We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Athena Toledo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Athena below.

Athena, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?

My heroes are my clients. Over the years, I’ve been honored to work with individuals from all walks of life. Their willingness to bridge a place between the present moment and their previous circumstances has led to meaningful conversations and creative projects.

Working with high school-aged students in an art therapy program taught me much about their perspective on radical change, equality, and bettering the system’s care. High schoolers are just figuring out what it means to be an adult, and seeing what excites them and spark their interest makes you consider and reflect on what was important to you as a young person. It also makes you consider what kind of world we”re creating for high school students to go into after graduation.

Working with senior citizens at Peace care St. Anns has taught me about life and legacy. Working with matriarchs of families invites reflection on how choices are made in the present, how our day-to-day actions make a lasting impact, and how we only have so much time to live out the stories of our lives. I also learned there is always time to find comfort and joy in the arts. Creating and co-creating in group sessions brings joy and a sense of fellowship that honors the participants’ presence and supports social and emotional engagement.

Working with adults with neurodiversity has taught me that there is a fluctuation in the cohort’s ability. Art therapy can offer a non-verbal form of communication that allows for a more inclusive and intuitive connecting point. Eye contact, facial expressions, and body language can appear through the physical art form created when drawing or sculpting a sentient life form. A client may draw a happy stick figure, an angry barking dog, or a bird in flight. Someone might not be able to express fully how they feel physically, but there is a route and process of connecting to our inner realms and archetypes through art making.

Athena, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Athena Toledo. I am a full Puerto Rican with roots in Jersey City but grew up in Kapolei, Hawaii. I am an Art Therapy graduate student at the school of visual arts. I am also a portrait artist and participate in pop up’s doing watercolor caricatures.

My work is full of vivid color. I am very inspired by expressionist art and fauvism. I am particularly interested in sharing visual narratives and storytelling through art.

I was 15 when I saw the movie “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” where a creative arts therapist walks into the rec room of a psychiatric ward and inspires healing in some of the patients. I thought, “Wow, I want to do that.”
And so here we are 12 years later.

Community building is a big element of the artwork I enjoy participating in, and community building inspires me to create new works of art as a form of process art.

The more people that can participate in the arts the better. I feel that to be an artist and to be an effective tool for positive change, there should be as many opportunities to co-create as possible. Having free creative arts and wellness activities makes for a more hopeful and inclusive world. I feel art is not so much about the product,but more so about the process and what breathes”

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn teaching and leading in a therapeutic setting. There is a great difference between art education and art therapy. When in a clinical setting, It’s important to allow enough space for your client to express and create on their own.

making too many suggestions like “draw a yellow sun, with a red roof house and green grass” can ruin an opportunity to discover a conversation and learn about the client. There’s an intention and meaning behind your client’s floating house with no horizon line, a blue sun, a hollow bird’s nest, or a figure with no arms.

don’t say “why don’t you try and draw some arms” but instead make observations in art reflection “what do you notice about the figure, what is missing, and why might that be?”

Art Therapy is not about photo-realism or color theory, it’s more about the art process of discovering meaning in creative choices.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Art therapy is seen as a new discipline and often can be misunderstood as an activity or recreation.

But to be an art therapist, an individual must have a master’s or doctorate degree in creative arts therapy from a registered, accredited program, or its equivalent and at least 1,500 hours of supervised experience in an approved setting.

but, I do feel that we also as art therapists should not claim or monetize on the already natural and impactful remedies that art embodies. I believe in the decolonization of clinical mental health counseling and education in general, and I feel that education in the united states should be more accessible to all. Perhaps if graduate school wasn’t so costly there would be more people applying to graduate-level studies and more art therapists in the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Flora.athens
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flora.athens/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AthenaToledoArt/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/athena-toledo-6806b71a0