ABSTRACT
Studio Upstairs is a place where people have the liberty to think and speak – aesthetically, emotionally, socially, and to remain silent if they wish. A working studio and therapeutic space, it was founded thirty years ago by three art therapists who felt that the place of art had been relegated into a position of secondary importance in the model of art therapy they had been taught. In this chapter two of the founders, along with a current, long-standing studio manager, revisit the original ethos and consider how it continues to inform studio practice. The idea was to dismantle the clinical notion of therapeutic intervention without removing the possibility of therapeutic change and growth through the making and appreciation of, and communication through, art. This ethos contains elements that foster development of individual art practice through sharing of the studio space, along with elements of a non-residential therapeutic community for adults with a broad spectrum of psychological experience. The development of this model is described and explored through a conversation between the authors.
