Art Therapy Workshop

I was obviously very interested in that workshop. I have always been very interested in art therapy. Even though the workshop wasn't very theoretical but mostly practical I still enjoyed it a lot. All of us had to paint to one of three suggested guidelines. I picked the one that said to draw a person in the rain. When I started drawing I told myself not to draw according to any kind of rules or plans but intuitively feel where the painting will take me. Obviously the painting was somewhat disorganized, abstract and a little weird. After all of us had finished our paintings the art therapist interpreted all of them for us as it would be done in art therapy. First I was a little skeptical and I still am but the art therapist was able to convince me somewhat.

I still believe that interpreting paintings, even though there is some structure in doing that, is pretty much subjective. This is not a bad thing but a good thing. The structure/the system that art therapists follow to interpret paintings should be loose because meaning changes depending on who paints the picture. There are so many factors that influence the way a painting should be interpreted therefore I believe there should not be too much of a rigid system and rules in interpreting paintings. Anyway, fact is that when she came to my painting, she totally pinpointed it down. I really thought she could not make any sense out of it but with two sentences she was able to capture my entire inside. I was surprised, impressed and persuaded.