Angela Carrazza

My personal image-making process

I have always enjoyed making art and expressing myself creatively.  As a child and teenager, I remember getting a sense of 'the world is a better place' and 'everything is ok again' after finishing a painting:  something had shifted inside me during process of art-making.  But, at the time, I did not have these words, which only came to me during my training as an art therapist.

Before I studied art therapy, I trained and worked as a social worker.  I often used expressive and creative techniques in my work.  I found that working on a symbolic level helped the teenagers I worked with to feel safe.  Expressing feelings directly can sometimes leave us feel too vulnerable:

Images can speak for us when words fail or are difficult to find.

In 1998, I started to study art therapy at the Crawford College of Art & Design.  This was a three-year postgraduate course.  I was one of the first 10 students to study art therapy in Ireland.  During this course we had a workshop with art therapist Rupert Cracknell who asked us to make a doodle using charcoal and soft pastels, to then see what the doodle using charcoal and soft pastels.  This was one way of accessing the unconscious.  It was the first time I used soft pastels, and I was amazed by what they did for me.  I have stayed with them ever since.  I like the way I am directly in the picture with my hands, feeling it, changing it, without a tool between the image and me.  This process can be quite sensual at times, and it can feel as if the image is an extension of myself.  I feel alive when I blend colours and see them change under my fingers.  I feel an enormous satisfaction and reassurence when the colors come to correspond with something inside of me, which often i had not even been aware of until the colour matches the feeling.  I have also stayed with the doodle at the start of each image.  I would find it very difficult to start a painting with a preconceived idea.  Instead, I let the doodle guide me and bring out in me what might need to be worked on, given shape, felt and seen.  For me, there lies huge freedom and playfulness painting in this way.  I bypass the conscious mind which at times has the tendency to stop me from being totally truthful and creative.  Through this way of working, I have developed my own style, without any training in art.  I have exhibited in Skibbereen Library, Bank of Ireland Patrick Street, the Bodega Restaurant, The Private Collectors Gallery, Gallery 44, Grogans Bar, Dublin and in a joint art therapy diploma show entitled, 'Working with the Shadow' in the Cork Vision Centre.

Each of the images exhibited here started with a simple squiggle or doodle.  I bring out what seems to be closest to my heart.  At times, this can be difficult and uncomfortable, as it is not always something that I would have chosen to look at and work on.  I try to stay true to my heart and not to be too concerned about the aesthetic side of the image, believing that '...therapeutic art knows only one value: to show the truth as far as that is possible.  When beauty comes, if it does, it will come out of that truth, not as a veil drawn over it.' (Levine, p.120)

I often get lost in this process only to find myself again later on it.  Although reality and fantasy, as well as past, present and future naturally blend in within the picture, they are also suspended and I arrive in the present where nothing else matters but the reality of that very moment, this shape or that colour.

Only since my children have started to sleep (more or less) through the night, have I found the space and energy again to get back to my own image-making.  Since April 08 I have dedicated every Friday evening to painting.  I am disciplined with this and also paint when initially on certain evenings I might not feel like it.  But I know that it is good for me.  It has become a very important part of my very busy week.  It grounds me, it gives me a chance to rediscover and re-define myself, and has helped me to feel more whole, confident and rich inside.  It gives me space to breathe.  My style has changed over the past few months:  there is usually a background where before there was none, the pastel strokes are more flexible and playful, more accidental, and I can allow them to stay like this, whereas before I might have the need to blend them in precisely so that would not go outside the boundary of the shape.

My own image-making process has influenced my work with clients in that I am now able to allow more privacy and freedom in art therapy sessions.  The urge is not as strong anymore to find out about the meaning of a client's image and to bring it to consciousness.  I trust that often the most important part is the actual image-making and what happens between the image and the client during the process.

My art-making has also influenced how I feel at work in general (professional self-image, communication with colleagues, etc.).  My recent pictures and their positive effect on me have enabled me to feel more relaxed, whole and genuine.  Before I often felt in the role of the art therapist, which at times felt quite separate from the roles I played in my private life.  Now, these 'roles' have merged like the pastels on the paper, and actually do not feel like 'roles' anymore, more like a complete me which moves more flexibility between the various parts of my life.

For me, this exhibition is a celebration of my creative side.  It makes sense for it to be held in the gallery space in CUH, as the showing of my private images in my workplace reflects the personal process described above.  I am delighted to have this exhibition together with Aisling Campbell, who has been supportive of art therapy from the beginning.  I have enjoyed talking to her about the similarities and differences in our image-making, our passion for pastels, and our theoretic views on art-making, art and therapy.

I hope that the exhbition encourages people to use art materials freely to perhaps become more in touch with their creative sides.  One does not need training in art to be creative!  Creativity, for me, is not about 'being good at art', but to be able to see things and to do things differently and flexibly.