Dr. Gwen Sanders: Art is that Way of Knowing

Dr. Gwen Sanders, Ph.D., LMFT, ATR-BC, ATCS, has taught at several Universities and is the most recent Director of Clinical Practicum Training for Dominican University Art Therapy Psychology program. She is the recipient of the American Art Therapy Association (AATA) annually designated Distinguished Clinician Award in 2019 and Notre Dame de Namur University’s most prestigious student nominated George M. Keller Award for teaching excellence in 2016. Gwen has taken students on 5 service-learning community projects to Central America working with multigenerational survivors of war trauma. Dr. Sanders has a private practice in Oakland California since 1996 providing adults and couples therapy. She has worked with emotionally disturbed youth and their families, been a Military Family Life Consultant to the Army on 4 - thirty to forty five day rotations in Europe, and has been a Clinical Supervisor for twenty five years. She is a HLM and Past President of the Northern California Art Therapy Association (NorCATA), a California Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (CAMFT) Certified Supervisor since 2003 and an Art Therapy Certified Supervisor.

*Corrections for the interview: 
-Dominican University (of California) is in San Rafael, NOT is in Santa Rosa. 
-Dr. Sanders meant to mention that  oil painting is her medium, she loves working on thickly gessoed paper with grease pencil.

This episode was recorded on 1/22/24.

Transcript

0:02

Well, I am welcoming Dr. Gwen Sanders, a board certified art therapist and marriage family counselor located in Oakland, California. Thank you so much for being here today. It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. And you have been teaching in art therapy and expressive arts therapy programs for over 24 years, which is... I have. I've been at a few different universities, and I've landed in a couple that have been, where I've been the assistant professor and the practicum director, which has been good. I've enjoyed that very much. that is such a hefty amount of experience. So I'm really looking forward to hearing about your perspective around being an arts-based educator. I'd love to hear, I'd love to start with boundaries. What boundaries are important as an educator, both for yourself, for the class, for the curriculum? What comes to mind when you think about boundaries? Well, it's in terms of my field, of course, as a clinician, as a therapist, boundaries are so relevant in our work with our clients and setting structure and whatnot. And as an educator, I have taught classes that I very much believe that our students must, must discuss about their own family issues and be open about it and transparent so that the so that the group members can hear so that they can end up being somebody that is willing to discuss their family and their origins so that they can look at their biases, like, and look at what is working and what's not working, what they wanna change. So boundaries are really like, it's not therapy in class, but it's not didactic alone, because the art in itself unearths so much information that we need to be able to look at ourself. I'm a strong advocate in... and that we must be really attuned to who we are, what we do, what we don't do, why we don't do what we do, and how much that's influenced by, I always do this like upstream, like our families, and the way that we've learned. And so boundaries are really significant. And I think that one of the things that I would say when I was teaching is that we're learning how to be an objective viewer of ourself as if we're sitting up right up here above us. especially in the beginning, being the practicing director, I have lots of new novice therapists and want them to kind of watch themselves and listen to their thoughts go of us and then be able to keep their mouth quiet so that they don't act on impulse. And yet they're truly there as a human person, but they've got to know how to be an objective viewer of themselves, number one. Number two, they're person equal, but they can't interfere. Hmm. get out of their own way. So boundaries are such a fluid discussion that I'm very interested in it. So it's great that's what you, boundaries and belonging. Yeah, yeah, I can, you know, boundaries can show up in so many different ways, as facilitators of a, of a transformational educational space. I'm wondering about facilitating belonging. How, how do you do that? What does that look like? Is our boundaries a part of facilitating belonging in the classroom? Or in the program? I mean, I was looking at your questions and I don't know if I should just jump into what some of them are that I kind of answered because they made me think a lot about how I teach. And I'm very much set structure in the very first class, especially if it's like a three unit class, it's three hours a week for 15 weeks. We would do semesters. And I always set up the tone of transparency. I'm gonna tell you when I feel as if I've done If I make mistakes, I make mistakes a lot and I tell you about them and I'm okay with that. I'm not needing, I'm not, nothing's perfect about me or what I expect of anyone. And I always say that, you know, perfection is the enemy of good enough and that's what we're seeking to be. So belonging, I want them to know I am belonging with them. I will be there present and I'm going to set up a structure so that everyone has a voice. so that everyone in the class does. I noticed when I was at my own as a student and then I was in the doctoral program, I noticed it is that some of the professors just don't know how to shush some students. And then I'd be so irritated. I'm like, what you, that's your job. And so, you know, I usually start a class by talking about where some of us are introverts, some of us are extroverts and how are we that we. What do we need? Do we need to speak? Do we need to wait? Do we need to listen first? So knowing that often introverts get overrun with extroversion, I tell them that I'm going to be setting the tone with finding out how many of you are introverts, how many of you are extroverts. So, and because of that, I'm gonna make sure that we hear just as much from those that wanna take a little bit more time. to answer a question, I'm gonna offer them time, I'm gonna ask them time, and I'm gonna make space for everyone. And I think that it's so important that not a few people speak because that's not helpful at all. And so that's like one way I think I foster belonging and I let them know that usually the classes that I would teach would be pretty intensive, that I pretty much have high expectations and demand that they open up and they're resilient and that they are someone who really wants to be there and I want to hear it. And I also let them know that I'm always available to talk to, you know, as we are in our positions that we are available. We have times to talk before, during breaks, after, email. I want that availability to be there so that they know that they're not ever shushed. They don't ever have to. not speak up and I tell them I'm not conflict averse. And I know that more than likely many of you are, unfortunately, but if you're a therapist, you've got to get over that because your job is much bigger than just being nice and kind and like trying to make people happy. That's not your job. Your job is to really welcome all facets of everything. And so you've got to be able to tolerate a lot of that. So. couple terms I talk about is they're very psychoanalytic and I like these two terms. It's not symbiosis. It's being somebody who is either not able to take in the, I'm thinking I'm blanking on the word, sorry, cut that out. being somebody who is very vulnerable and open. I'm forgetting the words right now, so I think we should just not let that go on. Gratification and deprivation. Some of us wanna be, I always say, how many of you wanna be gratified? How many of you wanna be deprived? You don't wanna be deprived? What, what's wrong with you? Of course you don't want to, but the fact is, in our work, we're often gonna be deprived, because it isn't about us, it's about our work, bringing art to others. And so belonging is about knowing how to manage yourself so that you can... be a part of the group and that everyone can accept what's going on within the group. So those are just a few things that I can think of. Yeah, thank you. And there's always so many things going on in the group, from what the course objectives are, to the dynamic of the group, to what's happening with the facilitator, and then of course what's happening collectively. It's quite a complex mix. Yeah. very complicated. Muy complicado. Our work is so complicated and it's really rich and deep. And I think of us as being lifelong learners and that we get to explore so much and we get to be so lucky to be a part of people's lives. They let us in into their lives. And so we are really honored. We're the lucky ones that we get to know and to be a part of our clients. And I feel the same way with the students that I've worked with for so many years that I've really enjoyed being privy to their evolution, their transformation, which is really exciting. What have you taught over the years? What are some of your favorite classes to teach? What do you love about those classes? Well, one of my favorite, well, I have many favorite students, but one of the students who is coming in and teaching some of my classes, because as I just mentioned, I'm stepping down from teaching a lot. So I've let go of teaching. I'm the practicum director. So that I really have enjoyed a lot. There's a lot of responsibility in it. And it's kind of an ongoing, just there's always got to be on with something or other. But I taught. I think probably for 20 years I came in because my experience initially was with children and I taught what we call the metaphor of psychopathology for children. It was in the summer. It was just a one unit class. The program that Notre Dame de Namur University on the peninsula, now we're at Dominican University of California in Santa Rosa in Marin County. a child, an adolescent, and an adult. So you get it, and it's all specifically art therapy during the summer, like a one-unit, one-week long class. And then that was my very first class, and then I was asked to be a clinical supervisor, and I came on doing that. I taught a class called Methods of Group and Family. So it's like this really, I think that's my very favorite class. And last night, I was just on the phone for the second time this last week, because we're at the beginning of school. with one of my students who is taking on that class starting as of in three hours from now. And she's got a full group, like 20 students. And it's a very intensive class. I took it on from my mentor and she ran it very differently. And then I developed it and taught it for 11 years. And so it's concept of group dynamics and family. And so it was an incredibly dynamic class because they were pretty much put in a group of usually three or four, like four or five, and there'll be three or four of them in a class, and they'd have to sit with that same group the whole semester. So you kind of had to be with each other a lot. And the idea is a group is a family, a family is a group. So you're gonna play out all kinds of stuff in your own family with your own group. So they've got a journal of that, they've got a journal about their process of being in a group. They've got to... learn a particular theory really well, and then we're learning family systems theories. So we'll go through structural and psychoanalytic and narrative and all of these theories. And there are four groups, each one has a very distinct theory, and they have to learn it really well because they're going to make an art piece about their own family and break it down into the elements of that particular theory. not narrative because narrative is more of positive reframe. So they have to do that and they make what we called an altered ego. Excuse me, what am I saying? See, I'm doing it again, forgetting the word of it. I haven't taught this for three years now, but it was like you had to do your family as if you were the family system. Bye. and I'll come to the name of that, but you had to make an art using all the terminology, or not all, some of the terminology of that theory. And you made it over the course of about 10, 11 weeks. And then your group had to present theory, and each of you had to present your art. And then you had to do an altered book in a positive psychology, and you're doing a positive reframe of your family from that positive reframe. And they would be like, why, how do you do that? It was like... got 10, 11 weeks to figure it out, and you keep asking questions, and you'll figure it out. And I'd have some books that they would get that they could see some of the pictures. And then they had to learn, they had to do a treatment plan from that theory about their own family, which was one of my students said, oh my God, it was like pulling my nails out. And I was like, good. It's a good learning experience. And then they had to present. And then they had to write a 10 page paper about a particular group that was a system that they wanted to analyze in all these very specific ways. There's some other things. And then I went on to teach history and find history and foundations of art therapy. I did art therapy assessment class. And there must have been something else. You know, the one unit art therapy assessment, which is hard to do in one unit. It's like packing that in. history and that. I can't think of what other classes I taught. I think those were, yeah. Yeah, those are important classes. Yeah, you know, thinking about the group dynamic and family art therapy course and the acting out or the acting out and calling in that I imagine was just part of the work makes me think about how conflict can show up in the classroom, between the group and the facilitator in lots of different ways. And I guess I'm curious about what conflict has looked like in some of your classrooms and how you navigate it. Well, like in that particular class, I will tell the students that just because this class is so intense and there is so much that's going to go on, I'm available at any time if you want to talk to me, more than likely outside of class, if you're struggling. But I want you to look at this as this is your family and you'll be working this out with your family. How would you do that? And I'd say to them in the beginning, no, I want you to know that I'm aware when there's conflict in this room. but I'm not gonna jump in and do anything to quote, save you or to get involved because this is a process where you're trying to work it out. Put it in your journal, put it in your art. If you need me, let me know. And there were like at least three, there were two situations where I had to intervene when somebody actually was talking about what felt to be unsafe behavior in their home with the group and they were worried about that person. So I reached out. to that particular student and talked to them. And that actually formed a really strong relationship over the years because somebody was there to listen and somebody was there to try to let them know that something could be done if there needed to be something done. And another time was I could tell these two big personalities were in the room and they did not like each other. And I did not pick these, they were very random how they were sampled out. And when I saw them and I was just like, oh Jesus. And I thought, oh, that's OK. We'll see what happens. And I could hear them and do stuff. And then they had one of the students that was like most sweet and nice and trying to do everything. And so I would always talk about like, you know, the things that happen in our groups are what's happened in our life all our lives. So we get to see it in a different light now. And we get to watch it. We get to do things about it if we want to. We can use the other group members. We can, you know. Hopefully if you're in therapy, you can talk about it. You can come to me. I want you to like really try to look at yourself as you're looking at your own family that you wanna transform and change. You don't wanna have to be the person that you were when you were five or 10 or 15. So I would do that. Now, if there are other kinds of conflict within the program, I always would talk about like if they had problems with their agencies when they're in their practicums, I wanna know what they wanna do. and what I can do to support them. And I wanna know if they're comfortable going to the person or whether they want me to go with them or whether they want me to do it without them. And so I always wanna give them that, I want them to be able to say what they needed to say. And if they couldn't, I can be there with them or I can let they can do it alone. We had a student recently that we met up with after she left an agency, like within three months of her practicum, and we were like, that's not acceptable usually, but I can't not stop, I can't stop somebody to do that because it really ruptures the relationship we have with the program, with the practicum. But, you know, we had to do mending with the agency and we had to do mending with the student. And we told the student to go back and talk to the clinical supervisor and she felt very threatened. But then eventually she did it. And she did it and she said she felt most comfortable doing it on Zoom. So she'd gone in and gotten all of her stuff. And then she maybe a month and a half later was able to do that. And she said it was the best thing she ever did. And she was so she said she didn't know why we wanted her to do that. And we said, well, we didn't even know you were doing it. We didn't think you did it because you didn't tell us. And then when we heard about it months later, I was like, well, and she was so glad. So conflict, you know, has to. We do the best we can with it. We have a notice of concern that has to be written out if there's problems with a student, but that's very rare that occurs. But something's got to be delineated as to why and then what the action plan is. It sounds like, you know, it's really, from your perspective and the perspective of the schools that you've been facilitating in, that direct communication around challenges is really important. Having conversations about it, coming to the table with what the issues are is a really important method around conflict. Yes, and I think it's really important because we end up having to do that as therapists. We have to constantly help facilitate conflict in a couple, in a family. Well, just how somebody manages their own conflict in their life is so significant. A lot of times people wanna blame others. And in classrooms with students, I'm like, no blaming here, no projections. Hmm. be doing that. That's really, I want you to hold the mirror up to yourself and look at my negative projections are really projections of me. And I'm wanting to kind of diffuse that and blame others. And I don't think that that's gonna be helpful in your life. And I don't want you to be living that kind of life because it's not gonna get you very far to blame everybody. And yet, of course we know people constantly wanna blame everybody else. Yeah, sometimes it can feel a little bit easier, definitely. You know, when you were talking about giving students choice around how to approach interpersonal challenges, it makes me wonder about consent in general with students. So from participation in directives or experientials inside of class to homework assignments. I'm curious how consent shows up with students around these things. I thought that was a really interesting question when I read it because I don't know that the students ever have to sign any kind of consent. To me that they're walking into a graduate program in therapy and in each of the syllabi there's usually participation and attendance and we make a very clear distinction about participation as being an active member in the class and being a somebody who's not just in the shadows. So that is already what I expect is that people need to show up. And that's I think why I do that thing to balance the room out and to make sure everybody's got a voice. There's just a lot of diversity, inclusion, all voices are heard. And we wanna tolerate everything so that we can hear what's going on. And to let people know that not everyone agrees with everybody else and that's just fine. So our program at Notre Dame and now at Dominican are three year programs. So we have an extensive three semester, eight unit thesis where they have to go out and do their research, as well as 700 hours of practicum plus 63 units. And they're geared towards becoming either MFTs or LPCCs and art therapists. They have, you know, we're accredited by AATA for the... for that. So my expectation is that they always are involved. They're giving consent. They always have a choice not to participate. No one has to do whatever it is in active, vocal way. But if there's homework that asks them to write about it, I would expect that they would do that. And I'm somebody that gives a lot of feedback on my, in my papers. I just like feedback is what we learn from. And so if I sense somebody's not... you know, giving up much, I will say, I don't hear much from you, what's going on? Getting a little boring, where are you here? I might say something like that. Kind of like, what's going on? If you feel too frightened to do this, do you wanna talk about that? Because, you know, it could be it's the wrong place for them. Could be that it's like they're really threatened. They've never been asked to do this before, which is sometimes the case. And I think that like, So I'm a really big advocate for being honest about, and authentic about, you're not walking a joyful path down this road here. You're walking into pretty heavy territory. So you really wanna have some thicker skin if you find yourself really scared about, if you have fear about any kind of conflict or any kind of depth. You might feel a lot of depth, but... How do you use the depth and then also use that to help your clients so that they grow? We don't grow for them. We can't fix them. They're on the ride with them. Did I answer that question? Yeah, you know, I hear just that. the expectation and the encouragement for students to show up as often and as much as they can, and that sometimes students are challenged to do so for a multitude of reasons. And it makes me think of heartbreak and heartache. It makes me think of collective trauma, current events. It makes me think of breakups and losses and how... those real experiences of our students, they show up in the classroom, you know? And I'm curious about the room that is made for those experiences and how that gets woven into the curriculum. I think that real life experiences are the most important of what we bring into the world. And if we're safe enough to bring up what we're fearing and what we are worried about or what's happening in your life, I think there's usually always time to be able to discuss that. But then you've got within the classroom a construct that has to be followed. So I think that there's a way to be able to open up and also be able to say, I'm so appreciative of your vulnerability and taking these risks here in class. Or wherever you feel you need and have options to do that with what your best friends are, your partners, your family, who is there to help you be honest in your self appraisal. We really want to be that for you. Hmm. And yet there's that, again, you're opening it up to not too many people having too much time in class, and yet you've got to be able to have the time to open something up. And I'm a believer again in journaling and making art in class, out of class. And we would do art in every class just about so that you've got that time and there's art studio space to do that. There's of course therapy. Our program actually didn't... require therapy. But when they come into practicum, we tell them this is the time, if you haven't been yet, to really go because so much of yourself is going to show up in the room. You really want to know how to manage that so it doesn't interfere with your work, with your clients and yourself because it gets so saturated. So that's, I think, where I see the most kind of trauma showing up and people worrying so much about their clients and what they can and cannot do and You know they want to know who they can go to at their site That's going to help support them and do they feel that there's enough people there that Understand and that they can collaborate with and or at school who's here within the school to Be their advocate and help support anything that they need for them and the University of Dominican now has a of resources for students. So that's really good. So then we have, we, all those links are on all of our syllabi and they come into the program and talk sometimes about what they provide. So there's that. So there's, I think, yeah, everything to help the student feel like they're really getting what they need. Yeah. and it might not be comfortable. And I don't think it's certainly not always comfortable. But it doesn't mean that that's bad. It means that might be hard. Things that are hard, I'm a believer that things that are hard are good. Yet we don't like it when it's happening sometimes. We just want to be able to like, wouldn't it be nice to have things be really easy? But yeah, it's not always. And I'm a hard grader and I don't believe in giving out A's. I don't think people deserve what they haven't worked for. And I think that people wanna know that they're, and I wanna see that they're using feedback and working hard to go towards whatever it might be that they need to do to work towards. And one of my colleagues would always say, you don't have to be a great student to be a great therapist. There's plenty of great students and they're not great therapists. and vice versa. You can be not so great of a student and be a fabulous therapist. So just don't think you've got everything that you have to go on has to be all stacked up really high. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's really important frame to share with students because there is a lot of there can be a lot of stress around how what the evaluation process looks like, you know, what the grades are, what the feedback is sometimes, you know, it's actually the grades that feel more important than the, than the feedback itself, depending on the student. Yeah, I think that they're too worried about their getting their grades good and A. And then I'll see faculty that give a lot of A's and I'm like, well, that's not good either. They don't need to think that they need a 3.8. If they still are struggling with a lot of things that they didn't ever work through because they were handed out grades. I'm not saying that always happens, but I'm more... I think that they need to be careful. Yeah. yeah, and you know, in so much of what you've shared already, I hear, I hear your perspective around your responsibility as an educator. It sounds like, you know, you feel responsible to create a space where students are challenged and really exploring a spectrum of personal, personal work. What are some of the other responsibilities that you have as an educator in this field? Um, like, is it like, like a gatekeeper, what we do, I think that to really help our students to know that there's so many options out there that just because you're wanting to be an art therapist doesn't mean that you're just going to be doing art therapy in a, in a room with people that's hopefully just one version. There's, there's community engagement. There's collaboration you can do. You can come out of school and want to do mostly workshops with a particular client, you don't have to go for a license just because the license is what is in our state. You can continue to be an educator, a supervisor, you know, you can take what you've got and learned into many avenues. And so being, I think that's really important to think about all the options that this education is giving you because it's not as narrow as it maybe seems. And I think that we want to be able to help them to know where to get what they need. Like how to use our library is phenomenal and what they do for the student. It's clearly phenomenal. They have all these links where I guess maybe other schools have this too. But you can see where all of the thesis and the PhD dissertations are being viewed all over the globe. and you can look and see on the world. They'll post it every so often, look at what's going on. Look how many people have been snagging our students and looking at these, and you can sit there and watch it in real time as people around the world, you can see these pings of where things are going out in the world, who's reading what. And I think that it's pretty phenomenal to know that there's people that can actually help you with learning things that I don't know anything about. I don't know anything about what they know. And so it's really important to connect, like to say, did you go to the librarian and he knows this, that, and the other? And then for me as a practicum director, I really love to link up our students with practicum sites. And of course they come to a practicum fair and I'm connected to them. And the students can go out and locate ones of their own, but I want them to know that the world is much bigger. and what it sometimes seems when you're locked down in school and in the classroom. And it can be really hard. And so I think that I'm trying to think of it's about collaboration and community that we want to really help. I've done some international work. My colleague and I, we went on five different trips and took students to Central America. We went to Nicaragua. four times and then we went to Costa Rica when the Nicaraguans were then banned from their country in the last of late so that they are now, you know, immigrants in Costa Rica. So we did that and that was like to help them because we realized that even though trauma lives all around us, trauma is of course in other countries and we wanna know that what people come from other countries and bring with them, you wanna always be open to the diversity and the types of lifestyles and to not have any kind of, to pay attention to your biases of what it's like to be everywhere. And of course, people travel the world extensively these days, but it's really good to go and do social learning in the community and work with different populations and go into their homes and work in, you know, in a hospital setting and go into a setting that's actually you know, the older people's home and what they have, what that's like in Central America instead of here. And even though we know that there's plenty of trauma here, we want our students to think about the broader perspective and to really be aware of with gratefulness and gratitude of our privilege. We have so much privilege being in this country and to go elsewhere and to realize like, some of the students would be like, staying up really late and trying to, we're like, you guys are gonna lead this tomorrow and you guys are gonna do this. And there was a whole way we prepared them to come down and to work within the community. But they would be reading, like writing out everything in Spanish and some of them didn't speak Spanish at all. And we were like, that's fine. And in the end, what they learned is that you didn't have to speak the language when you were sitting next to people and making art with them and doing art with them. all of the things you're doing with your eyes, your sensory, you're right there with them and you understand a lot. So there would be people hugging each other and like, oh my God, and they didn't even know exactly how to speak the language. So it was pretty dynamic. So I felt like we were gatekeepers at that time. When COVID happened, we stopped. And so I thought that was like really important. for helping them broaden their horizon, anything to help with that. And then of course, we at school, we have a pretty extensive alumni group and so we wanna connect to them. We want everyone to keep being cross pollinating so that they can learn from one another instead of you graduate, you go out and then you're gone and you're the solo art therapist out there working, which is really isolating and then it's really easy to get kind of brittle and not. be using your art enough because you've isolated down to yourself instead of being in community. And another thing that I often say, and this is probably out of point here, but that like one of the most important things is that you have to do art. You have to do your own art, whatever that art is, because you'll find yourself when you're out working, you are providing all this material and all this joy of the materials that you love. to your clients, and if you're not doing art, you're gonna start being really jealous of them. And you're gonna like get kind of irritated that you're not making art and that they are. So you've got to turn back and look at that mirror and talk to yourself, I'm gonna make art now, got to. And when we don't do art and we're working with a lot of people, it's really easy to become brittle and not as flexible and resilient as much as we would we wish to be, which art makes us and helps us be, to have that other way of knowing. Art is that way of knowing. It's so rich and deep in our hearts. Absolutely. Yeah, it makes me wonder what art supplies you like to play with and what directives you like to facilitate with your students. Oh, I actually love that art therapy assessment class. And I would kind of take them through doing all of these art assessments that we have taught. And I'm like, you're going to have to not know anything about it. I said, maybe you've done some of these in class, but you're not going to have known the function of them, why they were designed. So I want you to do the art. And then I'm going to have you read the articles next week and then to process that so that part of their paper would be like doing the journaling right after doing the art in class and then after they read about it and they had to do a journal about it because it's like you are going into the world of being an assessor and you might not want to assess anyone but the fact is you are. You're analyzing and assessing even if you want to client to tell you everything of what they want. But so that would be really eye-opening that they didn't know what it was that they were being assessed and then they get really agitated. And I'm going, of course, that's the point. I wanted you to know that dreaded house-free person, what it was. So pathologizing, yeah. So I love response art. And I did my dissertation about clinical supervision work of doing a response to strong emotion. to a client, a family, a situation, and strong emotion can be positive or negative. So it could be curiosity, could be confusion or uncertainty. And they'd make art about that and then come in and share it in group. And they actually like doing that a lot because by the time you're in practicum, unless the supervisors, we do some supervision in our seminar class, you're not doing art in class as much because you're trying to discuss cases, or issues or whatever might arise. So that's really important to be able to have that time to talk about that which is the opposite of what, you know, strong emotions of curiosity, uncertainty, and confusion. I like that. I actually love the altered book. I, Gioia Chilton, I saw her present hers many years ago at a conference and that's when I designed into my class that I wanted that to be a positive reframe. And I can tell you the students would be like, how could I make a book that I'm gonna break apart and it's about my family? And how can I do a theory? How can I add a theory in there? I was like, I know, how can you? I think you can. And they did. And a lot of them, and I said in this too, it was a social atom, that was a word I couldn't remember. Moreno, the drama therapist. talked about the social atom, and I gave them like a, about the social atom being the center of your family and who's closest to you, and that was your art they made from their theoretical perspective and that methods of group and family. Then they had to do a positive reframe on their family with an altered book. And often I'd say both of these are really amazing. You actually incorporated theoretical language into art. Who would have known, huh? And then the altered book, you know, it could be. Solution focused mostly they pick narrative makes sense, but feminists too. And then they those books were ended up being profound for many students. And so I love that altered book directive for that class and I would say put them up and you can look at it and just remember and have it talk to you You know as you live in the world with it after this class is over I love that and I did something with a little with kids I worked with kids for years and it was like doing the superhero, a monster and a superhero and it was about their trauma. It could have been about their trauma but often they projected their trauma. So it was a superhero or a monster so they could have both. You can have both the fear and the control in it and then put it in an environment because the environment is often what creates the PTSD of the situation that we experience. So by putting in an environment you can control and change how that little fierce being is a superhero or a monster. So I liked that one a lot and students have liked that over the years. Yeah. Yeah, great directives, really evocative and interesting. And what about your art practice? What do you play with? Hello. Well, I really love, I'm small, I'm just five foot tall and I like big pieces. I like to work on gessoed paper because I make it really thick so that I can't control it and I'm doing abstract work mostly. There's a show that I'm, I don't even think I should say this, but I will. I'm a featured artist in the annual art therapy show at Dominican. And I think that I said to the students last week, I said, I already did this way back in 2010 when we were at Notre Dame. I was a featured artist or the whatever. And I said, here I am here. So this is like 14 years later. I said, you asked me to do because you knew I was leaving. That's why you asked me to do it. So anyway, I just delivered the work and the opening is this Friday the 26th. Hmm. There's a beautiful new library space that they made into gallery space, and there's a curator for this space. So we'll see what that's like. So my work is abstract. I was trained in drawing and painting, fine arts and photography, but I actually love doing the abstract work, but loose, fast. I like just so pen, just. not just a pencil. I love Reese pencil. It's used with litho and so it like the thinner makes it brownish gray and so I kind of use both sides non-dominant and dominant. I flip my work constantly because I might start with I think I want to use like lavenders and then a little bit of chartreuse and a black line and I start with that and then that then it goes to wherever it goes, I never know where it's gonna to go. I often don't know how it's finished, when it's finished, because, and often I'll put it down because I'm done with it, and then I might come back to it years later, and then I cover it up and become something else because it wasn't done. So, and I just recently, for the first time, did a representational object again. It was this giant old, this giant ginkgo tree. You know, ginkgo trees, they're beautiful. gold in the fall, they're just gorgeous. And at the old university where we were, there was one out on this giant grassy lawn. And I used to, in the fall, I would videotape it as it would fall, the leaves. So I found myself thinking about leaving that school and how hard it was, and that I wanted to paint that tree. And so I did a four foot by five foot piece, and I just... kind of quick outline the tree and then went in mostly with a palette knife and put my brilliant yellow colors and then I went in and did some other stuff. I didn't nearly paint on it as long as usual and it was like done. And I was like, what? Nothing's ever done for me. I was like, what? So that is the piece that they said is the showcase. That's the piece that they're putting up right now as the... For the, I forget the name of the show. I didn't have anything to do with what the name was. Like healing, art and process. And I'm like, I'm the process girl. Yeah. sounds like you have quite a relational approach to creating your work. Yeah. I love to be engaged in it and touching it. And I have to wear gloves and make sure that I'm not touching it, because I do. And yeah, and the colors. Yeah, and I do draw. I'm just, tomorrow, I've been hunting for the last year for life drawing class, because that's what I did when I was in school many, many years ago. I hate to say it, but it was like 50 years ago. Um. And so I'm like, I want to see what it's like to be in a life drawing class again. I want to see what I do because I'm so different than I was that many years ago. And so I'm going to go for two weeks at four hours of class nearby. So I'll go tomorrow. So I'm excited about that. Let's see what will happen. That's so exciting. I mean, when you mentioned that you are, you're shifting from being consistently being an educator to spending more time making art. You know, it makes me wonder from your years of experience as an educator, what's important for new educators to... to know, to think about, to hold as they practice in higher ed. You mean for themselves or as the institutions or like what they what are you do like? I think that like making sure you stay true to your art, I would only get to do my art in the summers. So it was like, and then keep taking classes or doing things that you want. I'm really interested in encaustic right now. I just went to a three hour workshop and I like played with it. And I was like, I want more. So doing whatever. I'm a believer in whatever it is that draws you, keep going towards it, keep going towards that next thing. I'm very focused, but then I really, really get excited about the things I don't know, and I wanna know more about. And so keeping that alive. And one of the things I love so much about teaching was my colleagues almost makes me cry when I think about it because they're so dear to me. And the students, of course, I feel like they've become my... I wasn't expecting that I was going to be so connected to them and that they would then and then I would always say, you know, you guys, I'm teaching you, but and I'll have a boundary with you for sure. I said, but when we graduate, you're my colleague and you're my colleagues and we get to be colleagues. And then after that, you know, I've become friends with some of them for sure. Not a lot of them, unfortunately, but of course. Yeah. So I think being able to, I think, know that. it's harder than what you're gonna think because we really wanna help people. That's kind of who we are as clinicians. And then when we're educators, we wanna do that too. But toughen up and know that you're gonna, it's gonna be a lot, it's gonna be hard. There's gonna be a lot of people challenging you and be okay with that and not hope, try not to have to be light. Yeah, yeah. that's a big one. Like, yeah, it is, it's a really big one. Mm-hmm. I don't know, I'm sure there's a lot more that I could have said. But I think that just, yeah, honor the student and give them a lot of respect. They deserve it. And if they pull a lot of fast ones on you, call them out on it. Don't be afraid. And you can't certainly always do that in class like you might like to. But you're going to make sure that you give people feedback so that they can learn. And like, you can like learn with them. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. and make art a lot of art. Yeah, you're welcome. reminder. You've been great. I didn't know I was going to get to be with you the whole time. Nice. Yeah, yeah, I feel you know, I guess as an ending, I'm wondering I'm wondering how you would speak to your choice to be an educator. I wonder and what you are taking away from these 20 plus years of dedicating part of your life to educating therapists. What would I say to myself? Or what are you taking away from this really large experience? I was so lucky. You're gonna make me cry now. Yeah, I'm so lucky that I was given so many opportunities, really, that I was asked to teach. I was asked to teach. I didn't apply in any of those situations. Every single one I was asked to. And I don't even know what I did to be asked. I mean, I know a little bit, but I walked up to one person and said, How could I become a practicum supervisor? I didn't know who they were. And she was like, be licensed and be an ATR. Oh, I am. And a year later, she wrote me and said, do you want to teach? I said, sure. I was a very, you know, I taught two people because they were two over. And I did it. And I was like, yes. I just said yes. I said yes. So I think I said yes to a lot of things that I didn't know. And it opened many, many doors that I was so lucky to be a part of. Yeah. And I feel like being around art therapists is really unique. I used to say stuff like, you know, you guys, what do you think of an artist? Well, we're kind of adolescent, right? We don't like anyone to tell us what to do. And then you got a therapist on top of that. What does that make you? How are you gonna be a therapist while you're an adolescent? Ha ha ha. Just a joke. It's a joke, but kind of true. I don't like people tell me what to do, but I have to be told what to do. So, you know, I think that I'm, I want to be, I want to, I feel just so grateful for my experiences. And I know it'll be very bittersweet when I'm not teaching like I was. But I've noticed that the director now of the doctoral program, she's like, will you teach for me? And I was like, a little bit. Like giving all my books away, I'm trying to like. clear out so that I could, I'd love to go on art retreats, you know, internationally. And yeah, I don't know what, I don't know. I hope to be healthy, as healthy as I can be. And I feel like I got a lot of richness, so much richness from so much and what I got to learn to do. I learned how to really focus. I was kind of a, I'm a very tangential thinker, a tangential speaker. Thank God for PowerPoints, because I can look at them and go, that's right, I just went off on a story. Here you go again, back to that again. Because I like to tell stories about my experiences. So I've been really lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Gwen. Thank you so much for your time and for your commitment to this field. You're welcome Magdalena and you're going to be doing more of the education you already are, right? An educator. You're just getting to hear everyone's stories. Exactly, yeah. More stories, more perspectives, and you know, the, I think the biggest thread from interview to interview is really the love of being an educator, and the love for working with students. It's just so consistent. Yeah. lucky that in many of our programs are very small classrooms, so that we really get to know our students. It's so important. It's not like 80 people, it's like 20 is a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a gift. Well, thank you. Thanks again. Much appreciated. a pleasure to have been here with you. And yeah, thank you for your time, commitment, and what you're doing. I'm looking forward to hearing what it is that you come up with. Yay. That was exciting.