I don't know if I told you but in addition to two big art shows this summer I am volunteering to work with Austic kids at the Mind Institute at U.C. Davis med School here in Sacto. It should be interesting in light of your article. Cay D.

If we do not consider art and it's diagnostic functions, regardless of whether the artist is exhibiting at a SoHo gallery, is a savant, or a child prodigy, we are forgetting it's primal relationship to the psyche and its drives, needs, and abilities. Art accesses elements of the psyche, abilities of the human brain, when the conscious mind and the ego will not, or cannot. Any art creation is a direct link to those vast, rich depths within. So yes, regardless of who we are, what our abilities or challenges may be, art tells a specific story about our individual psyche at the time the image is made.

In the case of Lorna Selfe's work, clearly her art was diagnostic. It provided information regarding her high level of cognitive fucntioning when her verbal skills could not. Her choices of subject matter and use or lack of color also tell us something about her emotional ability and functioning at the time the image was made. Her art work was and is a fundamental expression of psychic information that proved crucial in how she was received, understood and provided for.

Art is never just art. Art is always the image of the dynamic functionings of our complex psyche, and is no matter when, where or by whom, diagnostic - even if we enjoy looking at it.
Susan Sabini, MA, LPC, ATR-BC
Clinical Art Therapist
The Art Therapy Practice of South Denver
303 981-5034