Arts in Medicine and the Cultural Intervention

When I was in highschool, I spent a month in a hospital, rehabilitating from a breakdown shortly after my father's illness and eventual death to cancer. There I was exposed to art therapists and guided imagery, meditation and relaxation techniques. These expereinces shaped they way I have looked at art and imagery. Over the past sixteen years my path has gradually taken me back to this space of illness and art. In my perspective, illness is not simply a physical distruption, but also a spiritual state which defines much of our modern and contemporary culture-everything from the lack of community support, meaning, and exercise, to the excess of stress, processed food and toxins. It reveals the collision and combustion of environmental, genetic, and psychological factors, that over time emerges in sickness.
Of course, I am not an expert in these matters, but a simple observer who recognizes the powerful role of art-making as an intervention and regeneration. In my view, such issues can be and should be addressed in art education... Long gone are the days where knowledge and pedagogy is compartmentalized- where biological, psychologcial, sociological, and cultural aspects of art are separated and taught within a singular boundary. I envision that up-in-coming art students will understand a holistic, mind-body-soul perspective of art, and recognize how art globally functions, and can be an agent of personal and social change.
So I am indebted to Dr. Micheal Samuels, Mary Rockford Lane, R.N, PH.d,, Dr. Jon Kabatt-Zinn, Sean McNiff,and others who have increased the validation of using art in healthcare, but who also have articulated the healing mechanism in simple ways that can be utilized cross-disciplinarily to the general public.

The Evidence of A/r/t/ography

Over the past months I have synthesized my dissertation research into an experimental arts-based methodology utlizing
A/r/t/ography, the investigation of the identities of the artist, researcher, and teacher. Specifically, I am drawing upon the emancipatory expereinces of the art-making process to inform reflective methods for higher art education and community art programs. Through a shared inquiry - the authoethnographic dialogue between an artist/researcher/teacher, and a secondary artist participant - I have documented the existential, and physiological aspects and functions of art experience and its affects upon the quality of life. These outcomes forge transformative, pedagogical models that hope to facilitate openings of consciousness to body awareness, being, and care in the world. It speaks to the professional and personal development of the educator as critical and creative practioners who facilitate art as a healing and socially restorative process.