Offering

Cover Art: Critical reflection is at the core of how I purposefully consider and make sense of my various roles, responsibilities, and contributions as a professional and credentialed art therapist, educator, and artist within various contexts, both locally and abroad. As such, I often find myself working within fast-paced and complex situations, sometimes confronted by rigid constructs, systems, and perspectives. On a recent art, culture, and mental health overseas trip to Bali, with postgraduate students from the Art Therapy training program that I lead in Singapore, I was invited to create an artwork from materials found in and around the outdoor jungle art studio of renowned artist David Trevelyan. This sculpture emerged as I scavenged, repurposed, and assembled a range of natural and nonnatural components and is reminiscent of how I consolidate and perhaps share my understanding, purpose, and meaning with others in the particular roles that I assume. Offering, in this sense, is about the giving or imparting of something with the intention for others to receive; sometimes this might be perceived as strange, foreign, and different, and, at other times, this might be embraced with open arms, humility, and compassion.

Citation:
Lay, Ronald P.M.H.. ''Offering.'' Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, vol. 36, no. 2, 2019, pp. 56-56, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2019.1618171.