed media collages were created which incorporated layers of magazine clippings and tissue paper on paper bags, Vellum, and Mylar. Each collage depicts a landscape which was photographed in Scotland, representing a place of personal peace and presence. The intention is for the viewer to be able step into this meditative environment and to also see the transparency of the layers that make up the environment. The use of transparency and layers also represents how the inner self is multi-layered, which needs to be understood in order to reveal its authentic self. The visual art may also serve as a tool for therapists to explore how landscape relates to the concept of layers, transparency, and process in examining one’s own inner world and spirituality.