Articles, essays, and interviews

“Since moving to our home in the fall of 2019, I have been engaging in practices to form relationships with the land and more-than-human kin. These experiences support me to cultivate intentional relationships with the natural world and involve observing, embodying my senses, expressing gratitude and cultivating reciprocity. They are practices grounded in the ancient eco-psychological premise that humans and the more-than-human world are interconnected and interrelated and that our health and wellness are inextricably linked.”

Juanita Kiff, BSc, DKATI, RCAT, is an avid painter and clinician who offers mental health and substance counselling and art therapy services primarily focused on Indigenous populations. She is devoted to the preservation of traditional knowledge, the use of traditional healing methods and all efforts toward mending our relationship with the Earth. Her work is grounded by ethical, cultural, and spiritual sensitivity from an ancestral trauma-informed and anti-oppressive approach.

Jennifer Schwartz, B.Ed, DKATI, RCAT has worked as an art therapist for over 20 years in rural Child & Youth Mental Health. She lives in the mountains overlooking the Slocan Lake with her family, chickens and gardens. She specializes in complex trauma and is especially interested in understanding how both art therapy and the therapist’s imagination can help contain and transform persecutory anxieties.

Martine Bédard, MED, DKATI, BED, BSC, is an art maker, a mother and an educator who lives her life inspired by the creativity she finds in nature, people and the world. Martine is the co-founder of Art for People Projects, an organization which raises money to support creative projects both locally and abroad. Her approach is strongly flavoured with the gratitude she feels for the relationships in her life, and her commitment to living in the moment.