Create Your Life Studio, the first art therapy studio in Santa Barbara, opens June 5 at 21 E. Canon Perdido St.
Christine Scott-Hudson, local psychotherapist and art therapist, is the owner. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a board-registered clinical art therapist.
“Create Your Life Studio is an art therapy center that inspires women and girls to discover their real worth and value through psychotherapy, creative expression, and the healing power of art," she said.
“It is a place of art and belonging. I am an ally for women and girls. I have created the place I most wanted to find,” she said.
Scott-Hudson said there are openings in her tween girls, teen girls, and women’s art therapy and expressive writing groups beginning in June. Scott-Hudson said there are gift certificates for art therapy and expressive writing groups and workshops.
“I am educated and trained to help women and girls express their thoughts and feelings both verbally and non-verbally," she said. "Art therapy helps my clients access their authentic feelings in order to examine patterns so that they may ‘create their lives’ with intention.
“I help women and girls create meaningful lives. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, they really held the power all along, I teach them how to listen to their inner voice,” she said.
Scott-Hudson is an advocate for women and girls in the Santa Barbara community. She won a National Girls, Inc. Program Award for her arts curriculum in 2004, while in graduate studies at Loyola Marymount University to become an art therapist.
Scott-Hudson has done trauma-focused art therapy work over the past 11 years at CALM in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Lompoc. She trained the incoming MFT trainees and interns, and the seasoned professionals at CALM in the field of clinical art therapy.
“The power of art and story is evident,” Scott-Hudson said.
“There are transformative powers inherent in the creative process, and creating while in the presence of a trained art psychotherapist can be effective for accessing and addressing memory in a deeper way for traumatized clients," she said.
"It is found to be beneficial in addressing anxiety related to trauma.
Scott-Hudson said she is interested in promoting art-making as a daily mindfulness practice. She is inspired by the body-mind-and soul connection.
To learn more about art therapy workshops, an art therapy or expressive writing group, or receiving individual trauma-informed psychotherapy, visit www.createyourlifestudio.com.
All art materials, including use of paints, paper, markers, oil pastels, masks, and collage supplies, are included in the price of groups and workshops, Scott-Hudson said. No artistic experience is necessary.
To learn more or to check a practitioner's credentials, contact The Art Therapy Credentialing Board at www.atcb.org.
— Christine Scott-Hudson for Create Your Life Studio.
