Customer Reviews

Art Is a Way of Knowing

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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Pat Allen gives an informed and moving account of her personal experiences and how art used therapeutically has helped her work through different life challenges. However, being an artist and pursuing the field of art therapy I found her approaches and explanations a bit simplistic and not challenging for those already initiated in the use of art materials and techniques. A section for those with art backgrounds, or a follow-up book, might be helpful in this regard. A good pick for beginners, but not for those already conversant and comfortable with techniques and materials. Her resourse lists are helpful and informative. I would have liked to see works by patients of Ms. Allen's also included, with comments. This might have made the reading more challenging and interesting.

Pat's book is well written and full of personal and artistic exercises. She represents an oppertunity for art therapy to move out of the HMO structure and back to peoples every day lives. As an Creative Arts Therapy Masters student this book gave me more insight and hope about the field then anything I was told to read for class.

A very moving and effective book with seamless ties between art therapy and personal experiences - this book easily reaches out to anybody, artist or not, therapist or not. It's for the common man and its honesty and fluent accounts make it extremely accessible.

Pat Allen is a truly gifted individual who describes activities to help us connect with our deepest questions and our answers. For many years she has studied and refined ways to make this connection with herself and the others she has worked with. After just participating in a workshop with her where we did many of the activities included in Art is a Way of Knowing, I know for myself that she has clearly laid out ways of learning important truths about ourselves and healing from the pains of life. I look forward to using them so I can live a more centered life and be more effective in my work with others.

Art therapist Pat Allen writes about her journey of using art and image-making as a way to understand herself, to grow and to change -- a way to understand fears, dreams, and identity. This book is a personal memoir, direct and honest, about challenges Allen found in her life, and how making art tempered her understanding of these challenges. Allen shares her experience...the reader can take the interpretation from there. Ultimately understanding the value of art as a personal value is an important lesson of this book. What drives us to create? And what do our creations do for us? One thing they do is to make visible unconscious thoughts and feelings. Making personal art brings them to light so we can muse on them, learn from them, and understand ourselves better.

Allen's book pushes me to keep on keeping on! For so long I've wondered about how to adapt what I make so others understand. Now I'm learning that has been the wrong question and challenge. This book was part of my realization of what Art is Really For -- for learning about myself -- for a message to myself -- a personal magic. Art can and does change the way we live our lives. The interesting thing to me is how making your own art can reveal deeper meanings in your life -- the real value of art-making -- understanding and meaning. Initially symbols may seem to mean something, but Pat Allen gives examples in her own life which show how understanding and living through the experiences of our lives change they way we perceive the meanings of our personal symbols. That's the great and wonderful thing about the symbolic language of images. ... A direct and candid look at one artist's experience of making art...which can inspire all of us who are driven to make things, and which can help us to better understand why. In many cases the answer in our artwork will come later, in time, when we are ready for it.

The author's own very personal story of healing & growth through imagery and the art process, combined with a very clear, present-moment style of writing was absolutely riveting to me! This is a living, pulsing and highly moving, inspired and inspiring work. I couldn't put it down.

This was the first book I bought about art therapy and it inspired me to change my career course from graphic design to art therapy. I'm a little less than 2 months from my MA in art therapy now, and I couldn't be happier with my new career!

Art Is a Way of Knowing
Do we want fine art or fine human beings? Are we brave enough to do our own work with imagery or will we continue to feed off the work of others? I am a working Expressive & Creative Arts therapist, in a prison psychiatric hospital, and I found Pat Allen's book to be a revelation. She traces the thoughts and emotions emanating from our images, dreams and artworks by sharing her realizations as she created paintings, masks and sculptures. It is rare to have any 'professional' take such risks; to reveal their deepest feelings, doubts and struggles with their work and to take on the establishment, in their field. I am grateful for her courage to 'go there' and for the resulting imagery which resonated deeply with me. Her honesty, about her journey, has helped me understand what is going on in the hearts and minds of my patients, as well as myself. Many issues are just too difficult to articulate, and working with images is crucial for reaching the places within where genuinely positive changes come from.
I believed I 'couldn't draw my way out of a paper bag', yet I was astonished to see how many images poured out of me, as I followed our graduate course work using Pat Allen's chapters as our guiding text. Her insights have also shown me how to become a more active participant in my inner life, instead of a passive observer, and this has taken me past some blockages.
In the USA today (2010)half the population is on anti-depressants, avoiding the very work this book advocates doing. Dare I say, there are far fewer negative side affects from following the course of 'treatment' in this book. The expressive & creative arts (music, poetry, art, etc.)can be the antidotes to violence and depression (which is anger turned inward). The long term effects of violence and poverty in my patients lives has proven to me that we need more than just medication if these citizens are going to rejoin the ranks of the productive people. Art IS Way of Knowing, but first you must care enough to go where you haven't yet gone in your psyche. Here is a book that can help you face and transform negative 'tapes' and beliefs. If you are ready for transformation, healing and sustainable change, you can't keep them without 'self-knowledge and spiritual fulfillment'. At 56, I didn't think I had much more self-discovery to do but Pat's book has happily proven me wrong, and re-energized my life and my work.

I would recommend it for an art therapy class or if you're definitely interested in techniques related to art therapy, but maybe not so much if you just want something to casually pick up and read. There are a lot of personal references the author makes so it's not so much of a textbook, but she also goes into detail about different ideas for art-making, which I didn't particularly like. She also goes into a lot of detail about her own work career which put me off. However, it did lead me to realize how much I need to get my priorities together and figure out exactly what I'm striving to do career-wise!

The author reveals much of her own journey through painfull life experiences and how art expressions helped her to heal.
The book is filled with her own original artwork,and it is a very open,brave art indeed.
Her suggestions for the reader are very stimulating,and make one eager to begin to make art.She offers many examples of art activities and materials.,and even has an appendix for a music catalogue(she suggests listening to music while artmaking)and an adress for art supply catalogue...Everyone will feel like an artist,as well as getting to know oneself at a deep level through doing this book.