(http://books.apple.com/us/book/id1624144969 Oversized-paperback editions are available to order on arttherapyintherealworld.com
Dan is an artist, art therapist, and clinical counselor who has worked in the field of art therapy for nearly 32 years. During that time, he developed a private practice that represented his core belief in the healing power of art making that was housed in a store-front art studio.
He taught in the Graduate Art Therapy Department, at the School of Art Institute of Chicago and consulted at various agencies including Better Existence with HIV; Center on Halsted; Test Positive Aware Network; Haymarket Center; Quetzal Rape Crisis Center; Safe Passage (Domestic Violence); and currently, Back to the Beat (art and music).
Dan has curated many art exhibitions of his own and with his clients and facilitated useful community interactions that expanded conversations related to mental illness, substance use disorders, trauma, domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS.
This past spring, Dan’s book “The Magic Carpet Ride: Art Therapy in the Real World ” was published. The book illustrates the efficacy of art therapy predominantly through his own artwork, often done beside his clients.
From the publisher:
“…The Magic Carpet Ride has a singular voice, the voice of a seasoned art therapist. The reader is treated to a real-life journey into the very heart of creative expression. Even the structure of the chapters was created from Anthon’s pastel drawings. Like the art it represents it has multiple layers of meaning. Dan Anthon’s richly illustrated volume, with over four hundred images, mostly his own, speaks directly to an array of audiences at exactly the same moment. The student in a formal art therapy training program will resonate with how the skill they are learning is applied with the precision of an adept musician. The seasoned art therapist can rediscover the soul of what drove them to the field, and how to place their own creative process at the heart of their practice. he demonstrates the subtle power of listening through an artist’s lens. But this labor of love as he self-describes it offers anyone interested in a creative life new and valuable insight.
I love what art making has done in my life. It makes me whole and allows me to express impossible things. In the beginning I took paint (and bursh) in my hand and applied it to a surface and a portait of an old man evolved in front of my eyes, it was miraculous. With my own hands I created something that was real and tangible. It moves me in a way nothing else ever has. So I continue to paint, and despite not ever painting or drawing until I was in my mid thirties, my hands are getting stronger and my ideas are getting better, and all that has given me confidence to live life in a much fuller way.
From Dan’s book “The Magic Carpet Ride: Art therapy in the ‘Real’ World
