art therapy is wild magic

Art-based Creative Expression supports our depths, our clarity, and our courage for freedom

Creative expression connects us with our Ancestors, inner wisdoms, and with the Earth.

FOR all beings, of all ages, from all backgrounds, for those with and without prior creative experience…

Creativity calls us Alive to our Life.

Supple creativity is the essence of how life moves,

how innovations are unfolded,

how grief is held and deeply tended,

how we root into our ecorelational belonging

how our embodied psyches find center and expansion…

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colour that evokes and invites

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soft, rough, sticky, fluid, clunky, ephemeral, shadowy, illuminated, sparkling

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yarn, thread, fabric, wool, paint, pastels, graphite, marker, scissors, glue, paper, clay, leaves, twigs, moss, stones

• colour that evokes and invites • soft, rough, sticky, fluid, clunky, ephemeral, shadowy, illuminated, sparkling • yarn, thread, fabric, wool, paint, pastels, graphite, marker, scissors, glue, paper, clay, leaves, twigs, moss, stones

Art Therapy is voice for silenced and uncertain places

There are currents we already have word-shapes for. And there are aspects of experience that have not found words yet.

There may be aspects of our experience that we have had to un-know, dissociate from, or deny, in contexts of marginalization, trauma, or mocking.

The river of our experience is both deep and vast. In this river flow our own personal lived experiences, our personal and collective cultural experiences, as well as collective and historical multigenerational experiences, ancestral experiences, shared Planetary ecological experiences…

Light. Shadow. Colour. Texture. Shape. Density. Tone. Spacial Relationships in relation to Gravity - Earth and Sky.

art teaches us that we don’t need to know where the path will lead, or what the outcome will be.

just make the first mark, cross the threshold of entering the blank page, or pick up the scissors, or work the warmth of your hands into the clay.

sense into the next move that feels right

Learn to sense into nuances in your experience, with curiosity, through sensing your way with the art materials.

Discover your own inner compass for navigating.

We will listen to the currents that arise in your art making, finding the threads that feel most meaningful to you, the threads that are speaking of what wants to be known. Yes, art therapy is mysterious and wild.

In session we will make some art and also rest into reflecting - on the process and the magic that has unfolded in form. For our reflections we might sense what arises in us as we accompany the form we have created, spending time in a somatic exploration of the encounter with the materials and forms. We might write creatively, move or dance in relation to the image. Embodied, somatic, creative dialogues help us explore layers of discovery and ripples of learning that are emergent through improvisational creative expression.

Katrina is Registered Canadian Art Therapist. She completed a 2 year post-graduate training program in Art Therapy at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute 1999-2001.

To her art therapy practice, Katrina brings her training in Soul Motion Contemplative Dance, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Movement Based Expressive Arts, Dance Therapy, Play Therapy, Theraplay, Drama Therapy, as well as Movement Improv, Theater Improv, and Vocal Improvisation.

Since 2001 Katrina has been teaching in Art Therapy

Some of the courses and places she has taught include:

  • Ecosomatic and Expressive Arts Approaches to Art Therapy - Training Group - with the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute, for several years

  • Experiential Social Justice Praxis through Movement-based Somatic Arts, at the Kutenai Art Therapy Insitute

  • Movement-Based & Somatic Approaches to Trauma Therapy at The International Summit for Expressive Arts Therapy in New York and Los Angeles

  • Trauma-Sensitive Art Therapy with the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute

  • Caring for Vicarious Trauma through Arts, at the BC School of Art Therapy and the Vancouver Art Therapy Insitute,

  • She has also held mentoring roles with the Toronto Art Therapy Institute and The Winnipeg Holistic Expressive Arts Therapy Institute.

diversity of materials, moods, & methods

  • ECO ART THERAPY

    Creating images outside or in the studio with Earth elements, such as this image sculpted out of sand on the beach during a morning dance practice - to communicate the joy found in dancing by the ocean and the sense of presence and place I was feeling.

  • Found Materials

    Gathering bits of this and that, like with collage, to compose mixtures that express and communicate something important and meaningful. The act of gathering, ripping, layering materials feels like putting puzzle pieces together and can feel very satisfying and integrative. This image was created to explore the experience of becoming an Elder in Communities that I am part of, and the experience of accompanying the creative life force in younger folk who are finding their way.

  • Traditional Art Materials

    Making use of pencils, pencil crayons, pastels, paints, clay, and mixed media elements to express what needs to be formed into a whole, such as this image about the experience of the disorientation of a car accident when airbags deployed.

    The process of making is a place where meaning and emotion unfold, where we find the threads that are resonant that perhaps we did not realize we were carrying.