By August of that yr, Montemayor had launched “Tacos and Tiles” at Uvalde’s St. Henry’s church, the place she invited survivors and neighborhood members to make mosaic fragments in neighborhood artwork remedy classes. Over the course of months, Montemayor fired hundreds of clay tiles designed by college students, academics, and households in Uvalde in her kiln, an initiative she dubbed the Uvalde Love Mission. Her back-and-forth commutes to Uvalde culminated in a mosaic mural put in on the town in August 2023, the results of a yr of neighborhood medical artwork remedy facilitated by her and a staff of therapists.
Whereas main the tile classes, Montemayor tracked contributors’ misery ranges, which she mentioned decreased nearly “universally” over the course of the conferences. Montemayor mentioned she noticed youngsters who couldn’t sleep alone lastly sleep in their very own beds.
“We didn’t say, ‘Tell us about the tragedy.’ It was more like: ‘What are you noticing in your body?’” Montemayor informed Hyperallergic. She defined that the art-making classes served as long-term therapeutic interventions to assist regulate survivors’ nervous methods past the bounds of discuss remedy.
Montemayor is a registered artwork therapist within the state of Texas, a psychological well being career that requires medical counseling and technical artwork coaching but is barely thought of a regulated psychological well being service in 15 states and Washington, DC, in keeping with the American Artwork Remedy Affiliation (AATA). Artwork remedy, in keeping with 4 clinicians interviewed by Hyperallergic, combines art-making with remark and interplay from a skilled clinician. It may be significantly efficient, they mentioned, in instances of trauma the place people can’t absolutely articulate their emotions via phrases.
States like New York grant artwork remedy licenses, whereas others, like Texas, require these suppliers to acquire a psychological well being clinician license and individually register as artwork therapists. AATA advocates for licensure in all 50 states, which the group says may make artwork remedy for the general public and aspiring practitioners extra financially possible.
In Uvalde, survivors and neighborhood members wrote the names of the 21 people who died within the Robb Elementary capturing on the tiles. Different tiles featured hearts, butterflies, and animals. “The mural just happened because of the therapy, but the primary focus really was the therapy,” Montemayor mentioned. “They had something to do together that kept them going.”
The Uvalde Love Mission, which was finalized in August 2023
In line with US Census information, about 80% of Uvalde residents self-identified as Hispanic. And but, Montemayor mentioned, the psychological healthcare companies supplied by the state within the aftermath of the capturing weren’t bilingual. “It was all white people, [and] not in Spanish,” Montemayor mentioned. “That’s not accessible.”
She began the venture with little funding however later obtained grants to cowl the $100,000 price of this system from organizations together with the David Rockefeller Fund and the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts. However the work is way from over, Montemayor famous, citing insufficient funding for efficient psychological healthcare for survivors.
Whereas applications just like the Uvalde Love Mission are anecdotal examples of profitable artwork remedy interventions the place different strategies would possibly fail, suppliers throughout the nation are preventing for wider recognition of the career. In New York, the place artwork therapists are licensed underneath the umbrella of “creative arts therapists,” advocates at the moment are pushing for laws that may permit them to invoice Medicaid insurance policy straight for companies in order that they’ll work with populations lined by sponsored well being plans.
After overwhelmingly passing the state senate earlier this yr, a invoice that may permit Licensed Inventive Arts Therapists (LCATs) to invoice Medicaid suppliers straight for artwork remedy companies was delivered to Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk final week. Hochul could have till the top of this month to signal or reject the proposed laws.
Marygrace Berberian, director of New York College’s Graduate Artwork Remedy Program, informed Hyperallergic in an interview that in New York, when sufferers are admitted to an inpatient program, lots of the suppliers they work together with are inventive arts therapists.
However as soon as sufferers are discharged, particularly those that obtain sponsored care, artwork remedy turns into tough to entry.
“Medicaid doesn’t cover art therapy on an outpatient basis,” Berberian mentioned.
Particular person tiles Montemayor fired in Montemayor’s kiln in Austin, Texas
If Hochul indicators the invoice, artwork therapists in New York say they may attain broader populations.
“We can’t bill [medicaid] for services right now if we work within those systems,” Linda Turner, an artwork therapist in New York of 25 years and president of the LCAT Advocacy Coalition, informed Hyperallergic. “This will enable us to expand our ability to work with the public.” Tuner mentioned she works with medical doctors, attorneys, therapists, and artists in her non-public follow.
State Senator Samra Brouk, who sponsored the invoice, mentioned she backed it as a step to fight New York’s rising psychological well being disaster. “They’re the second-largest group of licensed mental health professionals in the state,” Brouk informed Hyperallergic about LCATs in New York. “In the middle of a youth mental health crisis and all these other crises that we see with mental health, it only makes sense for us to remove barriers.”
Brouk added that earlier laws permitting psychological well being suppliers to invoice Medicaid straight for outpatient companies omitted inventive arts therapists, an oversight she attributed to a lack of information about their work.
“We work a lot with trauma and survivors who maybe are struggling to find the words to be able to describe what they’ve endured,” Berberian mentioned. “Art is an incredibly effective way to channel some of the angst that they’ve experienced.”
One potential impediment to broadening entry to the follow, Berberian mentioned, has been a “cultural stigma against the arts.”
“The US has been very slow to understand that we can’t just rely on pharmaceuticals to help people manage their distress,” Berberian mentioned.
One other false impression about artwork therapists, Turner mentioned, is that “anyone can do it.”
“We are highly trained. We are highly skilled,” Turner mentioned. “All of us who become creative arts therapists are artists … we know the materials, but we also know the mental health side.”
Los Angeles-based bilingual artwork therapist Nadia Paredes, president of the AATA, usually employs the “emotional color palette” intervention approach, through which people use coloured writing utensils to create marks that correspond to their feelings. Paredes demonstrated the follow to Hyperallergic, revealing a set of multi-colored scribbles she produced with numerous forces and speeds. The straightforward train, she mentioned, permits shoppers to specific feelings earlier than they’ve an excessive amount of time to overthink them.
“An image can be so much more than language can emanate,” Paredes mentioned.
