Exploring Mental Health in the Community
Art as a way to connect to what was lost
Art as a way to explore self-esteem and identity
Ating
Art Therapy
No prior artistic experience needed!!!
Discover ways of improving mental health using creativity
Featuring Filipino- American Art Therapists in Action
Art as a way to explore history
1
"Art therapy is a tool to help form, preserve, and tell our stories, and through that narrative: insight, self awareness, grieving, confirmation, and proclamation can surface and evolve" -Jose Alcantara Art Therapist Art Therapy is a tool to help form, preserve and tell our stories, and through that narrative; insight, self-awareness, grieving, confirmation and proclamation can surface and evolve. Art Therapy is a tool to help form, preserve and tell our stories, and through that narrative; insight, self-awareness, grieving, confirmation and proclamation can surface and evolve. Art Therapy is a tool to help form, preserve and tell our stories, and through that narrative; insight, self-awareness, grieving, confirmation and proclamation can surface and evolve. Art Therapy is a tool to help form, preserve and tell our stories, and through that narrative; insight, self-awareness, grieving, confirmation and proclamation can surface and evolve.
Beads made from model magic.
I moved from the Philippines to the United states when I was a 10 year old girl. Growing up as an immigrant, I dealt with a lot of issues regarding identity and trying to fit in with the American culture. Art was one of the ways I learned to express myself when words were not enough. At the time, I suffered from severe anxiety which my parents did not understand. In my family, this is not something you talk about because you are supposed to be strong. I felt guilty and misunderstood. I felt like I shouldn't feel this way, and I was weak. I was finally able to go to therapy and was able to express my thoughts and feelings. I was lucky enough to go to a counseling center that provided art therapy. Art therapy helped me learn to cope and explore myself and my identity. I remember wishing I knew about art therapy earlier. My experiences led me to pursue art therapy as a career to help others with similar experiences. By creating this magazine, I wanted to contribute a resource that can provide awareness about art therapy especially for people looking for non-traditional therapy. I want to explore how art therapy can be helpful to the Filipino American community by highlighting various Filipino Americans in the art therapy field. I hope this can help people who are seeking more information about art therapy and mental health treatment. -Amri DeGuzman (Emerging art therapist)
ForEword
What is Art Therapy?
2
"Art Therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Art Therapy, facilitated by a professional art therapist, effectively supports personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns. Art Therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensory-motor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change." -American Art Therapy Association
4
3
"I had no real concept of what it was like to be Filipino. As I got older and as I met more people who are Filipino, just finding identity as a Filipino gives me a great sense of pride on where we are today. "
The following art works are part of a short project where various Filipino-American family and friends around Chicagoland were interviewed about their own Filipino experiences using art. The participants where prompted by the question "What does in mean to be Filipino American?" They made these art works and were able to explore personal experiences throughout their lives. The art works are paired with quotes from the creator of the art.
"The culture is different in the Philippines. The culture is so fast paced here that it makes you want to reminisce everything that you wanted. To capture the moment, it's all those experiences that makes you proud that you are Filipino, and also makes you be proud you are a part of the American Culture."
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE FILIPINO-AMERICAN?
"It used to be a fact that my parents wanted me to be a lawyer, to be a doctor, but that was their dream. Now that we've grown up, they see how successful we are becoming. They see that I don't care about that dream, that's my dream, that's what I'm gonna support."
5
6
"For me once I got here, it didn't mean much because America is a melting pot. Everyone from everywhere is trying to get here. I think for me, in the end, that's what matters. It's the bigger picture. Yeah you can be Filipino or German but in the end we're part of this bigger picture."
"I was always trying to meet new people or new friends and learn their culture. I guess the bad thing is that I tried so hard to appease to every other culture and try to fit in."
FILIPINO-AMERICAN ART THERAPISTS
8
A view from Lincoln Park, Chicago. Acrylic on canvas Amri DeGuzman
Series of interviews with Filipino-American art therapists around Chicago by Amri De Guzman
Through emails and phone calls, I learned a lot from Jose Alcantara in a short period of time. Despite scheduling conflicts and busy schedules, Jose is very accommodating and flexible. At the time of the interview, Jose recently came back from a conference in China where he presented on art therapy. He expresses...
7
“I am just a container for this thing called art therapy and you pass it on.”
JoSe Alcantara
Filipino background Jose and his three sisters were raised by their grandparents while their mother migrated to New York as a single parent to make a living. They had a typical large extended family that did a lot of things together. Jose states “we were poor, but I did not feel poor.” They celebrated everything together and identified as devout Catholics “spiritually rich and culturally fertile both in celebration and mourning." Like many Filipinos, his family loves to eat and cook which was led by his grandmother Maxima. His grandfather Pedro was a gentle Filipino that befriended anyone in the community. In 1980, Jose (who was 11 years old at the time) and his sisters moved from Manila to New York to reunite with their mother. He claimes “the transition was smooth, we adjusted very well, and making friends was easy.” Filipino culture and art therapy When asked about his thoughts on art therapy and mental health in the Filipino culture, he conveys “I think it has gradually changed throughout the years and I have seen an improvement not just in recognition of this viable alternative option to traditional therapy, but also the overall understanding of the field.” He continues by proclaiming how his Filipino background has influenced his art therapy practice. He states that “I feel it’s hard to separate both and there’s always a symbiotic process that goes on below the surface that helps me be informed of my past (Philippines) and how it eventually finds it way to my current narrative.” He learned from experiences and while there are boundaries, he is able to share and use stories from his past to help clients. Art practice I ask Jose if he has a preferred medium and he declared “I love painting in oil and watercolor” and “I like using found materials.” He idolizes Van Gogh; his life story and his search for beauty and meaning. He is also heavily influenced by Jim Dine, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Elaine De Kooning, and many more giants. He learned a lot from people he worked with and emphasizes continuing to make art as an art therapist because it is what informs the work. He expresses how he learned a lot from people society would not normally consider artists. He claims “it is important to look at a non-western view of art such as “Ifugao” art which are known for their skill in wood carving human figures. As Jose continues to talk about his influences, I can feel his passion through the phone. However, our conversation ends with Jose wishing me the best of luck with my project. I thank him for his time and the phone call ends. My conversation with Jose left me with various thoughts and curiosities that I will continue to explore as a Filipina-American emerging art therapist.
9
10
Art therapy I ask Jose “what is art therapy to you,” and he gives me a concise description. In his own words “art therapy is a tool to help form, preserve and tell our stories, and through that narrative; insight, self-awareness, grieving, confirmation and proclamation can surface and evolve.” This definition really summed up Jose’s practice as he talks about his various different experiences in his art therapy career. He has worked in outpatient medical hospitals, free standing behavioral medicine hospital, hospice, residential treatment, community based programs, and individual private work. It is safe to say Jose has a lot of experience with art therapy and mental health especially within his current practice. He presently works as an art therapist at Alexian Brothers Health System and is focusing on clinical work. As I continue to discuss his work over the phone, the passion in his voice is clear as he describes his role in expanding and diversifying the expressive therapy program since joining the staff in 2013. Interestingly, Jose first became involved in art therapy “accidentally” when he was working at a medical hospital in 1996 delivering medical supplies to one of the units. He saw an art studio with painted masks and art materials where he was able to meet a staff who was kind enough to explain to him that she works as the unit’s art therapist. Training and early art Jose acquired his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999 and his Master of Arts in Art Therapy in 2003. However, most of his artistic training and experience go back to high school and community college where he says "I was blessed to have professors who were kind, eccentric, and practicing artists themselves.” Additionally, his grandfather Pedro influenced him by drawing with Jose at an early age. This helped in allowing him to experience wonderment and imagination daily. Art became a huge part of his life. He continues by voicing “art has been able to allow me to understand my world within and without. Art has been able to peel away layers of biases, self-denial and conformity and replaced by sheer magic. Art has literally been my best friend, a loyal journeyman that has held my questions and lifted my self-discovery all at the same height.”
Introduction to art therapy I ask Abbey how she got into the field of art therapy and she explains how her own personal journey influenced her. As she continued her journey with ceramics, she felt like she was able to reflect on her emotions through the process. I feel her excitement as she passionately proclaims her love for the craft. She says “it is a challenging yet rewarding relationship between my hands and the clay. I've learned a lot about myself, and the whole process of starting with malleable clay and ending up with a solid structure is amazing.” Abbey connected these two interests stating “I realized I’ve always been into mental health and I have always been this emotional person so why don’t I find something that I could advocate using art.”
“I always gravitate towards art whenever I felt insecure.”
"I just always think back to my experience as an Asian American who felt like I had a voice, but I didn’t know how to articulate myself."
12
After days of communicating through emails, I meet Abbey Monsalud for the first time on the 13th floor of SAIC's McLean building overlooking Lake Michigan. We sit on a fairly large booth and introduced ourselves. Abbey is a 1st year art therapy student at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. I proceed to ask her about the impact of art and she claimed that art is part of multiple aspects of her life. However, she calmly explains how her parents' expectations for her to be in a “safe field” influenced her to stray away from it during high school and college. School was expected to be her main focus along with the assumptions that she was supposed to study science. Despite this, she acknowledges “I found art throughout my life.” She started creating YouTube® videos and found self- expression through music and singing. She states “I always gravitate toward art whenever I felt insecure.” During college however, art took a back seat to science. As she continued on, she started to ask “what the heck am I doing with science? Am I even interested in this?” She found herself going back to art where she took ceramics class and fell in love. She declares that “it is really amazing how it changed my lifestyle. I’m a super type-A person but it broke down walls.” Filipino background We continue the conversation by talking about similarities and differences in our Filipino background. Unlike me, Abbey was born in the United States after her parents came here. She takes a slight pause before she declares that she feels pretty Westernized. She vocalizes her disappointment in not being able to speak Tagalog and how that hinders her from fully connecting with the community. Abbey comments that throughout her childhood, she wasn’t as immersed in the culture as she is now. She is learning what it means to be a person of color and that has completely changed her view of what it means to be Filipino. She voices “it made me want to own my own roots and connect with my heritage.” Mental health in Filipino culture As we talk about mental health, Abbey expresses her own experiences with her family. "Growing up with Filipino parents and being a super emotional person, I was always the super dramatic one in my family’s eyes.” She sometimes felt suppressed and claims it “as a Filipino or Asian way of dealing with mental health.” She talks about the value of crying as a catharsis or a way of letting everything out, but it is often seen in a negative light. She feels like mental health was not seen as an important value. She is in an interesting situation because her dad is a psychiatric nurse. She expresses that while he is aware of certain mental health aspects and can be supportive, he still elicits pressure such as how he still believes that science is the answer.
Abbey M0nsalud
11
Previous experiences We continue to converse about similar experiences about being in graduate school and being in the initial stages of art therapy. Despite being in her 1st semester of getting her art therapy degree, Abbey has previous experience working at a rehabilitation clinic focused on physical and occupational therapy. She shares an incident she would never forget about a female Filipino patient who other staff at the clinic thought was not very pleasant to work with. While she never worked with her before, when they interacted, Abbey realized “she automatically seemed more receptive towards me.” Our conversation leads to discussion about how we relate more to people who are from the same culture and how that can become empowering. She states how the patient felt more comfortable and how she was really inspired by that interaction. She divulges “I see that in myself too. I find comfort in being around other Filipinos” Abbey asks questions that I continue to reflect on such as “how does that translate over to me being in a clinical position? How are they seeing me, and what are their feelings toward me because of what I portray?” Future art therapist As Abbey looks toward the future, she explores her thoughts on what her art therapy practice might look like after graduation. “I am not restricted to working with a specific population, but I really like the idea of working with the Asian-American community. It would be really interesting to serve a community in which mental health is stigmatized within the family." She continues by saying “another population that I would be interested in working with are young adults because of the instance where I had no idea what I was gonna do with my life. I was completely lost and I knew that other people were lost too but they didn’t have anyone to elicit an awareness in their abilities.” She relates her future practice to her past experiences and confidently declares “I just want to be a person that I needed before.” She laughs as she tells me to give Instagram® credit for that quote. She is striving to give others the help she needed when she was younger. After about an hour, the interview concludes as we continue to chat. We descend on a minute-long elevator ride and head our similar but separate ways.
Melissa Raman molitor
13
14
Melissa Raman Molitor 2016 "The Spaces Between" (Roots or Wings Series) Mixed Media with Found Objects
Filipino background On a regular Sunday afternoon, I dial Melissa Molitor’s number and our phone conversation starts. I learned so much from this fascinating art therapist. We talk about her Filipino background. “I am half Filipino and half Indian.” Her mother was Filipino and came to America from England where she was a midwife and a nurse. She has a large family in the Philippines but has not met most of them because her mom passed away when she was 19. She says “the connection to my Filipino culture was not severed, but I was not able to maintain a connection to my mom’s side with ease.” Participating in Filipino organizations had been a big part of her life growing up until she lost her mom. She takes a slight pause as she states, “it has been an experience finding my own way of remaining connected with my Filipino culture without my mom.” She goes on to say “especially now that I have kids, it’s really important for me to make sure that they have a connection to that piece of themselves, to our family history and lineage.” I ask Melissa “what cultural traditions do you celebrate?” She expresses “when I think of Filipino culture I think of religion and how being Filipino is almost synonymous to Roman Catholic.” She discloses how it is challenging because she does not practice anymore. She baptized her sons as a way to connect to her mom and culture. She celebrates Easter and Christmas with her family. She reveals how they cook Filipino food more than anything else in her house and have huge Filipino gatherings where they talk about what is happening in the community. Her stepmom is also Filipino and whenever she goes back to the Philippines she brings back lots of things such as children’s books. However, she also shares her Indian identity while her husband is Irish, French, and German. Her household is a large mix of cultural backgrounds. She highlights cultural similarities through ritual because there are rituals that exists in all cultures. Rituals are ways her family brings these identities together.
16
"Offering" 2016 Mixed Media Monoprint Ink on Papyrus with Found Objects
15
Art Therapy Practice When Melissa graduated, she was working at St. Vincent DePaul Center which is based in a community center and a school. She began her work with children and families and practicing within school systems. She was interested in how certain diagnoses and challenges the children faced where perceived within the community. She passionately states “it felt really lacking for me and my practice to not do community work to address the stigma some of the kids are dealing with.” She started a nonprofit organization called “Connection Arts,” for about 7 years where she worked with recent immigrants and refugee children and families. Her goal was to offer programming to schools and communities that specifically addressed the challenges and experiences of the children. After that, she talks about feeling burnt out and having her kids which felt like a lot at the time. She went into private practice but was not doing "traditional therapy." "I was doing more community work and work in schools where the private practice model did not offer the support I needed." Currently, she created a program called “Kids Create Change” which is school, community, and art based. The program uses arts to give young people opportunities to share their lived experience,find age appropriate ways to make change in the community, and take action. Along with this program, she is also a board member of the artist organization “Evanston Made.”
Filipino culture and art As we continue our conversation, I ask Melissa about the relation of her Filipino culture on her art. She states “with the loss of my mom, I think I really used my art practice as a way to process and heal even though I didn’t know I was doing it at the time.” This experience helped lead her to art therapy. She confidently explains how she was always making art since she was little. “I think it was a way to navigate home culture and familial culture with American culture because my parents were immigrants. I think anything creative felt like an outlet or way to understand how I’ve lived in this space.” She continues to create artworks based on these thoughts and held a show a couple of years ago based on her journey of multiple cultures and what it now means to be a person of color in this current society. She uses mixed media with a lot of natural materials, photography, found objects, encaustic work, and fabric. She explains how her art is not limited to Filipino culture because of her strong Indian identity. Mental health in the Filipino culture Melissa continues on to talk about her experiences of mental health in the Filipino culture. She explains how she grew up with this idea regarding therapy and mental health, “you don’t talk about your stuff.” She expresses how therapy was not even a concept known to her when she was young. Living in a time and place like Midwest America in the 80's, there was a taboo surrounding mental health and therapy. Societal views maintained that seeking therapy meant there was something "wrong." This was coupled with the messages at home telling her you don't tell people about what is happening with you and your family. "There is a sense of shame ingrained in the immigrant experience. Showing the world you are struggling at home or things aren't as perfect as it seems, would feed into the narrative of 'otherness' or being 'less than.'" In addition, being a child of immigrants, education is of huge importance because of the idea that it is the pathway to success. "Parents come over here to give you a better life so that you can succeed" she says. There are feelings of guilt and not wanting to disappoint that runs strong. This narrative can overshadow anything emotional because there is little room for weakness in a society that inherently works against you, where fight or flight is the norm, and it is a matter of survival. Art therapy Melissa had a double major in Fine Arts and Psychology while she was an undergrad in Michigan. When she lost her mom, her artwork started to change and became more about her process and for herself. It became less about trying to produce to please her teachers or get in shows. She was working on her senior thesis and came across this idea of art therapy. She was trying to understand and apply psychological approaches to the idea of making art. At the time she was influenced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who wrote about creativity and flow which led to more research of these concepts. She eventually applied to the Art Institute program and started her journey. She states “my definition of art therapy has really evolved over time.” It reflects her journey of how she practiced through the years and the work she is doing. “For me, I think art therapy has always been a form of self-expression, but it’s also been a way to work with people, build relationships, build connections, and to build community through arts.” It’s evolved based on this more community-oriented way that she practices. I feel her devotion as she declares how it is about sharing lived experiences to bring attention to ways that socially marginalized and oppressed individuals and groups that are deemed as less than. “The act of bringing experiences of our community members to life through art is an act of resistance to silencing.”
"story.kuwento.historia. (katai). 故事 (gùshi)" 2016 Mixed Media with Found Objects
“As a Filipina living in the States, do I escape my history or do I embrace it and keep exploring my identity as a colonized woman living in a country that colonized us?”
A Performance Piece Using a Traditional Filipino Attire Photography by GraceAnn Goll
Filipino and immigrant background I am waiting on a rainy day in a busy cafe in the western suburbs of Chicago to meet April Knighton. Because I never met her before, I am on the lookout for a Filipino woman in a tan jacket. We sit on a corner booth sipping our coffee as we begin our conversation. She tells me that she immigrated to America in 2002. “I was 20 when I moved here. I was old” she says with a laugh. She initially moved to Texas with her parents and lived in Austin for a couple of years before she moved to Chicago in 2010 for graduate school. She attended School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and graduated in 2012. She started working as an art therapist at the school in 2013. She just left that position last year because she wanted to focus on her kids but goes back from time to time to teach a course called “Mental Health First Aid." We talk about how it is interesting that we never met each other previously considering our time spent together on campus.
17
April Knighton
18
Filipino influence in art therapy Melissa continues by talking about how her Filipino culture influences her art therapy practice. She claims “coming from collectivist community, it makes sense that we might be drawn to community work.” She goes on to say “I remember growing up, my mom left the Philippines, got married in London, and she moved here. However, she visited home and she was always working to bring family members here who wanted to be here in the states. I remember the Balikbayan boxes (boxes containing gifts and items sent by overseas Filipinos) which we were constantly sending home to the family that was there. It was like this responsibility for the larger community even though you’re no longer physically part of it.” There is a very collective aspect to being Filipino that influences the way she practices as an art therapist and artist. Teaching art therapy Melissa closes the interview by talking about her role as a part-time teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She expresses how she has been thinking a lot about what this means to her and why she does it. “I really do love to teach, and I feel its important to be able to learn from a diverse body of teachers. I didn’t have that growing up.” She grew up in Michigan where she laughs and states, “there weren’t any other brown people around.” While there is still a lack of Filipino or Asian role models as well and stories and experiences to relate to, she feels like she brings that little piece in her own way. As an art therapy student at the school, I unfortunately have not had the pleasure of having Melissa as a teacher but, her presence alone empowers me as a future Pinay art therapist.
Melissa Raman Molitor 2016 "24 Dresses/Panseremonya" Mixed Media Encaustic and Wood
20
19
To fully understand her thoughts, April tells me her earlier experiences. “My life story is a bit complicated,” she says. When she was in the Philippines, her goal was to establish a visual and performing arts institution--catered to kids from high-income families--whose profits would then proceed to the development of a similar institution for children living in poverty. There is so much poverty in the Philippines and “the arts are considered extracurricular activities and only people with extra resources can afford to take part in them,” she declares. This was her passion and overall goal in life. “I thought of myself as Robin Hood because in a way, I’d be helping allocate resources to those who are marginalized by society.” She continues “when I moved to the USA, however, my plans slowly changed .” Her parents needed her to move and it paused her vision. At the time, she was studying at the University of the Philippines but was not able to graduate because of the move. She laughs as she says, “I was really frustrated but that’s just how it is. Family comes first.” She voices Finding art therapy brought back all those dreams I had." Current art therapy “I am not practicing as an art therapist at the moment, though I am in the early stages of starting my own private practice” she states. She is gathering resources regarding starting a practice. Additionally, she is currently working with a friend who is also Fillipino to create a book for Filipino-American kids who are growing up here. “It is not a therapy book but a Filipino children’s book explaining our culture; I don’t want it to eventually fade away” she claims. She is married to a non-Filipino so she feels the significance for her kids to learn her culture. She speaks to them in Tagalog at home but they speak in English everywhere else. Art therapy in the community We talk about our shared thoughts about bringing art therapy to the Filipino community. We discuss the difficulty to reach the culture in verbal therapy but how art therapy can introduce mental health in a non-threatening way. April states “in the Philippines, my mom took a lot of crafting classes--making potpourri and baskets. She did that to teach and help different communities to generate income. I consider that as a great platform to utilize art as therapy.” For April, art therapy in a community setting is using creative modalities to empower individuals and to promote opportunities that could create a positive impact in their lives. How we present art therapy to the community is a big part of the conversation. She expresses how she did not know that there is a Filipino community in her area in the western suburbs and she is grateful to find it. She examines the importance of having a collective approach for engaging the community through the arts to show people our experiences.
Mental health in the Filipino culture We start the discussion when she asks me the goal of this magazine. I tell her that I want to create more resource and awareness about mental health and art therapy in the Filipino culture. We talk about how success stories generate a sense of pride in the community. She adds “Whenever there is a success story involving a person of a Filipino descent, we tend to be very proud.” We discuss the stigma around mental health and how people don’t really know about art therapy. She tells me “I recently saw some childhood friends whom I have not seen in a very long time. As we were catching up, I told them that I am an art therapist by profession--a statement that sprung up mixed responses from them.” They started making jokes about the idea of being in the mental health field and said things like, “Oh, do you wanna therapize me now?” She talks about some of the reasons behind the stigma and speculates, “I think the big reason is that there is still so much shame in [seeking] treatment.” She discusses how we are considered weak if you seek treatment. She also thinks a lot about the “barkada” (close friends) culture. She claims “If you are experiencing difficulties concerning your emotions, you tend to go to your ‘barkada.‘” She voices her desire to reach out to our culture, but at the moment she is focusing on her family. She ponders, “When I start my own practice, what population should I reach out to?” She also expresses her thoughts about finding ways to support Filipino moms. Because the culture in the Philippines is communal and we’re currently in an individualistic culture, “that dichotomy can cause a lot of stress”. Influence of Filipino culture on art and practice April talks about how her culture influences everything because that’s a prominent part of what she thinks about. When she was in graduate school, she spent a lot of time reflecting and thinking deeply into her Filipino culture. Her projects involved her heritage which helped her explore what informs her art and art therapy. She discusses the potential benefits and difficulties of providing art therapy within the Filipino community. She talks about the aspects of her book and how reaching out in a way that does not emphasize therapy can be a good start and move on from there. She comments “I believe that there’s a way to reach the community without being overly direct like saying ‘Hey, you need therapy!’” However, she also feels that there is definitely a need for mental health services and thinks about the benefits of being direct about it. She talks about this magazine as an example of a “great place to start.” Beginning art therapy I ask April “how did you first become involved in art therapy”? She replies, “I was a psychology major but I painted a lot.” She claims that she was an informal oil painter because prior to applying to graduate school, she did not receive any formal art training. She would tell people back then that she was an "outsider artist". She painted a lot in the past and gave paintings to her family and friends as gifts. “My late grandma was the recipient of my first painting.” When she started in the art therapy program however, her work shifted and she began creating pieces that focused on herself. She found out about the program through her now husband. They met in Austin, Texas, but he is from Chicago. She claims “I never thought I would ever move to Chicago” but he had to move back because that is where most of his work was based. When she visited him for Thanksgiving, he took her to the Art Institute where she found out about the school and the art therapy program. April tells me “it was funny because I found out that SAIC will be conducting an open house in Austin, Texas and in my mind, it was a sign. They were going to Austin for me!”
Values, Attitudes, and Colonialism April and I discuss the concept of "bucket of crabs" mentality in the culture. “We have to acknowledge that we have a tendency to think that we always have to ‘show up one another’ and pull each other down. This is in part due to our history of colonialism.” She continues to express how colonialism makes it hard for the community to find our identity. April discusses how moving from the Philippines and finding her identity in a different country has been a struggle. She explored her roots and made art about them. She read books about what really happened in Philippine history. “For a long time, I had been taught to view Americans as our "saviors." General McArthur came to the Philippines to "save" us, but if you read non-white influenced history books, it’s different. Historically, the westerners who colonized us treated Filipinos like savages and objectified our culture”. We talk about how this history affects our practice now. She discusses her project where she dressed up in a Filipiniana (traditional Filipina gown), walked down the streets, interacted with people, and even went to a bar. “It depicted so much struggle represented all the conflicting narratives I had been thinking about. I would hear people say ‘that’s a really nice dress’ but then when I really think about it, are they simply appreciating the dress or are they objectifying me and patronizing my experience.” Art Therapy I save the big question for last and ask April “what is art therapy to you?” She states “It’s utilizing art and different creative expressions to cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and how your roles impact your community. It’s also a great avenue to foster self-awareness and process personal and societal histories.” She also believes that one can engage in art therapy with the community to empower and promote life-changing opportunities. She talks about her internship at Project Onward working with artists with mental and developmental disabilities. “ I saw how empowered the participants felt” she states. Sometimes, she worked as an extra set of hands to help them create, explore, and express, and at times she was there to listen and observe She continues by talking about her previous work as an art therapist at SAIC. She divulges experiences about how students who had difficulty expressing themselves verbally processed emotions and behaviors through art in sessions with her. While at SAIC, she also facilitated a student support network where students ate lunch together, share art and projects with each other, and collectively come up with ways to impact their community. As we approach the end of our conversation, I thank April for coming despite being a busy mom. I do not want to keep her from her kids any longer so we part ways after an insightful interview.
James Bulosan
They put on shows to get people who normally don’t seek out artwork and aim their show to be inviting to anybody. His work comes from his experiences. “Filipino Americans typically don’t go to these spaces so I started to make a more conscious effort to put works into places that they would actually go to. The whole idea is to put art in places that would reach Filipinos.”
22
21
Bridgeport parade First Bridgeport day co-organized by Lion VS Gorilla
Filipino Background It is a quiet weekday evening as I called Jimmy Bulosan for our interview. I thank him for agreeing to participate and we start our conversation. He starts by telling me that his mom and dad immigrated to America after his dad was recruited by the U.S. Navy. His parents got married and moved here so his dad could complete his residency at the University of Chicago. Once his dad became a doctor, they moved every 4 years. They eventually became U.S. citizens through military service. Jimmy was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He discusses his lost connection to the Philippines. “When I go back to the Philippines, people notice I am not from there. I’m kinda seen as an ‘other’ there.” He continues by stating “it’s definitely one of those things where you’re not white enough or you’re not brown enough so where does that leave you?” Art and Filipino culture Jimmy laughs as he warns me that he tends to go on tangents and to rein him in when it happens. I laugh as I ask Jimmy about his art practice. He states “I keep my art therapy and art practice separate.” His art is influenced by the Fluxus movement and Dadaism where one is using art to break up the norm as well as draw attention and light to phenomenological happenstances. “I use the history of ceramics within the Filipino culture as a driving force to speak to my story as being an ‘other' and also trying to ingrain myself to the histories created by existence.” Even though he was not born in the Philippines he still experiences effects of colonialism and Catholicism. “All that still has a place within my history just in the same way that people that were born there and live there have in their history.” He tracks that through the history of ceramics within his work. He runs a curatorial collaboration called “Lion vs. Gorilla” which explores elitism within gallery work and showing art. “Our thing was to break down the white box and make artwork more approachable.”
23
Ceramics and Filipino history Throughout the interview, Jimmy emphasizes his fondness for ceramics and clay. He states “if you’re gonna explain Filipino history and the value of art work, to me it all stems from clay.” While he admits that it is a biased point of view, he goes on to explain. If one traces the history of ceramics in the Philippines, it originates in tribes from farther western islands where they believe in animism. He explains how clay was viewed as gifts from gods and that it must be cherished and valued. Because of this, vessels were made that were perceived as family members to the people. He examines how the history of clay promotes the value of family. He states “to me, that shows why were so humble about the work that we do as a culture. You take care of family and you don’t individuate from family." He goes on to say “if you look at that history, it makes sense why there is humility about creative expression within our culture. It’s not that they don’t value it, they just haven’t seen it through a western lens.”
Art and mental health I try to rein in Jimmy's tangents as we discus similarities between art and mental health in the Filipino culture. He explains how exposure to art and mental health can influence people to explore these topics. By bringing them closer to our culture, it can increase awareness in the community. Our conversation explores how the younger generation is asking more questions regarding these topics. However, he goes on by saying “you grow up around these attitudes and implicit notions. It’s not like the older generations don’t want to talk about it, it just that no one’s really asking them.”
Jimmy did not usually go to museums or galleries growing up. His family would go on vacations, but it was not a regular part of life. However, art was always there even though he was not aware of it or it was not being viewed as art. He gives examples such as gorgeous traditional Filipino textiles. He passionately states, “If you think about the history of “barong” (traditional male Filipino garment) and what goes into that, there’s so much art and history within that. It is on the same level as what you would see at the textile department at the Art Institute." He talks about how things are viewed as an everyday common object rather than art. He declares "when it comes to this idea of art and art having a value from a Filipino perspective, its there and it exists, but it’s just not viewed in the manner of a western culture. It’s more ingrained into your being and so you see it as more of a marker of your own identity versus something outside of you.” He continues by examining how ceramics has history of being utilitarian. Flourishes of creativity are considered craft because it is placed on a utilitarian object. He states “some of these senses of what art should be, these western ideals create a huge divide in terms of the expectations that in someways prohibits our culture from seeing what they do as art work.” Personally, he experienced how his grandmother would make and sew things that were seen as domestic tasks. “She would do it in such a finely crafted way that you could shape it as a work of art under the right context” he claims. However, to his grandmother, she was just doing something to support her family. Our conversation leads to exploring Filipino values such as humility and family and how this does not always fit within the western view. He says “it’s a tricky place because you want the culture to be recognized as producing things on a level where the value is elevated because of its creative and cultural expression, but you don’t wanna loose those sensibilities that created that expression."
24
Art therapy I ask Jimmy “how did you get into art therapy?” His answer consists of his initial journey towards the field. “Within the Filipino community that I grew up in, it was either you’re gonna become a doctor or a lawyer." He laughs and continues "If you’re not a doctor or a lawyer, you’re probably gonna be a nurse. Those were you’re three options." He discusses how not pursuing those routes led him to feeling lack of support from his parents. He was always drawn to art in grade school and high school and would spend all his efforts within his art classes. However, his parents tried to push him into the chosen track. He explores the fact that his parents were immigrants, and “they came here to pursue the American dream.” He goes on to state “if they came here and went through all that hardship, they would want the best for their children. In their eyes, those were the tracks that granted the best life for their children. To go outside of that is foreign territory to them.” He had a really supportive art teacher in high school who helped him find art schools. However, applying for colleges became complicated without the support of his parents. Because of the disagreement with his parents, he claims “my plan was just to sit at home and make art as an act of rebellion towards my parents not supporting the sense of being an artist.” However, he was accepted to University of South Alabama where he eventually decided to pursue pre-Med and major in art. After a semester, he decided against it. He became a psychology and art major with the help of an adviser who helped him see that psychology and art fit together through problem solving. He talks about how individuals with mental health issues are often having to deal with the stigma of being viewed as unfit by society. He asks “if you are those individuals, how are you finding you’re way throughout that world?” He believes that creativity is a way that one can find their way through the world. "Creativity actually creates a platform for you to solve these problems that are foreign to you but do it in an individualistic way to find your route through these norms.” To Jimmy, art was a philosophical bridge to understand psychology. Art was a way to break down psychology in a more humanistic terms and actually makes it relevant in people’s lives. However, after he graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he thought art therapy wasn’t really speaking to him in a philosophical way. He stepped away from art therapy and spent a couple of years as a research director at Rush Medical Center. He felt the need to reconstruct what art therapy meant for him. He spent time to redefine why art and psychology is important and become an art therapist. "The only way I could practice the way I was comfortable with is to break free from a psychology lens and view art therapy more within a philosophical lens." Current practice Currently, Jimmy runs an expressive therapy program at Loretto Hospital, a small community hospital on the border of Austin and Oak Park. It is a safety net hospital which means over 75% of the patients are either on Medicare or Medicaid. “You really start to see who as a society we're trying to keep alive or making efforts to keep alive” He discusses how resources are being allocated and how insurance companies, big pharmacies, and the mental health system are shaping attitudes that our society holds in terms of providing mental health care. "If you look at the life expectancy from individuals who get care from Northwestern and Rush Hospital compared to our hospital, its a 20 year difference in life expectancy.” He also takes into perspective all the social factors that come into play and all the different markers within an identity that holds value in our society. As our conversation comes to an end, I thank Jimmy for his participation in this project. I take a deep breath as I take in all the aspects of the conversation I want to keep on thinking about.
Filipino background I scheduled a meeting with Crystle Diño in a quaint café in Chicago. I sip a large cup of tea as I wait for her to arrive. She comes in bustling with her bags, ordered food, and we started our conversation. She was born and raised on the Northside of Chicago and still lives near Irving Park. She grew up in a big family. She states, “my dad’s side immigrated here in the late 60’s during the Marcos dictatorship, and my auntie Myrna came here and wanted to be a teacher.” Her dad’s family is from Balayan, Batangas, and she becomes excited as I tell her my mom’s side are Batangeños too. Her aunt and lola (grandmother) came to the United States in 1969 and petitioned all of the family to follow. Her dad, mom, and brother all came from the Philippines and in 1986 Crystle was born. She mentions, “the funny thing is that my aunt was planning to go to California but she found out very last minute that there were some Batangeno folks coming to Chicago so she decided to go here.” She wistfully comments that she could have lived in California, but she is grateful for her life in Chicago. Crystle emphasizes the importance her identity as a Chicago resident throughout the conversation. However, she also states “there’s a different layer of belief and kinship when I go back to the Philippines because it’s more connected to the earth whereas here I am so deeply connected through kinship of my family.” It is a feeling that she is still trying to put into words and understand through art.
26
Crystle diño
25
Discovering art therapy Crystle heard about art therapy when she was in undergrad in University of Wisconsin from 2005-2010. She was going to school for pharmacy as a family expectation and “because that is what you do” she adds. However, when she took her fist Chemistry class she decided “that is not where I want to be.” She firmly states “I was always into art, and I wanted to be an artist when I was in kindergarten. I wanted to be an artist and a nurse.” In the middle of her schooling, she decided she wanted to choose art. She came back to Chicago in 2010 and worked in youth development and after school programming. She was working in an organization formerly called Y.O.U. in Evanston and became a mentor to one of the youth. She developed a relationship with her through art and she disclosed things about her family which she has never told anyone else before. Crystle was able to seek guidance and her supervisors suggested look into art therapy. In 2012 she was contemplating going back to school when she realized she would be the first one in her family to earn a Master's degree. Currently, Crystle just finished three years of graduate training in art therapy at SAIC. Parents’ reactions I ask Crystle about her parents’ reactions to her decision and she states, “they are still trying to understand what art therapy is.” Her parents would ask questions like “What are you doing?, Is this art therapy?, You’re gonna get a job after this right?” She knew that she would elicit these reactions from her family and how this sort of process is common for children of immigrants. While they may not fully understand it, she claims “they came here to make sure to make money and live that American dream so being an artist, dreaming, and creating is part of that in their mind of what success looks like.” She continues to recall how she was exposed to a lot of art growing up and that experience ignited her passion. She spiritedly laughs and states, “I followed the heart rather than the money and hopefully that comes around.” However, her mom continues to tell her family, friends, and co-workers that Crystle is still in pharmacy. She recalls, “she was not telling people that I was an art major and she didn’t really know how to change up the story.”
27
28
“One way I connect to young people was art and dance”
Mental health and art therapy in the community My conversation with Crystle explores the different layers of mental health in the Filipino community. “We come from so many layers such as the mentality of ‘we gotta survive so pull yourself up by the bootstraps.’” She could sense that from her family and understands that it is also what American dream could look like. She expresses the experience of going back to the Philippines and relatives not being able to see the struggle. "They would say 'oh they look good.'" She chuckles as she repeats comments from relatives. She talks about the importance of understanding the historical trauma and what colonization can do to one mentally. She discusses how her family in the Philippines keep certain traditions and beliefs alive while her family who moved to America has shifted some of those connections. We discuss spirituality and its important role in Filipino history and mental health. Near the end of her undergraduate career, Crystle worked on art relating to “Babaylan” consciousness. These were women spirit healers that existed before Spanish colonization and were killed along with their wisdom. “For me to understand that part of history shows me that we have so much richness in our culture, and it sticks with us however far we travel from the motherland.” She also explores questions about our attachment to our motherland and what does it mean to be Filipino. Crystle reflects on the contexts where services are offered to clients. She pauses and states, “When I think about art therapy, it’s so westernized.” She claims, “[therapy] is definitely needed. I’m not saying it’s not. She laughs and continues, "but in terms of cultural context, it’s gonna take quite some time to get “tito” (uncle) to therapy.” She emphasizes the importance doing things communally like eating with our hands. “Doing the things we’ve always been doing in our ancestry, but now bringing in the dialogue of what we are and where we’ve been. That's just as good as what we call art therapy in a session where we imagine it to be in this westernized light. It's hard for me to be like ‘this is what I do’ because this is what we’ve been doing.” Art and Filipino culture Crystle addresses how she is evolving her work the way she wants her art therapy to evolve. “My base of how I express myself is through movement and dance." She was into relief printmaking in undergrad and loved the meticulous process. She practices Filipino martial arts and creates art within that. “My art has always been influenced by my ‘Filipinoness' and always trying to understand historical references, digging deeper into what that means to me spiritually, and also understanding that my art can bring people together.” She participated in spoken word poetry during high school. She excitedly explains how Anita Esguerra and the Mango tribe, who where part of Asian American spoken word movement inspired her. Hip Hop was another part of her life where she explored identity and experienced things like sexism and machismo. She is part of a Chicago underground dance community which gave her a chance to have a chosen “fam.” She was exposed to a lot of creative activities that are communal, and her experiences helped her understand her womanhood and “Filipinaness.” Her graduate project focused on exploring experiences of Filipinas, especially Filipinas in Chicago “because our stories were missing” she states. It involved 3 experiences of participating through naming, reflection and, action. People named their reality and understanding through “Ambahan” (old Filipino poem similar to a haiku). They reflected on where our bodies have been through creating a Filipino/Filipina altar and practicing filipino martial arts. Afterwards, everybody came together and explored what actions to do with what they named and reflected on. She presented her project in California this past April for the Mental Health Summit for Filipinos.
Resources To learn more about art therapy
Magis Creative Spaces (Philippines) magiscreative.net/creative-therapies/ American Art Therapy Association arttherapy.org Psychology Today psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/ art-therapy TO LOCATE AN ART THERAPIST: arttherapy.org/art-therapist-locator/ atcb.org/Home/FindACredentialedArtTherapist
29
Creating this magazine was a long rewarding process. Throughout the project, I had an amazing time getting to know these six unique Filipino-American art therapists. They addressed many important topics throughout our time together. Many talked about the effects of immigration. Whether one is born in the United States or the Philippines, many continued to tackle issues of identity, family, and colonialism. I was also very interested in each person's definition of art therapy and how it is influenced by their own unique background. Furthermore, they all held beliefs and personal experiences about mental health in the Filipino-American community. The theme of community-based art therapy was discussed as a possible way to close the gap between mental health and the Filipino culture. As a Filipina-American emerging art therapist, how can I help normalize help-seeking in the culture while respecting the values and beliefs of the community? Personally, I was thrilled to learn about each person's art practice. Throughout the various interviews, I became curious about the different perspectives Filipino and western culture have about art. What is defined as art? Who are considered artists? These are questions that I will continue to explore as I define my own art therapy.
Perspective puzzle Acrylic on cardboard Amri De Guzman
Art therapy As the conversation proceeded, I ask Crystle the burning question “what is art therapy to you?” She answers, "It's gotten very broadened but also specific at the same time as I learn more and more and try to define it for myself” She is currently working at a charter school in the West side of Chicago as a school support manager while providing some art therapy within her caseload. She talks about the importance of responsibility and holding space for people. She claims, “art therapy can look like anything as long as you’re intentional with it, you know who you are, and you know who you’re with. For me art therapy is complex, its nuanced, it can be what you want it to be with materials.” She expresses how her materials for Filipino martial arts are sticks and knives and jokingly says, "we're gonna fight today!" She explains that this too is art therapy even if it may not fall neatly within the westernized idea of art therapy. She concludes the conversation and states “we just gotta start doing our own thing until people start to catch on, if they don’t, at least we still have that trail of what’s been done.”
30
Author's Thoughts
Magazine was created through Lucidpress.com
Special thanks to the following collaborators: Jose Alcantara, James Bulosan, Crystle Dińo, April Knighton, Melissa Molitor, Abbey Monsalud Randy Vick Graduate Project Fall 2019 class School of the Art of Institute of Chicago