Art therapy can be incredibly powerful, but first one needs to realize the most important lesson:
everything is subjective. I would not say I'm an artist yet I enjoy making art. Both the process and the end product motivate me to express myself creatively. Being a psychology student underlies my interest in the
meaning behind the art-
the symbolism. I am therefore sharing two of my pieces from an art therapy lesson (a class I am taking this year) focusing on color. Our medium was paper because it allowed for a wide range of colors but did not force us to focus on the mixing of paints. I learned that pink is often upsetting after more than 15 minutes, and small organized shapes can be indicative of someone who has a very organized task type of job. My images are simple and abstract. Both images represnt emotions that I had felt that same day. The top is irritation and the bottom is tired. You may see something totally different but I see the brightness, the pink and the sharp angled corners of a lingering irritation. The bottom image is on an earthy brown, and full of fluid lines, calm hovering pastels, sun, and moon.
The beauty of it is in what it means to the artist, how the artist chooses to represent what they feel, and how psychologists can use these symbols to alleviate problems as well as help patients communicate them.
