A spontaneous side trip to the historic Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, 45 minutes southeast of Lethbridge, Alta., became the source of inspiration for Jean Tait's art therapy business.

Jean Tait at her studio in Spruce Grove, Alta., in early May. (Tina Faiz/CBC)Tait, an Edmonton-based aboriginal water-colour artist, was inspired by the thousands of petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings) that cover the ancient sandstone cliffs in the park, known as Áísínai'pi in Blackfoot. It is the largest collection of native rock art in North America.

"I was blown away by what I saw there," says Tait, reminiscing about that fateful day in 1992.

The rock art, which depicts ceremonial figures, hunters, animals, and European cultural exchanges, are between 100 and 1,000 years old — the earliest of which are weathered and fading away.

"I became very interested in symbols and working with art as a healing tool, and that's where the name for my business came from: Art Can Heal."

Tait, 51, believes that before we had words we could still communicate, to express emotions and convey knowledge. "Someone can access their feelings and thoughts about something in a non-verbal way, through symbols and drawing," she explains.

AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Click here for an audio slideshow of Jean Tait's artwork. (Courtesy of Jean Tait)Sixteen years after that visit to the park, Tait graduated as a professional art therapist from the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute in Nelson, B.C., in August 2008. Although it is not widely recognized, art therapy — using drawing, painting, collage, sculpture and other three-dimensional art — helps clients work through emotional issues and trauma.

During the two-year distance program, Tait travelled to Nelson, B.C. — a 1,000-kilometre drive each way — every three months for three weeks of intensive studies, heavy on role-play and theory. Her education cost her over $30,000, none of which was covered by her band because she does not live on reserve.

Tait was born in Ontario and has lived in the Edmonton area since she was five. She is a C31 treaty status Saulteaux - a branch of the Ojibwa — from the Berens River First Nation in Manitoba, a reserve 270 km north of Winnipeg. Her native ancestry goes back to Chief Jacob Berens, Tait's great-great-great-grandfather, who led the negotiations and was a signatory to Treaty 5 in 1875.

"I take a holistic approach to art therapy," she says, "because I'm an aboriginal person, and that's my world view." She believes that as a person starts healing through art, "it affects other parts of the medicine wheel - the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual — bringing a person into balance."

As an art therapist, Tait works with children and adults at correctional facilities and social agencies, one-on-one or in groups, on issues ranging from depression to abuse, trauma and grief.

Draw something

Tait's clients use different methods to create their art at her studio. (Tina Faiz/CBC)"I start with more simple materials like markers, pastels, charcoal and pencil crayons — resistive materials that are not fluid like paint," she says, because they are less emotive. "Paint takes you to a deeper place, and I'd only take clients there at the second or third session."

A therapy session often begins with Tait asking her client to draw something. If they don't know what to draw, she advises, "draw something like a tree, or your family doing something, whatever comes to your mind."

Once a drawing is complete, she tacks it up on a board. "We'll look at it together for some time," she says. "It's not about making great art to be in a gallery — but to give the work the kind of respect it needs and give the client some distance from it."

And when that happens, Tait explains, "the person who made the art starts to notice things, and they start to talk about the work. And because I am not going through their psyche to dig up their secrets, it gives them the power to discover where they are at with their own issues."

In the end, she says, most draw what is important to them, subconsciously or consciously. "My job is to help them unpack it, and take it apart, and investigate a part that comes up and take them in that direction," she says, emphasizing that the client is driving the process.

"It is up to me to hold the space and the therapeutic relationship, but they are always in control of how fast they unpack it. If there's an underlying trauma, they are in control, because I don't want them to be re-traumatized," she says. "It becomes a place where they can grow."

Business has its challenges

Barely six months old, Tait's business has its challenges. She got her business licence in September 2008, one month after graduating, and jumped right in without a business plan. "I've known I wanted to do this for a long time, and I am not that young," she says, laughing.

"I have an intangible product," she says. "I don't sell a thing. I don't teach art. I don't run classes. I am attempting to market a growth experience, mental wellness, and I use a holistic approach," she says. "It is much easier to do a business plan for a widget."

Tait's biggest challenge so far has been marketing herself and explaining what art therapy is. Since it is a relatively new field, many don't see an art therapist as a mental health professional like a psychologist or a registered social worker, and are not willing to fund them. "I am like your naturopath — something that not everybody has coverage for and will pay for out-of-pocket. Sometimes it is a good fit for the individual, but they may not get coverage for it.

"And each session is different; there's no template. That's what makes it difficult to explain what art therapy is," Tait says. At one group session, which is very different from her one-on-one sessions, she engaged women in a body-mapping exercise. Each person traced the outline of their body and painted and decorated the figure. "What comes out are abuse issues, eating disorders, self-esteem and body-image issues."

Art therapy 'fits our people so well'

Tait feels art therapy can most help aboriginal people, although her clientele is not exclusively native.

"A lot of aboriginal people who were raised traditionally won't look each other in the eye. They will look down or past your head," she says, explaining it is actually a sign of respect. "Looking directly in the eye is a sign of confrontation.

"It's very hard for them to confront someone that says, 'tell me all your problems.' It's not so easy for an aboriginal person to do that, and that's why I feel this work fits our people so well."

"It's a way for us to be with one another without doing something to them — not extracting anything from them. That we are doing this together, that we're equal, regardless of where they've come from or what they've gone through."

For now, she is trying to build relationships with psychologists, correctional facilities, and mental health providers on reserves in the Edmonton region.

Not only does she have to explain the benefits of art therapy, she has to prove herself. "Because I am not from here — I am not Cree, I am not Stoney, my people are from — I am unknown." And because art is such solitary work, she says, it has limited her contact, over the years, with nearby reserves and organizations.

"I made art and had galleries that sold my work, so it doesn't equate to me knowing who is on the reserves around me, and I don't have relatives that can take me on reserves, so I have to earn their trust."

In the meantime, most of her business growth comes from word-of-mouth referrals, focusing on individual therapy and workshops where attendees pay for the service. "My work is a user-pay system right now, and starting in a recession is difficult. But I still believe it works, so I'll keep going," says Tait.

Tait admits the work comes in spurts. "During the downtime, I paint!" She sells her work at local galleries. "To be a good art therapist, you have to be interested in your own art. It is a fundamental part of wellness for me and I am, therefore, able to work more effectively with clients."

Community building

Tait has partnered with the Coordinated Suicide Prevention Program and the Simon Poultney Foundation on an open studio pilot, offering weekly drop-in art sessions until June 24, 2009 at her studio in Spruce Grove. These sessions are art as therapy and not art psychotherapy, she says. If the pilot program goes well, the Community Art Studio will resume in the fall.

"Anybody can come in and create art, and create a sense of community through art," she says. Although Tait is volunteering for this program, her goal is to make art therapy affordable for those who need it, and engage the community - to express themselves with art just as the North American Plains people did on fragile sandstone rocks centuries ago.