Artist in the Art Therapist

Leara Glinzak, ATR, MSAT is a Registered Art Therapist and Owner of I Light LLC, a therapy practice and art therapy studio located in Grand Rapids, MI. She also has several programs going on in the studio including Open Studio and Soul-Fill Sunday. This show is unique to her identity as she has struggled with keeping her “artist identity” and “art therapist identity” apart from one another. With the two different aspects to her identity, Leara kept two separate journals dedicated to each, one as an artist and another as an art therapist where each journal is personal to her for different reasons.

Leara received a Bachelor of Arts in Art Therapy from Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA and has a Master of Science in Art Therapy with a Concentration in Counseling from Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, WI.  In her practice Leara specializes in distress, grief, trauma, addiction, Dementia, spiritual growth, medical models, life transitions and Cancer care. She also leads therapy groups in her practice and contracts out therapy services to organizations. You may see her leading programs as well such as here at Dominican Center. She has been published twice in the peer review Journal of the American Art Therapy Association one for her research, “Effects of Art Therapy on Distress Levels of Adults with Cancer: A proxy pretest study” and another as a book review of “Art and Expressive Therapies within a Medical Model: Clinical Applications." She has given presentations and workshops nationally and locally where she currently serves on the Research Board for the American Art Therapy Association.

Throughout life, Leara has found a lot of healing in Mother Earth and her creativity is heavily influenced by nature. This show is a culmination of some pieces from both identities and pieces where there has been an overlap of the two. As you walk through this show, you will notice a variety of materials and you may notice more watercolors as she explores how her two identities are coming together as one with this medium. This can be more noticeable in her most recent watercolor works of Zion National Park and Bryce National Park. Leara personally finds a lot of resiliency, grief processing, grounding and inspiration in nature which has been a key component in the majority of her work.