by Tracy Weitkamp

Hello Make Studio enthusiasts! I am the new-ish art therapy intern at Make Studio. I say new-ish because really I have been here since January and yet I’ve only been here regularly on Saturdays, so it still feels pretty new. Toward the start of my internship, though, I got to experience some events fairly quickly – an engaging mask-making workshop that brought community members and Make Studio artists together, two transitional youth workshops, Make Studio’s 7^th anniversary exhibition opening, in addition to spending time with Saturday artists as they create.

Seeing as I am still new-ish and am planning to intern here this year, I’ll introduce myself. I’m a graduate student in the Masters of Arts in Art Therapy (MAAT) program through Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana (more on how that works, later). I previously completed a practicum in a partial hospitalization setting for children and adolescents, and was a hospital employee in a community psychiatry department. Make Studio is a welcome change of pace!

So, as I mentioned, I am a graduate student in an art therapy program that is located in Indiana. The program is a hybrid/low residency program where my classmates and I fly out to Indiana three times per year for an introduction to each semester, and then virtually complete the remainder of each semester at home. I am eternally grateful that I found such a program! This is my last year and I graduate in December – again, eternally grateful! I am a resident of Columbia, MD and have found myself attached to Baltimore for some time through work and various life events.

As far as my non-school/interning life, I am a supervisor for a team at an online public education company (yes, it seems I have quite a bit of exposure to the virtual side of life), and while it is a desk job and my ultimate dreams lie in the art therapy field, I actually quite enjoy it.

I am somewhat all over the place with my own art. Aside from a few introductory courses after graduating from Towson with a BS in Family Studies, I have very little formal art training yet I absolutely love to create. I give credit to my Masters program for fostering this in me. I dabble in various media (pencil, acrylic, minimal digital work, watercolor, ink, etc.). However, I have recently become very excited and passionate about watercolor.

As an intern here, I am very excited for what the future holds. I have so far thoroughly enjoyed seeing the various styles of each artist. As I continue my internship, I am eager to make connections from this mostly non-therapeutic setting to the art therapy field, breaking out of my clinical comfort zone. The process of creating art is not only healing in my opinion and experience, but also empowering. It serves as a means to bring communities together and simply express beauty. Thank you Make Studio community for your welcoming these past couple of months and I look forward to seeing/talking to/working with you throughout this year!