artandmind
How Art Helps Us Think
Art-making requires that we use our imaginative capacities to create form. In this way we refine our perception as we develop concepts and skills through visual art. And so we can come up with ideas, cultivate our thoughts, express our individuality, and access and share our emotional lives. This is something human beings have been doing for a very long time...
a bit about me
Catherine Wells, B.F.A., M.A. is an art therapist and artist, director of the Pointe-Saint-Charles Art School, and a professional member of the Association des art-thérapeutes du Québec. She has worked in the art, medical, educational, community and corporate milieus with individuals and groups of all ages. Presently she works as an art therapist at the art school, and is the art therapist at Chez Doris, a women's shelter in Montreal. She also has a private art therapy practice and works as a painter.
Art therapy can relieve anxiety. And it can provide insight into the complexities of our personal lives and relationships. Self-expression and communication occur through the making of art as thoughts, ideas and emotions are expressed in a different way within a supportive and non-judgemental relationship with an experienced art therapist. No art skills are necessary.
I choose, from my everyday life, what I paint so that it reverberates in a way with some interior feeling - attraction, nostalgia, or maybe even something I cannot name. And to play with the idea of how our inner and outer lives connect with and enliven each other. It might just be the colour ... or the light ...
