Materials & Media in Art Therapy: Critical Understandings of Diverse Artistic Vocabularies

In art making, materials and media are the intermediaries between private ideas, thoughts, and feelings, and their external manifestations in tangible, sensual form. Thus, materials provide the core components of the exchange that occurs between art therapists and clients. This book provides a historial account of the theorizing and use of materials and media in art therapy, as well as an examination of the interface between art therapy, contemporary art materials and practices, and social/critical theory. Attention is paid throughout the text to the cultural implications of materials and media use. Contributing authors provide examples of some of the ways art therapists have transgressed conventional material boundaries and expanded both thinking and practice in the field.

Catherine Hyland Moon, MA, Is Associate Professor and Chair of the Graduate Art Therapy program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been an art therapist since 1980.