"Putting Therapy in My Own Hands": Cottage Industry Employment and the Healing Potential of Collaborative Making.

The integration of art therapy in medicine is expanding as are calls to strengthen its evidence base of clinical outcomes. In this essay, we elevate the voices of non-clinically based artists who work in community and home settings. Although we do not discount the value of art therapy, we add nuance and complexity to clinical and society narratives about art and health by bringing into focus experiential intent and outcome as well as context to explore the meaning-making capacity of the arts. We argue: (1) aesthetic experiences can foster self-expression, relational development, and employment beyond medically identified goals and treatment plans; and, (2) Equating community-based art programming with art therapy oversimplifies our understanding of art and health and does a disservice to both.

Cultivating Passion through Collaborative Art: A Dialogic Exploration of Disability, Storytelling, and Social Change.

This essay explores the role of art and storytelling in organizing expressive and vocational opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities. Passion Works is a non-profit organization that fosters collaborative art-making among people with differing abilities. Guided by an asset-based approach titled the Creative Abundance Model, the studio challenges deficit-based narratives that guide traditional programming in sheltered workshops for individuals with developmental disabilities. The studio functions as an incubator of discovery, a process central to fostering individual well-being and social change.