Wednesday, 3 December 2014
Pull Yourself Together: Let's change the stigma around mental health toget...
Pull Yourself Together: Let's change the stigma around mental health toget...: I was told a story the other day by one of my friends and was saddened and shocked to hear it. One of the doctors she had been shadowin...
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Ending's here 2014
This blog will finish here - it's the place that will continue to hold art work and writings I made between 2008-2014.
Please have a look around this blog as I think it gives a good idea about the sort of artwork I make. I like it!
Over the next year I will post bits from this blog to my new website. For more information about me and what I am currently working on please visit:
https://www.saskianeary.com
Saskia Neary Art Therapy
Monday, 13 January 2014
Friday, 20 December 2013
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Monday, 2 December 2013
Crunching up charcoal
Crunching
up charcoal, making rough forms, painting back over and rubbing out
has become part of my process. Figures emerge as shadows of people
who have left their mark. I am reminded of patients on the ward;
intensely present for only short periods of time. Some figures take
shape as 'the image' others fall to the background; struggling to
claim space to be seen, to
hold my attention. Impermanence and pain are captured in the entwined
lines and shapes invoking my realisation and feelings of grief about
the tragic inevitability; for many patients I have been working with,
repeat admissions to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit will
punctuate the rest of their lives.
saskianeary@yahoo.com
Friday, 21 June 2013
and finally... difficult to bare
While making this figure I had in mind the painful experience of giving birth. Training to be an art psychotherapist has been a difficult labour and at times seemed too much to bare. Babies pour fourth as overwhelming feelings and anxieties - my own and those of clients. Unexpressed thoughts and intensely private experiences become at once public. Not all can be nurtured - there are far too many. The struggle to hold and let go, to speak and remain silent is ongoing. Developing compassion towards myself and others brings to the fore the importance of taking care of myself as an art therapist in order to sustain my practice into the future.
My
final placement was in a hospital for 'sick children' where I offered
art therapy to children and their families. Chronic illness evokes
deep fears and psychological distress which cannot be hidden. Raw
vulnerability and fear of exposure have been wrapped into the body of
this little figure. Finding the courage to express and share these
anxieties has only been possible with support from many others.
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