Such is art: Reflections on the role of the arts in education and therapy

In this personal article I reflect on my practice as an arts teacher. In my teaching I focus on the making and appreciation of the arts, meeting, as I see it, the individual student’s hunger for personal meaning. The essence of entering into the formative conversations of art making and art loving is to place those conversations within Winnicott’s ‘potential space’ of play. Citing the testimony of poets and other writers I look at the complementary roles of artist-teacher and artist-therapist in drawing the client and the student into a first-hand experience of personal truth: in the re-making of their subjective worlds Otherwise.