With pencils, pastels, watercolors, and a piece of paper set out, Beth Ann Short sits across from a young boy and says, “Imagine an island and draw what you see. There is everything you could ever want and need, and you’d be happy there.” He proceeds to paint sharks surrounding the island as a form of protection. The art serves as a way to express feelings that he didn’t have words for before. This is something that Short has been doing every day for the past 23 years as an art therapist to help their clients find healing through art.
Growing up surrounded by art, Short always loved creating through their father. After his passing when Short was 14, they used art as a grieving process to make sense of their feelings. “I definitely saw some tumultuous times in my childhood, and art was always a part of my life.”
While in undergrad, Short took an art class and with their mentor’s encouragement, decided to pursue a career as an art professor. But while taking a psychology class in graduate school, they ultimately found their true calling when they first learned about the uncommon profession of art therapy. Realizing that there was a career that combined two things Short loved: communicating with people and art, they knew this was the path for them.
“I think everybody gets into the counseling world for a reason,” they said. “I figured that I could help someone else going through something I went through when I was a kid.”
After getting their art therapy license from Marylhurst University in 1997, they worked as a therapist in juvenile centers for seven years before fulfilling their dream of opening their own studio, The 100th Monkey Studio, where people engage in the expressive arts. Open for 14 years, it closed down during the pandemic but did not stop Short from working via telehealth.
Along with working with patients online, Short is now teaching an introduction to art therapy class at Lewis and Clark College. They plan on continuing to do so, along with starting a side project: a documentary about the decolonization of beauty.