Art Therapist Sara DeSmet Displays Resilience at Cypress College’s Gallery and in Her Own Practice
- Laila Freeman
- 6 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Irvine therapist uses art to convey resilience – and helps others do the same.
Irvine resident Sara DeSmet blends the arts with her therapeutic practice.
“Since I was really young, I've always loved to draw – make art,” DeSmet said. “So, it's just always been a part of my life and I feel like it's a need to get something out – that externalizing – getting that creativity out. And so when I went to college I majored in art and psychology, which actually did lend itself later on to art therapy. At first I wasn't certain, even after that trip, if I would pursue art therapy, but it was a consideration.”
Originally from Minnesota, DeSmet attended St. Olaf College in Northfield. During an interim in New York City, she explored the possibilities of an artistic career and her interest was piqued by an art therapist who had shared about her practice to the class. At the time, New York was an early trailblazer of art therapy. Since, California has adopted this artistic approach to counseling.
When DeSmet became a mother, she went through postpartum anxiety, so prior to pivoting to private practice, she worked with postpartum clients exclusively. A particular session from this time stands out to her where she used art therapy to help a new mother experiencing the identity shift that comes with becoming a parent. The woman drew an image of lipstick to represent her former identity and then a baby bottle.
“What a dramatic shift that is and trying to figure out how to navigate back to yourself and maybe even integrate yourself with becoming a mom,” DeSmet said. “It's something that I had a lot of passion for, and I also experienced an identity shift in becoming a mom because I was also an artist, a therapist, a daughter, sister, all these other things. So, that was a moment where I just felt really, really certain that art therapy was the right career path for me. What a privilege and honor to get to work with other women who were going through something that I could relate to and have that deeper empathy for. It really helped the work, the art therapy.”
Exploring resilience with fellow art therapists
DeSmet and a group of fellow art therapists recently collaborated on an exhibition at Cypress College titled, “Resilience.” The collection also displayed artworks by Maria Elena Fuster, Alexia Kustner, Eliza Ann Mitchell and Licia Wise, and was on view March 12 through April 16.
Wise and DeSmet have been gathering with the other featured art therapists since before the pandemic. Each meeting came with a theme to create art based on what the group had been feeling in the moment, which is how they landed on “Resilience.”
Part of the statement for this exhibition read, “As art therapists who continually aid clients in making meaning, we believe in the human spirit and in its resilience. During these times of continued political and environmental turmoil, pressing on to find meaning and overcoming challenge(s) is as important as ever. We are interested in connecting to the communities around us to encourage resilience. We hope our work brings together the community to dialogue around such important issues.”
As this group of art therapists were developing the "Resilience" exhibition, California’s Senate passed Concurrent Resolution 60, acknowledging “the positive impact art therapy has had on the state.”
The gallery also included a table featuring art supplies and repurposed books any visitor could take inspiration from. One of the highlights of the exhibition was DeSmet’s acrylic on canvas piece, “The New Thermal II: Carrying On,” which depicts a pangolin, aka a scaly anteater, with its young in a desert landscape. She empathized with this endangered animal due to the species being continuously hunted and previously blamed in theories about the pandemic’s origin.
“Pangolins just have this incredible armor and they’re really strong and resilient, and the theme for the show is resilience,” DeSmet said. “Because we wanted to look at how we get through tough things like COVID – the current turmoil politically, environmentally. So, it was a really great animal to symbolize that fortitude and toughness whether it’s getting through the blame that was cast its way – the shade that was cast its way for COVID – or just being a creature that’s trying to survive with what's going on with the climate crisis and the environment. I'm definitely a fan of the pangolin and I hope that humans feel compelled to protect them better and not use them for other purposes.”
Wise appreciates how DeSmet utilizes animal imagery to convey narratives about heavy topics like environmental crises. A watercolor artwork of DeSmet’s, “The New Surveyor,” stood out to Wise because the images are telling a bleak story, and yet DeSmet’s talent gives the piece an enduring quality. “The New Surveyor” depicts a crab standing atop a garbage heap.
“It doesn't feel dark and scary unless you think about it, but it's very poignant in a way,” Wise said. “The way she positions her animals – so expressive – the crab I think is kind of reaching up with its little claws and reaching for something. It's pretty moving how she paints.”
Animals have always been a theme in DeSmet’s art, even since she was young.
“I think children often do have an affinity for animals because we can relate to them as kids,” DeSmet said. “They're also small, powerless, but they can be heroes in the story. They can do great things even though they're small. I think animals are just a great way, even for adults, to have these characters in their own art to just have some space between what you're experiencing and what that animal character is experiencing. They convey so much about human experience when we anthropize them, but that gives us the safe distance to see it with either a little humor or with just another angle. It is really helpful to tell stories through animals.”
DeSmet is not only attentive to clients, but also fellow artists. Wise refers to DeSmet as a “skilled leader,” always looking forward to the thoughtful feedback she provides to their art group.
“She's always very generous with her attention to what other people are doing,” Wise said. “She obviously has a lot to say with her art, but she's also very generous when we're meeting, with the attention that she gives to other people's art and the things that she has to say – the thoughtfulness that she brings to looking at our art as well. She's a really lovely person and it's nice to have a chance to collaborate with her.”
DeSmet and Wise guided a free workshop alongside Mitchell on April 13 at Cypress College. This “Make Your Own Award” class aided participants in creating an original award to commemorate their unique grit.
“We also wanted to engage the community in being able to either experience what we do as art therapists,” DeSmet said. “Maybe some of the Cypress College students might consider a career in that area, or to just engage in art therapy and see that it might have value in their life as participants as well.”
Sara DeSmet's "The New Thermal I: Frigid" (2022), left, and "The New Thermal II: Carrying On" (2022), each 10 inches x 10 inches, acrylics on canvas. Images courtesy of Sara DeSmet
What does an art therapy session look like?
Expression is the core value that drives DeSmet’s art. She values it for the ways it provides a voice to her and her clients.
A typical art therapy session with DeSmet looks like checking in with the client and how they’re progressing with the goals they’ve set. Sometimes, DeSmet even uses the art as the check-in to explore feelings conveyed by drawing a symbol.
“It could be any everyday object,” she said. “A noodle, a rubber band and office supplies. And showing with that, how they're feeling depending on maybe how flexible they feel or how maybe they feel stuck, they can show that with an object. So, the art can come in there. It can also come in later on when we're talking about maybe difficult relationships or challenges that they're having in any area of life – personal work.
“They can represent something about what that feels like, and so the art can be a way to see a problem in a different way or to discover a way to get through that problem. For some of my clients, really common issues they're experiencing: anxiety, depression. So, really looking at ways that the art can be a coping skill, or exploring other things that they can even write out or depict that can help them cope to be able to feel better and reach the goals that we've set out to reach in therapy.”
Contrary to what one may assume, as of now, most of DeSmet’s current clients are adults.
“I do let clients know that it's a way for them to explore thoughts and feelings which are invisible,” DeSmet said. “See them in a different way, make them more visible, more tangible. I also let them know that it doesn't matter what it looks like. I definitely give clients that option to try it and see if it works for them and really let them know that it doesn't matter what it looks like. For some clients when they hear art, they think, ‘oh, what if I'm not a good artist?’”
DeSmet debunked another possible assumption about art therapy. She’s noticed that not being an artist may actually be more helpful during a session. She’s observed that artists can be perfectionists and drift from expression to wanting the art to look a certain way. She reminds her clients that the art’s quality doesn’t matter, but instead, how it allows them to explore their expressions without constraint.
From drawing animals to writing a book
Growing up in the Midwestern woods, DeSmet had never encountered possums until she moved to the Golden State to attend Cal State Long Beach in 2007. Her time in the MFA in Studio Arts program gave birth to her children’s book, “Scared Silly,” about a possum who keeps scaring other critters, which she wrote and illustrated herself.
“We had skunks and lots of squirrels and other animals, but I never really encountered a possum,” DeSmet said. “But here in this urban setting in Long Beach, they would appear every now and then on the campus at night, and they were just such an eerie animal. And I love the book, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak, where he was one of the first pioneers to create a children's book about the fun of being scared. And so I wanted this possum to be a character in my own children's book and explore the fun of being scared.”
DeSmet is currently finishing up her next children’s book, which she started before she was a mother.
“In this book, there's characters who are longing to have a little one, and they're having some challenges with that,” she said. “And then, they discover this egg and it turns out to be a baby crocodile. And they're ducks, so there could be some challenges in that – in figuring out how to be parents to another species. But also, the book is very focused on that main character of the crocodile and how it has to form its own identity, even in the stuck world, and sort of embrace its uniqueness and stand on its own two feet. So those are the themes I'm exploring with that new story.”
