Call for Cover Art Art Therapy is always looking for high quality artwork to grace the cover. Selection criteria are: Original, professionally crafted and presented artwork in all media, photographed in the vertical format, and having a high impact design that reads well in print, web and library environments. Should be sensitive to the visual-cultural standards of our international audiences. We especially invite non-traditional and new genre art -- Think of submitting a still image from a video, graphic novel, or artist book, art installation, or other image that pushes the boundaries of art in art therapy. Preference is given to AATA members. Cover artwork is juried and final selections are made at the discretion of the Editor. Submit cover art as an email attachment (scanned at 72ppi) to atj@mtmary.edu or send a production ready image on CD by post to the Art Therapy Editorial Office, Mount Mary College, 2900 N. Menomonee River Parkway, Milwaukee, WI 53222

About the Cover

Volume 26, Number 4, 2009

"The Red Flower" is an ink drawing on paper (11" x 17") by Rachel Mosler, MPS, ATR, an artist and art therapist for ACI, a holistic rehabilitation center for adults in New York City. Her most recent art exhibition was a solo show at AHN/VHS Gallery in Philadelphia.

She writes, "Water crystals, indicative of traditional Tibetan mandala forms, are referenced in this drawing to explore more deeply the interconnectedness of art, psychology, and science. The drawing served as a method to process my work with individuals who were unknown, forgotten, or had been subjugated by society." To view more of Rachel's artwork, visit her website at www.rachelmosler.com

Past Journal Covers

Volume 26, Number 3, 2009

“Coming Home” is an oil on canvas painting (11" x 14") by Diana Milia, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT, formerly on the faculty of graduate art therapy at New York University and an art therapist in private practice.

She writes, “Toward the end of my father's life I was commissioned by a family friend to make a painting in memory of my parents. They were explorers, avidly curious and interested in the world around them, and in their later years spent many happy hours together in the garden. I decided to paint the garden walk leading in and out of light to their front door, and although it was initially painful, the process became comforting and transitional as I reflected on life passages and my own longings for wholeness and homecoming.”

Volume 26, Number 2, 2009

"The Dream" is a digital image (8" x 10") created by Brian D. Austin, MPS, using 3-D computer animation software for a computer animated short film ("The Dreamer").

Both the image and the film suggest a puppet that, although controlled by a puppeteer, dreams of being set free. The puppet's projected shadow represents that dream of freedom. Brian is an art therapist and professional 3-D computer animator. He is the founder of The Animation Project, a New York City based nonprofit offering creative art therapy services and job skills to adolescents using the emerging technology of video games, animation, and other media. For more information, visit www.theanimationproject.org

Volume 26, Number 1, 2009

"Cyclical Directions for a Linear World," (90" x 24" x 6", mixed media sculpture) by Elizabeth Warson, MA, ATR-BC, LPC, an assistant professor in the Graduate Art Therapy Program at Eastern Viriginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA.

She writes, "My artwork focuses on the Native American culture, long considered primitive. My work in this tradition defines itself by the use of natural materials and a personal, symbolic approach to color and surface design. My personal relationship in the culture manifests itself in new explorations of structures and relationships."

Volume 25, Number 4, 2008

"Self-Portrait Praying #1"
(102" x 60", charcoal on paper) by Jane Zweibel, MFA, a fine artist and art therapist-in-training at Pratt Institute whose artwork has been featured in the Tabla Rasa Gallery and David Beitzel Gallery in New York, the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series of Rutgers University, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

This drawing is part of a series that addresses the visual language of prayer with its dualities of loss and redemption, vulnerability and power, suffering and reprieve. She writes, "Tension is created through the depiction of private moments of intense contemplation as subjected to the viewer's gaze. Props, such as leaves and pill bottles, are elements of the narrative. This drawing expresses, through that which is particular and personal, the concept of 'prayer' as an act of powerful, non-verbal communication." Readers are invited to view the artist's website at www.janezweibel.com

Volume 25, Number 3, 2008

"Dissolving Compartmentalizations"
2 ft x 3 ft, acrylic on linen, by H. Willow Troy, MA, ATR-BC, CCLS, LCAT, a Creative Arts Therapist in the Hematology/Oncology unit of Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL, providing services for chronic and terminal patients and their families.

She writes, "When working with patients at the end of their lives, I have a tendency to compartmentalize individual sessions. This defense mechanism allows me to remain objective and present for patient and family needs so that my response to one patient doesn't spill over into my visit with the next. In order to maintain my personal wellbeing, these compartmentalizations must dissolve. Through art-making and talking, I work toward merging my experiences and maintaining a sense of wholeness. This image illustrates the struggle and contrast that comes from the convergence of isolated emotions and experiences."

Volume 25, Number 2, 2008

"Levels of Consciousness"
painting by the late Bob Ault, MFA, ATR-BC, HLM

Bob Ault once observed that the "dragon" of chaos often arrives when we are out of balance between the forces of tension and meaningful support. He wrote, "Isn't it true that out of destruction and despair come spiritual reawakening and resurrection? The relationship of destruction and resurrection is necessary in the creativity that moves all through our lives. Life is a stream: that stream, it is you, it is them, it is me-the stream of life that we all move in and out of."

Volume 25, Number 1, 2008

"Corn Woman,"
mixed media, 12" x 16" by Brenda Elliott, MA, who is currently working as an art therapist with psychiatric patients and enrolled in a doctoral program in clinical psychology.

Brenda writes, "Corn Woman is created from a plaster mask made 12 years ago, which I have continually changed through time to reflect life's transitions. Corn woman nourished me in the process of completing my master's degree. She is the Wise Old One, the symbol of passing along something to the next generation. She is a metaphor for the aggregate of outstanding teachers I have had and the healer inside of me who expends care to others."

Volume 24, Number 4, 2008

"Healing,"
oil on canvas, 12" X 12" by Mindy Atkin, MA, a recent graduate of the clinical art therapy program of Long Island University at CW Post, Brookville, NY.

Mindy writes, "I painted this image of a regenerating tree while writing my thesis, The Healing Power Of Creative Expression. Creative expression has always helped me to navigate life's twists and turns, and has served to strengthen and fortify me during difficult times. This tree represents all that we endure and survive, and suggests that within each of us there is power to self-heal."

Volume 24, Number 3, 2007

"Shadow,"
oil on canvas, 12" X 12" by Mildred Lachman Chapin, ATR, HLM

Mildred Lachman Chapin writes, "We are flooded these days with images from the Iraq war. What has fascinated me most are the images of women covered almost completely in black. Ever since my two years in Turkey, Muslim women, with their covered heads, sometimes faces and full bodies, have been in my psyche. My book, Reverberations: Mothers and Daughters (1994), is full of these kinds of images. I wonder what the woman inside those covers feels and try to imagine, as I identify with experiences of being a 'no one,' a shadow. How much does a 'skewed world' make this happen?"

Volume 24, Number 2, 2007

"Anniversary,"
acrylic and mixed media assemblage, 24" x 21" by Catherine Moon, Chair of the Art Therapy Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Catherine Moon writes, "I made this piece on the occasion of my 25th wedding anniversary. I wanted it to commemorate not an ideal image of marriage, but rather the way it really had been: full of beauty, brokenness, rough spots, silliness, love, and the simple accumulation of experiences over time. When I began the piece I was worried that I had set myself too large a task, that I couldn't possibly convey all that needed to be said in the piece. But it came together almost effortlessly and in the end seemed a fitting tribute."

(Photograph by Sara Bennett-Steele.)

Volume 23, Number 4, 2006

Rebecca Beers, MA, CCLS works as an art therapist at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and has served as director for the arts-based, after-school pilot Project YOU, providing services to students exhibiting symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder after 9/11. She writes, "I created this untitled self-portrait just prior to beginning my studies at New York University. Looking back, I recognize now that this piece served to contain the vast array of mixed emotions I felt at that time: excitement and uncertainty as I entered new and unexplored territory. The work underwent significant transformations as I pushed it into darker and more difficult places through a juxtaposition of dark and light color. This foreshadowed an intense inner transformation that later occurred around themes of personal identity and self-discovery during my student art therapy journey."

Volume 22, Number 4, 2005

About the Cover:
"Enter-Loc,"
36.5" x 28" fabric art by Edna J. Patterson-Petty, MFA, MA, ATR, East St. Louis, Illinois.

Ms. Patterson-Petty explains her piece as follows: "The idea for this art quilt came from the notion of the many people who are woven in and out of our lives throughout our existence. Sometimes they may bring negativity to mirror things that we need to work on in our lives. Other times they may bring rays of sunshine and bursts of color that lift us up. If we are lucky, we meet more positive individuals than negative ones. What they leave us with is locked deep in our souls, and we can draw on the memories whenever we choose to do so."

Fall 2005 (Volume 22, Number 3, 2005)

About the Cover:
"Just a Fairy Tale II"
3' x 6' acrylic on canvas by Judith Noble Fowler, MFA, ATR.

Ms. Fowler is Associate Professor/Art Education Coordinator at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. She explains, "My creative technique in making an image is very intuitive, and I enjoy letting the symbolic details surrounding an initial mark or figurative sketch emerge as I work the piece. This particular image changed considerably from my initial sketch throughout a time period of 5 or 6 months. The title indicates a fairy tale about a frog and a young woman. For many viewers, the story of the frog prince comes to mind; however, there can be many interpretations depending on the personal experiences of the viewer. The image is 'just a fairy tale' story about the picture?"

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