Art Therapy Movers and Shakers Exhibit Their Art at Endicott

Beverly, MA --The exhibit Personal and Professional Practices, organized by Endicott College, highlights six of the country’s best-known art therapists and educators, providing viewers an insight into the creative efforts emanating from their studios. This exhibit runs November 14 through February 27, 2013 at the Manninen Center for the Arts, Endicott College, 376 Hale Street, Beverly.  Gallery hours are Monday - Thursday 9:00 am – 8:00 pm and Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. Closed the week of Thanksgiving and Christmas.  A reception to meet several of the artists is scheduled for Thursday, February 21, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. Pat B. Allen will provide a presentation, "Art as Inquiry: Connecting to the Creative Source Through Image Making.”  The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. 

Viewers to the exhibit experience the many styles, materials, and subjects that each of these artists have used as they work to express their creative spirit. The six artists, Pat Allen, Peter London, Cathy Malchiodi, Shaun McNiff, Bruce Moon, and Catherine Moon, have self-selected works for this exhibition, which reflect their own preferences and styles. The artistic practices embodied in the works contain important characteristics that our students admire and aspire to achieve, as Endicott’s Creative Arts Therapy program emphasizes expertise in the studio arts as well as psychology and counseling. These works of art illustrate how the various disciplines intersect on canvas, in collage, and multi-media. 

Personal and Professional Practices furthers the College’s commitment to art therapy which began in 1996 and continues to thrive to this day. A four-year, pre-professional degree integrating three areas of study; studio art, psychology, and creative arts therapy courses, integrating a strong visual arts component and also performing arts opportunities including dance, drama, and music. The Creative Arts Therapy Program is designed to prepare students to apply the knowledge gained in the visual arts and psychology to the well-being and benefit of others. 

More than a dozen years ago Shaun McNiff hired Mark Towner as the Dean of the School of Visual and Performing Arts, and to oversee the art therapy program. Towner recently expressed his deep conviction to the program, “Art saved my life nearly forty years ago, and continues to enrich and transform my life to this very day. Along my professional journey, I’ve become increasingly aware of the things I can do to help assist and support others who find themselves in creative pursuit, troubling times, or identity development.” With the assistance of Kathleen Moore he curated Personal and Professional Practices and choose the artists. 

Pat B. Allen, Ph.D., A.T.R., is an author, artist, art therapist, and teacher who connects to the Creative Source through art, writing, and working in her garden. Her two books – Art Is a Way of Knowing and Art Is a Spiritual Path – explore the borders between art, psychology, spirituality, and social action. 

Peter London, Chancellor Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, earned his Ed.D from Columbia Teachers College, and was awarded a Post Doctoral Fellowship in Expressive Therapies from Lesley College. He authored several books including, No More Secondhand Art and Drawing Closer to Nature: Making Art in Dialogue with the Natural World. 

Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPAT, LPCC, ATR-BC, is a leading international expert, syndicated writer, and educator in the fields of art therapy and art in healthcare. She is a research psychologist, a Board Certified and Licensed Professional Art Therapist, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor. Dr. Malchiodi is the author of many books, including; The Soul’s Palette: Drawing on Art’s Transformative Powers, Art Therapy Sourcebook, Expressive Therapies, Handbook of Art Therapy, and most recently, Art Therapy and Health Care. 

Shaun McNiff was hired by chance as the art therapist at Danvers State Hospital and at the age of twenty-seven Lesley University gave him the opportunity to establish the first graduate program to integrate all of the arts in both therapy and education. Dr. McNiff left Lesley in 1995 to serve as Provost and Dean of Endicott College and returned to Lesley in 2002 as University Professor. He has been closely identified with art therapy serving as a board member and President of the American Art Therapy Association. He has authored scores of books, including the art therapy classics, Depth Psychology of Art, Art as Medicine, and Art-based Research. 

Bruce L. Moon, Ph.D., ATR-BC, HLM is professor, chair of the art therapy department, and the director of the graduate art therapy program at Mount Mary College and co-founder of the doctoral program.  He is the author of many books, including more recently, Ethical Issues in Art Therapy, The Role of Metaphor in Art Therapy: Theory, Method, and Experience , Introduction to Art Therapy: Faith in the Product,  Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror, Art-Based Group Therapy: Theory and Practice, and The Dynamics of Art as Therapy with Adolescents. 

Catherine Moon is the Program Director and an Associate Professor in the Art Therapy Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of Studio Art Therapy: Cultivating the Artist Identity in the Art Therapist and editor of Materials and Media in Art Therapy: Critical Understandings of Diverse Artistic Vocabularies. She currently works with a non-profit organization, Global Alliance for Africa, and is part of an art therapists’ collective, ArtWorks, which is a community-based practice aimed at addressing local social justice issues. She is currently on the editorial board for Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association.  

If you have any questions regarding Personal and Professional Practices:  Art by Art Therapists, or any of the programming related to this exhibition, please contact Kathleen Moore at 978-232-2655 or kmoore@endicott.edu. Our website is: www.endicott.edu/centerforthearts for further information on future exhibits and lecture opportunities.