KATHLEEN FOGEL-RICHMOND, MA, LMFT, ATR-BC
As an art therapist, I strive to help others use art to heal and also understand and make adaptive changes in their lives. My own art making is central to exploring my feelings and understanding my world. Firstly, the process itself of making art is relaxing and meditative. It allows me to clear my mind from stressors while immersing myself only in color choices or strokes on a canvas or shapes emerging out of clay. Secondly, the image content specifically provides a focus for contemplation and exploration through symbolic representation of feelings, experiences or reactions.
Listen…
(Mixed Media; Puzzle Pieces, Surgical Masks, Acrylic Paint, Gel Medium & Oil Pastels, 3’ x 3’)
During the ongoing pandemic crisis, worsening climate catastrophe, and deepening delusional disengagement from reality by an alarming amount of the population; my work describes the fracture I feel attempting to make sense of the world and suppress my growing hysteria. I have been integrating puzzle pieces into my paintings representing the deconstruction & new reconstruction of society. Inclusion of surgical masks into the painting’s surface represents how this safer human engagement is now interwoven into the fabric of daily life, while also reducing the ability to connect, speak, & be heard.
The therapeutic process of painting allows me to attempt to meditate on hope. Hope that progress is being made on solutions to address the deepening effects of climate change. Hope that progress is being made on dismantling systemic racism ahead of further disenfranchisement due to rapidly disappearing resources. Hope that I can find compassion for those unable to cope & adapt to deepening grief and the existential threat of solastalgia. Creating art continues to ever be a source of essential self-care on my journey.