Inside Milwaukee’s blooming art scene, art therapists are helping people voice their emotions in new ways.
Art therapy combines active art-making and psychotherapy to help people express complex emotions. It’s used as a healing tool for people with trauma, depression or other conditions.
For Milwaukee-based artist Blanche Brown, her art therapy career married her love of art and love of people. She currently practices through her own business, Your Best Self Therapy, and at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, while also continuing to create her own art.
Brown says her techniques in the art therapy space range depending on the needs of her client. Mediums, materials and techniques can vary from canvas painting to papier-mâché masks that explore self-identity.
Her personal art addresses historical and intergenerational trauma of African American women.
“My work speaks to the growing concern of Black women and their unmet mental health concerns where stigma continues to remain a barrier.”
Brown wants to see more involvement and exposure for diverse art therapy spaces.
“You have to get people to be a melting pot of community-minded people,” she said.
“A lot of people who have experienced deep trauma can benefit so much because it’s a different way of looking at things instead of processing with your words,” Brown said.
With her clients, she has seen first-hand the benefits of using art to work through emotional distress.
Finding her calling as an art therapist
Amanda Metropolus, a practicing art therapist at Fresh Therapy LLC, says she has seen art help people express themselves and tell stories that they otherwise couldn’t.
“Art can be really helpful for people who find talk therapy really hard,” Metropolus said.
Metropolus became enthralled by art therapy when she realized the impact art had on her own life. “Art was a way for me to work through things in a nonverbal way,” Metropolus said.
She first discovered the profession when she sat in on an art therapy group at a women’s shelter. After that, she knew it was her calling. “Oh my gosh, this is exactly how I want to use my art,” Metropolus said.
According to Metropolus, art therapy is often helpful because the visual area of the brain is similar to where trauma is held. A 2015 study found that art therapy resulted in significant reductions in psychological trauma symptoms and a decrease in depression levels.
‘Making sense of the world’
Brittany Mahlberg is a practicing therapist at Bloom Art and Integrated Therapies. She got into art therapy because of how it helped her as a young artist work through her emotions.
“My art practice was always a way of me processing emotions and experiences and making sense of the world and who I was,” Mahlberg said.
Mahlberg focuses on breaking the cultural stigma that can exist around therapy. According to Mahlberg, art can be a different avenue to get people more in tune with their emotions. “Meeting people where they’re at can be really beneficial,” Mahlberg said.
For those dealing with challenging emotions like trauma, grief or depression, it can feel difficult to put feelings into words. Art therapy offers another avenue of healing.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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