Artistic Sensibility in the Studio and Gallery Model: Revisiting Process and Product

This paper examines the cultivation of artistic sensibility and its impact on the art therapy process and product in a community mental health center. Artistic sensibility embodies the sense of self as an artist through the integration of artistic and aesthetic attributes of self and other. The formation of a gallery to exhibit patient art was found to promote empowerment by embracing the patients as artists and by reframing identities, roles, and self-defining experiences. In the gallery model of art therapy, artistic sensibility extends the studio experience of the process to the art product, strengthens the creative process, and de-stigmatizes mental illness.