January 17. 2019
Melissa Fannin, MA, ATR, LPC, recently celebrated the one year anniversary of her private practice, Fannin Counseling & Art Therapy. She is an AATA member because, “I simply like knowing that I have an entire community that I can lean on.” “I find comfort in that,” she adds. Fannin particularly valued her recent experience at the 2018 AATA conference in Miami where she “reunited with former classmates and instructors and felt reconnected to the art therapy community.” She found it “inspiring and rejuvenating to be a part of the community.”
Since graduating from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM in 2011 with her MA in Art Therapy/Counseling, Fannin has worked in a variety of settings, including an alternative high school for at-risk youth in Santa Fe and an outpatient drug and alcohol clinic in Eugene, OR. She incorporates mindfulness and meditation into her practice. “Bringing mindfulness into the art creation process can help individuals identify thought patterns and ultimately break unhealthy habits,” she says.
For the future of the profession, Fannin hopes that “it keeps moving in the positive direction it is going, building awareness and becoming more accessible.”
“Water Break” by Melissa Fannin. March 2018.
Artist’s statement: “A painting of my daughter taking a drink of water on a hot day.”