It is not often that I talk about work in here, mostly because of the confidential nature of therapy. But yesterday was a pretty amazing day, and I wanted to share before I forget the details.
Back in October, I was contacted by the now president of the American Art Therapy Association. I had been working pretty closely with her, because the past year I have been volunteering my time to help with the annual membership conference, and this year, I have had the honor of chairing the conference committee. The Vice President is the board liaison to the conference committee, so we had been working together before she took the position as president. Knowing the work that I do with the Art Station here in Texas, I was approached to see if our organization would be open to being contacted by the office of the Second Lady of the United States, Mrs. Karen Pence. There has been a lot of controversy from the membership regarding her support of the art therapy profession, but despite the dissension from a select few, I recognized that this was an opportunity for our organization that would bring some national spotlight and highlight the work that we have been doing for our community.
I received an email and then a follow up phone call from Mrs. Pence’s office staff, and knowing that organizing something like this is larger than my skill set, I connected her to our CEO for the details. What followed was a surreal series of events, which culminated in a fantastic visit from our Second Lady. First of all, the level of detail that it takes to bring a dignitary to the area is phenomenal. We had to have security checks by the secret service. We had to have building sweeps a few days before, as well as the day of the event. We had to send in photos of client art work to be viewed prior to discussing in our round table discussion during the event. And of course, we had to clean up the building and stash some clutter, much like when we were teenagers getting ready to have family and friends over. We also had to brief our clients that some important dignitary was coming without giving away too many details before, and get permission from them to have her in their group therapy session. Our CEO had to come up with seating charts and a minute by minute agenda that would fit in a 1 hour 15 minute timeframe. It was a lot of back and forth, last minute changes and coordination for this to be successful.
Not only did the Secret Service have to be involved to protect her, we also had Fort Worth S.W.AT. clear the area, shut down the street in front of the office, and I believe it was the Fort Worth Fire Department that had a bomb sniffing dog clear the building before she could come in. Clients that were in the building, but not involved in the visit had their cameras out and went along with the hustle and bustle, and our student interns had no idea what was going on until the day of. It was a special kind of fun that I am so glad happens only once in a lifetime. Oh, and when I got there, I let our feral cat into the building, and she didn’t want to come back out. That got some raised eyebrows, as did the baby goat on a leash that was there with a client first thing in the morning. She, and the cat both were out of the building before the bomb sniffing dog came through. It all worked out well in the end.
When Mrs. Pence arrived, I had the honor of having a small group meeting with her, behind closed doors with our Founder, and our Programs and Operations Director (the three of us have been building this organization for 14 years) and our CEO, who has come on for a second decade of growth of our organization. I was not sure what to expect, but Mrs. Pence was very well versed in what art therapy is, as she has made the advocacy of art therapy the core platform that she is piloting as the Second Lady of our United States. She wants our nation to grow more art therapists, and wants our nation to know that art therapy is not “arts and crafts” but instead is a mental health profession that helps heal in so many ways. She was an educator, and an artists, and she has worked with art therapists in her home state for many years. I was impressed with the level of understanding she had about the plight she has chosen.
My amazing team of art therapists, I’m on the left, second one in…
What is different about our organization, and why she chose to visit us, is that we have such a diverse clientele, and despite the tiny building we work out of, our client reach spans much of Fort Worth, as we build connections with community agencies and provide art therapy services at many off-site locations. This includes dispatching staff and graduate students offsite to school settings, mental health hospitals, partial hospitalization programs, homeless shelters, and addiction centers in the area, to name a few of our projects that brings art therapy to the community. My role at the organization as Clinical Director has been to supervise the graduate and undergraduate level interns to help them understand how art in therapy can be a valuable tool for their therapy toolbox in working with our clients. After the meeting in my office, Mrs. Pence was able to meet with one of our groups that was going on, and then met again with the rest of the staff for a group roundtable about the work that each of our staff are able to provide to our network of clientele.
At the end of our roundtable, she presented our staff with a print of one of her own paintings, with a plaque that acknowledges the work we do in the art therapy community, and our founder presented her with a mandala drawing of a dove, in the same meditative style that I wrote about here. She then thanked each of us, and gave us all a small token of her appreciation, a bracelet with charms to represent art therapy. Then, as soon as she came, she had to get back on the road for her next stop in spreading the word about art therapy!
To read her account, check out Mrs. Pence’s blog here.
It was a day that I will cherish as I reflect back on as I think about this amazing journey through life!
