Bio
Assistant Professor (2016 - ), Program Director (2018 - ), Art Therapy and Counseling Department, SAIC. Education: BFA, 2007, University of Central Florida, Orlando; MAAT, 2010, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; MTS, 2018, McCormick Theological Seminary. Publications: (2015) “Challenging Neoliberalism and Multicultural Love in Art Therapy” and (2017) “Is Cultural Competence Enough? Deepening Social Justice Pedagogy in Art Therapy” published in Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association; “Envisioning Black Women’s Consciousness in Art Therapy” in S. Talwar (Ed.). (2019). Art Therapy for Social Justice: Radical Intersections. Awards & Recognition: (2018 - ) Visiting Professor, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; (2016) Propeller Fund Awardee; (2014-2017) Community Engagement Fellow McCormick Theological Seminary; (2014) DCASE Chicago Artists Month Featured Artist. Exhibitions, Art Facilitation, & Press: Participatory Arts: Crafting Social Change at Hull-House Museum, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago, IL; "The Artist as a Catalyst of Social Change?" Part 3: Leah Gipson, Sixty Inches from Center; "West Side Artists Talk Gentrification," Austin Weekly News, Tuesday, December 5, 2017; In Progress: Leah Gipson, Tuesday, November 14, 2017, MCA, Chicago, IL; Barbershop Talk: Black Eutopia, at Carter's Barbershop, Chicago, IL, October 18, 2014.
Courses Taught: Materials and Media in Art Therapy; Cultural Dimensions in Art Therapy; Black Rage: Interpreting Feeling in Anti-Slavery Imagery; Researching Art and Change on the West Side of Chicago; Explorations in Community Based Art Practices; Special Topics in Art Therapy (Creative Healing Praxis and Blackness).
Personal Statement
"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals, Special Edition, Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1997.
"We must practice revolutionary democracy in every aspect of our Party life. Every responsible member must have the courage of his responsibilities, exacting from others a proper respect for his work and properly respecting the work of others. Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories." Amilcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea, stage 1, London, 1974.
I teach from a black feminist lens. I believe all education and healthcare should be free. I believe the neoliberal bourgeois academy, to which I belong, is a threat to the liberation of all oppressed people.
"...we must always be ready to "give honest answers" to questions that typically prevent mutual understanding across difference from emerging." bell hooks, Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom, 2010.
Disclaimer: All work represents the views of the INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & AUTHORS who created them, and are not those of the school or museum of the Art Institute.
