New York Expressive Arts writing
WRITING ABOUT THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS
CLICK ON ANOTHER OF OUR FEATURED WRITERS FOR MORE!
MARKUS ALEXANDER • SUSANA ARMBRUSTER • YVONNE LUCIA • STEVE PODRY • JUDITH PREST • DENIE WHALEN • REBEKAH WINDMILLER

Featured writer: Susanna Armbruster
Susanna Armbruster is a graduate of Glass Lake Studio and the post graduate program in Expressive Arts Therapy at EGS. Currently she works as an Expressive Arts Therapy Educator at Bard College in Annandale-on-the-Hudson facilitating the Children's Expressive Arts Project with students at the college. To contact Susanna, click here.

An Interview with Susanna

When and how did you get into EXA?
EXA asked Greg, my husband, to tell me to listen up, that I was supposed to do this work. In the summer of 1995, while we were still living in NYC, he and I attended Omega Institute for a week. He attended the workshop, "The Creative Connection" with Natalie Rogers and Markus was a co-facilitator. Greg participated fully in the workshop and he understood the philosophy of exa as they presented it but he knew it wasn't something he was interested in pursuing. However, he felt that this was something I should look into because it combined helping others with creativity. I had been struggling for years to understand why I was on the planet. I wanted to help people, I needed a spiritual base in my life and I needed to understand who I was as a creative person. Greg realized this was where I needed to be. While at Omega, he introduced me to Markus and then months later, after I had moved up to Red Hook, I attended a one-day introductory workshop with Markus. That was in early 1997 and I have never left!

What drives you to do this work?
When I look back at my life, remembering all the different journeys I've been on, this is the one thing that has helped me tie them all together. All the things I did when I was in my early 20's drove me to the proverbial bottom of the well and it has been through exa that I've found a way to reconcile myself to those actions. And at the same time, it truly has given me the opportunity to help others in so many ways--from being an active listener to being able to talk to a child about dying and lots of things in between--so the theory that we, as practitioners, have to be able to sit with our own stuff before we can sit with others and their stuff showed up in my life's interactions and proved that this work is about truth. I'm compelled to continue in this work because I believe in this truth.

In what capacity do you use EXA? work? personal? therapy, education, consulting?
Currently, I use exa in education, training Bard College students in the Children's Expressive Arts Project so they can facilitate art-based workshops for emotionally disturbed, autistic and under privileged children in our local community, New Orleans, and globally. 

Right after graduating from the Master's program at EGS, I for a local Hospice where I facilitated children's bereavement groups and worked with siblings or children of Hospice patients. I no longer work for this Hospice but volunteer with a children's bereavement group. I deeply miss the work I was doing, especially work in the homes, but realize that the work with the college students will touch children's lives so that eases the missing somewhat.

Personally, exa allows me to be creative in many ways while helping me sort through personal issues. Or not. It's also taught me that sometimes I just need to be still, to not be doing something all the time and that I still have value if I choose to just sit an afternoon away!

What was it like to learn how to work intermodal?
Learning to work intermodally was like learning to love horses, after one kicked me in the head when I was a small child (yes, that's a true story). I was afraid of horses when I was small. To me, they were big and strong and unpredictable. So I didn't go near them. But then, I was kicked by one and amazingly, I didn't get hurt. Then I was totally in love with horses. I didn't get my own until years later and I was ecstatic. I loved that getting ready to ride was always the same process (get the horse, put on the bridle, blanket saddle, etc.) but what happened after that was going to be different every time and the two of us chose our direction and speed! Then when the ride was over, the process of putting everything away was the same. 

So, in a way, I had to get kicked in the head by exa to realize that I won't be hurt by it . . . 

Working intermodally gives me courage to depend on a structure that holds whatever needs to happen. Also, redefining "intermodal" is a fun thing to do--how can office work be intermodal? What about allowing so much play that you don't "see" the work but the magic of the moment tells me that something deep is happening? Realizing that intermodal offers more than just visual art, writing, movement and sound . . . always being curious about what's next . . . 

What is your personal philosophy about EXA?
Markus has always maintained that exa is a lifestyle and I totally agree. What we do in a workshop can also be done in the way I go about my day. I can better see the connections between seemingly unrelated things and if I'll take a moment, things will lay themselves out before me in new ways. There are resources I can draw from, that even the mundane holds magic, that I have the ability to let things move around and be flexible.

I also believe that every person deserves to know their own creativity, whatever it looks like, and be honored for it. Especially children. Children need to grow up supported by adults who realize that their imaginations have merit and that play, beauty and creating can happen just for the fun of it.

If you were to give future EXA students advice what would it be?
Don't stop. Question? Yes. Challenge? Yes. Keep going? Yes, a zillion times.