At Home With My Voice

by Cynthia Brown

This report highlights the author’s art-based inquiry into the therapeutic value of personal reflection as creative process while making art with a women’s open studio group. It serves as a personal exploration of her process as a student of art therapy in finding her voice as both a woman and an art therapist. The author emphasizes the importance of feminine identity in recreating beauty through art making while functioning as an active participant in group art making. Stemming from an art-based inquiry model, this project informs art therapy practices of the benefits of using art and the post-session reflective phenomenological methods of the author to further self-understanding. This inquiry serves to help the author understand the essence of her lived experience and as a reflective process it allows her to reclaim her feminine identity in finding a home for her voice.