Studio Art Therapy Learning Ecology: Crossing Borders between Art, Education, Health, and Therapy

Studio Art Therapy is a unique learning ecology with border crossings between visual arts therapies and art studio practice, education, and health. The increased fluidity between research and practice spaces, art therapy, and arts health are elaborated as a concept, theorized with the western Deleuzoguattarian philosophy. Connections and differentiations between art making and art as therapy are revealed in a discussion of an empirical research project Art, Visual Narrative, and Wellbeing Project (AVNAW). Studio art therapy focuses on body, meaning, and healing. It speaks to the value of people making art, reflecting and talking about their making processes alone and together through an autoethnographic visual narrative approach to artmaking. The paper asks how studio visual artmaking can activate individual productive desire to adapt toward becoming well through artmaking. Care, community, belonging, and resilience are core to a studio art therapy learning ecology that responds to real-life experiences in the support of personal care and wellbeing.