Featured Member: Janet Sgro - American Art Therapy Association

August 30, 2024

The American Art Therapy Association represents a diversity of professionals, students, and organizations across the nation. We recognize and celebrate the work of our members at all levels through our Featured Member series.

What are you most excited about in your career as an art therapist?

I am most excited about being a witness to client’s healing that occurs through the use of Somatic Art Therapy.

What advice would you give someone interested in pursuing a career in art therapy?

I resonate with collaboration and connection, so encourage people interested in a career in art therapy to network, build awareness, never stop learning. I decided to become an art therapist as a second career after learning the power of healing through art. Healing is found within the connection of the mind, body and spirit.

Artist Statement: The “Gift of Knowledge” painting is part of an art series I did based on my grandmother’s little red 1912 prayer book titled “Novena to the Holy Spirit”. The imagery shows a woman in a white garment floating in water.

On the right side, an octopus is wrapping tentacles around her arm, extending up the shoulder, neck and head, mimicking the pattern of chronic pain that I experience.

The left arm shows the purple ink running through her veins, transforming into flowers held in her hand and floating in the water. The flowers join white birds flying into the golden horizon.

The imagery speaks of the transformation of trauma and fear into love and healing. This whole series manifested a significant stage of growth and evolution. I healed from past trauma, grew closer to God decided to become an art therapist.

The Gift of Knowledge (woman in water). 2012.
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

How have race, diversity, and social justice impacted your work as an art therapy student?

Race, diversity and social justice have impacted my work as an art therapy student and practitioner. Trauma continues to be at the root of many of these issues. I have found that the after effect of trauma manifests itself in somatic symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, dis-ease and chronic pain. I focus my approach in art therapy on somatic art therapy, allowing the body to be the gateway into the healing relationship.

What are your hopes for the future of the art therapy profession?

I hope awareness of art therapy continues to grow and it becomes a collaborative mainstream modality in diverse populations globally

I’ve always looked at the world through curious eyes of awe and wonder. The visual play of color, shape, light and shadow fills my soul with innovative creativity. My ideas are rooted in a strong spiritual foundation that surface through my artwork. In my most recent body of work, I focus my attention on nature, specifically on flowers and the inner glow of their life force. It intrigues me and speaks of the power of God in all living things.

– Janet Srgo

Innocence of the White Rabbit (blue poppies). 2021.
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

Artist Statement: Innocence of the White Rabbit is a painting I made while I was an art therapy graduate student. It was done in 2021, during the stressful time of the Covid Pandemic. I felt sad, isolated, scared and was in such a state of confusion. During this time, I created many large blue paintings, looking for calm and peace. This painting became a holder of emotion and specifically processed grief around learning of the magnitude of child trafficking happening in our world. I was sickened by this and turned to art to help me heal. The small figures in the Himalayan blue poppy flowers are helping each other, giving hope to an otherwise dire situation. I found solace through art therapy.

About Janet Sgro

Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Janet Sgro graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 1997. For over 25 years, she has created art and shown her work across the country in both professional settings and private collections.

Janet acquired her Masters of Art in Art Therapy and Counseling from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in 2023. Their rigorous graduate program standards for art therapy and counseling are foundational for a successful professional career in art therapy.

In her thesis study, Janet focused on how bilateral sensorimotor art therapy alleviates chronic pain. She coupled this method of study with the polyvagal theory and found the nervous system gained moments of integration and embodiment during the creative process. Janet works with the Institute for Sensorimotor Art Therapy to learn more about bilateral guided drawing and specializes in trauma therapy using guided drawing and somatic art therapy. She helps clients, art therapists and other artists learn more about these innovative methods of healing.

Janet is the founder, curator and President of The Pharmacy Gallery & Art Space in Springfield, Illinois, a non-profit 501c3 organization. This award-winning gallery & art space focuses on community based outreach efforts through fine art events and education. In 2023, The Pharmacy Gallery & Art Space received a $1.2 million-dollar grant from the state of Illinois to purchase and renovate the downtown 3-story building for the expansion of art therapy.

In 2024, Janet founded RX Art Therapy, Inc. and is creating an art therapy program on the 2nd floor of the alternative art space.