SAIC Art Therapy & Counseling

We’re one month out from the MAATC Exhibition, featuring work from the Class of 2026!

On view January 23-30
Mark your calendars 📆

🌟 2026 HILGOS AWARDS 🌟

SAIC students — applications are now open for the 2026 Hilgos Awards, supporting arts-based projects for people living with dementia.

Founded in memory of SAIC alumna Hilda Goldblatt Gorenstein, the Hilgos Awards honor the powerful role of art in connection, memory, and care.

🎨 Award Amount: Up to $3,000 (multiple awards available)
🧠 Focus: Creative projects or group engagements for people with memory impairment
🎓 Eligibility: Current SAIC degree-seeking students
📆 Project Timeline: Spring 2026

Important Dates:
🗓 Apply by January 12, 2026 (4:30 PM)
📣 Awards announced January 23, 2026
📩 Submit your application as one PDF to:
[email protected]
Subject line: Hilgos Award Application

🔗 Click on the link in our bio for full details.

🌟 Alumni Publication Spotlight: Tsz Yan Winnie Wong, MAATC, LCPC, ATR-BC 💫

We are proud to highlight recent collaborative publications by alum Tsz Yan Winnie Wong, whose work continues to expand critical dialogue and clinical insight in the field of art therapy.

“Identity & Belongingness of Asian Art Therapy Educators”
International Journal of Art Therapy
A critical art-based collaborative autoethnography examining identity, cultural belonging, and lived experience among Asian art therapy educators.

“Reinforcing the Neurobiological Foundation of Art Therapy Assessment & Treatment: Integrating ETC & SIBAM”
Journal of the American Art Therapy Association
An integrative exploration of neurobiological foundations in art therapy, connecting ETC and SIBAM frameworks to inform assessment and treatment.

We are honored to celebrate Winnie’s ongoing contributions and the impact of her work on the field.

🔗 Click on the link in our bio to access both articles.

We are thrilled to celebrate Art Therapy faculty member and alum Bri Beck .beck , LCPC, ATR, on the opening of her solo exhibition “[From-Within]” at the Center for Mad Culture.

Join us for the opening reception on Friday, November 14th from 5-9pm CST, and don’t miss Bri’s upcoming student talk on disability-affirming care on Monday, November 17 from 6-7 CST.

The Zoom registration link can be found in our bio.
Additional details below!

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About the Exhibition:

“[From-Within]” is an interdisciplinary art exhibition by artist and art therapist Bri Beck, LCPC, ATR. Rooted in both personal and professional experience, the exhibition reflects Bri’s dual perspective as a therapist living with disability and as a practitioner supporting disabled clients. Through this lens, Bri considers both the potential and the limits of therapy to address not only individual pain but also the collective trauma and systemic inequities that shape disabled life.

Within the exhibition, a staged therapy room and a series of mixed media works are paired with interactive workbook pages, offering an early glimpse into Bri’s developing disability-affirming art therapy workbook. Together, these elements transform the traditional therapy space into one that centers disability identity, creativity, and belonging.

[From-Within] invites viewers to reimagine care as an act of solidarity, reflection, and resistance. Through this exhibition, Bri envisions spaces where disabled people can find connection, self-recognition, and healing on their own terms.

[From-Within] is funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Joyce Foundation. Additional support is provided by 3Arts, Bodies of Work, UIC: Applied Health Sciences - Department of Disability and Human Development, UIC: Disability Culture Center, the Disability Culture Activism Lab, and Access Living.

Professor Savneet K. Talwar, PhD will be giving a special lecture titled “Art Therapy and Needle Methodologies: Mending Memory and Belonging in the Archives” at the 3rd Art Theragogy Conference, hosted by the Department of Art Therapy Education at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea.
The conference will feature Ewha students’ and alumni’s annual exhibition and workshops.

Professor Talwar will be joining online as a keynote speaker, exploring how art, memory, and belonging intersect through textile and needle-based methodologies.

Unfortunately, this event is limited to Ewha students and alumni, but we are so proud to see SAIC represented at such a meaningful gathering for art therapy in Korea! 🇰🇷🎨

AATA 2025 Recap!

We were so happy to attend the American Art Therapy Association Conference this year. It was inspiring to connect with our SAIC community across states and witness the meaningful ways our alumni and faculty continue to shape the field.

We are proud to recognize SAIC faculty and alumni presenting their innovative work at the American Art Therapy Association Conference in Portland this week! Their research, practice, and creative leadership continue to shape the field and inspire future therapists.✨

Calling all SAIC alumni, students, faculty, and friends! 📢

Come connect, share, and celebrate art therapy together at a special meet-up at next week’s AATA conference.
Hope to see you there!

This week Dr Khalaf’s Human Sexuality students took a field trip to the biggest q***r archives and library in the Midwest. What a gift to explore Chicago’s q***r and trans history. A rich, beautiful, and powerful lesson in care of ourselves, our communities, and our futures. Thank you for having us!

We are so excited to welcome Dr. Rochele Royster for “Tangled in Blue” this Friday. Join us for an intimate talk exploring grief as a sacred site of testimony, transformation, and ancestral remembering. Drawing on the fiber-based practices of Judith Scott, the slow stitching of Black and Brown mothers, and African diasporic mourning traditions, Royster invites us to reconsider grief not as something to fix but something to tend.a symposium exploring grief.

Royster has worked for the last 20 years integrating art therapy into the educational setting. Using a trans-disciplinary approach, she is interested in community and school-based art therapy; race, power and policy in education; multi-sensory methods in reading and literacy; trauma-informed classrooms; environmental justice; black disability; and special education as it relates to decolonization of pedagogy and practice in institutional and public settings.

We are honored to welcome Dr. Rochele Royster for her lecture “Tangled in Blue: Honoring Grief, Holding Time” next Friday, September 12 at the Neiman Center.

Dr. Royster explores grief as a sacred space of testimony, transformation, and ancestral remembering. Drawing on fiber practices, diasporic traditions, and art therapy, she invites us to reimagine grief not as something to fix, but something to tend.

Join us for an evening of insight and connection.

Register now through the link in our LinkTree.

Our first year students utilizing the “third hand technique” in pairs, in their Materials and Media class, led by faculty Elia Khalaf.

This class focused on art therapy for disabled individuals. The third hand technique was created by Edith Kramer, and is a way of describing how art therapists support their clients’ creative process without imposing their own ideas or preferences.
Swipe to see some of their art!