Audrey C.

Title: from here.,/now
Dimensions: 4’ 5” x 5' 10.5”
Credit: Audrey C.Artist Bio

Audrey Connor (she/they) grew up in the channeled scablands of Eastern Washington, five generations of white settlers deep in the high desert. She has been making art and writing voraciously this entire time in various forms, with the rabid support of her family and the community they’ve collected across the decades. Completing bachelor’s degrees at both the Savannah College of Art and Design (cum laude in Visual Communication) and the Evergreen State College (an Evergreen degree, IYKYK), Audrey came to L&C specifically for the Master’s of Science in Art Therapy program, and are completing a study about the impact of climate change and creative process on the mental health of Gen Z students. Additionally, she recently completed the coursework for the Ecotherapies certificate. They look forward to many more years of community mental health, writing wordy papers, and making art and nature more accessible to broader populations.

Artist Statement

The concept of being a container has always been an interesting one to turn over for me. What do we contain beyond ourselves? How do we contain the truth of the world? How do we hold people’s lived experience? The backbone of my research study is rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology, which posits that all knowledge gleaned in the research process cannot be separated from the context in which it emerges. This piece is about me as a clinician and a researcher, but it’s also truly a love letter to the people who raised me—my mother, a clinical psychologist; my father, a journalist and photographer; and my artistic and activist communities across Spokane, Seattle, Olympia, and Portland, who have all taught me how to be a real person. Nothing is healed or accomplished in a vacuum. Context is everything.

I have learned incredible, valuable things from every one of my peers, in a way that I don’t actually have words to state, but will carry with me literally forever; you have all taught me more than the curriculum ever could.

Thank you Kassandra Leyva, for being your fierce, loving bad self and making even the hardest parts of these years so beautiful. Thank you Danielle Deal for being the role model of eco-art therapist and whole-hearted person that I truly could not have done this without. And thank you to all of our cats: Fantasma, Ozzie, Chopper, Gus, and Doris, for keeping us upright.