In Tribute to AATA Past President Bobbi Stoll

June 2, 2025

In Tribute to AATA Past President Bobbi Stoll, MA, ATR-BC, HLM

After graduating from Syracuse University in 1954, Bobbi became a first-generation computer programmer for Los Angeles County for a few years before pursuing her passion for the arts. She then enrolled in graduate school at Immaculate Heart College.

As she explained about embarking on her art therapy career in the 1970s in Los Angeles: “I learned that you couldn’t just open the door and say, ‘I’m an art therapist!’” In order to be validated as an art therapist, she had to obtain a different license.

Bobbi, along with a few colleagues—and “against the objections of numerous related professionals”—established equivalency of all the courses in the Clinical Art Therapy Master’s degree from Immaculate Heart College to obtain acceptance by the State Board of Behavioral Science to take the examination for licensing as a Marriage and Family Therapist.

“In every class, I had to write the tests we took, the papers we wrote, the lectures we had, who gave them, etc. Then I had to put everything together and take it to the college to be authorized and approved by the dean. Then it was sent to the Licensing Board in California. The irony is that about three-quarters of my classes were in the same group as psychiatrists, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and social workers whose transcripts would be considered legitimate for their licenses. It was a whole different horse for me.” (From her AATA Featured Member profile)

In 1979, Bobbi finally was able to practice as an art therapist—after she challenged California’s Marriage and Family Therapist Licensing Board for the first clinical license issued to an art therapy graduate, which allowed art therapists to be eligible for the MFT license. And she tells her story to remind the next generation of art therapists to overcome barriers, including securing licensure: “Keep getting your hands dirty—it would be a shame to see that creativity diminished.” She went on to serve in private practice as a trauma specialist and as a clinician with many organizations and populations, including the American Red Cross where she worked in disaster services.

In addition, Bobbi was also a lifelong leader of AATA. She chaired AATA’s 9th Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 1978. Bobbi served as President of the AATA Board from 1993-1995. And in 1999, Bobbi was awarded Honorary Life Membership (HLM) by AATA. She also testified in 1993 for art therapy in a US Senate committee hearing on the Older Americans Act, chaired by Senator William Cohen of Maine.

Bobbi was a trailblazer who traveled the world to advance art therapy—and create a global community long before there was an Internet to connect us. Serving as AATA’s Public Information Chair (1981 – 1985), she recognized the isolation felt by art therapists around the world. In 1989, she founded the International Networking Group of Art Therapists (ING/AT), which grew to reach more than 5,000 art therapists from over 80 countries around the globe. “ING correspondents and other inquirers provided contacts for isolated art therapists desperately seeking colleagues, education, credentials, or peer support to develop training or establish an association,” Bobbi explained in an article. That year, she also organized an internal panel presentation at the AATA Annual Conference in San Francisco, in which art therapists from 17 countries participated. For nearly two decades, Bobbi played a central role in the group, which evolved to become the International Shared Interest Group, which continues to thrive today.

Beginning in the early 1980s, Bobbi traveled the world to promote art therapy. In 1984, she taught at the Art Therapy Italiano’s first Intensive Summer Institute in Tuscany and served as a consultant and trainer for London’s Department of Social Services. In 1985, she was again in London to present at the International Society for the Study of Art and Psychopathology (S.I.P.E.), which led invitations to train and speak in Yugoslavia, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and dozens of other countries. In 2008, she was the keynote speaker at the International Rehabilitation Conference in Saudi Arabia, and served as a consultant for a developing Saudi art therapy graduate program.

Bobbi retired from clinical practice in 2012 but continued her involvement with the Red Cross, having supported people in 29 national disasters. Later in life, Bobbi was forced to retire her sketchbooks due to her vision problems related to Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), but she continued her collage art.

Bobbi was a powerful advocate for art therapy, the arts, and mental health—and a passionate leader, mentor, and friend who touched the lives of art therapists around the world. She will be missed.

Bobbi Stoll’s artwork is available for view (and sale) on her website, www.bobbistoll.com. Bobbi’s family may be reached here.

If you’re an AATA member, please join the conversation as we share memories about Bobbi here in the MyAATA community.

AATA invites everyone to join us as we celebrate Bobbi’s life and the lives of other art therapists we lost this year during the Memorial Service at the AATA2025 In-Person Conference in Portland, Oregon, to be held on Friday, Oct. 10, 5:30 – 6:30 pm PT.