About Tish McAllise Sjoberg, M.A.
Expressive Arts Therapist, Coach & Consultant . . . Art Maker

The death of my mother, father, and beloved dog within a short 6-month period brought me both to Expressive Arts Therapy and hospice work. I am a graduate of the Expressive Arts Institute of San Diego, an intensive three year training program, and received my Masters in Expressive Arts Therapy with a Minor in Psychology from the European Graduate School in Switzerland and am now enrolled in their doctoral program.

I have a private practice in the North Park area of San Diego where I see individual clients and offer workshops and groups. I also do contract work as an Expressive Arts Therapist serving: homeless in San Diego County; at-risk youth through agencies and schools; grieving, dying, and staff at local hospices; adults with developmental and physical disabilities at St. Madeleine Sophie's Center / Sophie's Gallery; elementary and middle school classrooms using the arts to build community (anti-bullying) and support curriculum; and an intensive out patient program for eating disorders.

In the seven plus years that I have been doing this work I have seen amazing results in both myself and in my clients. Sometimes I think this work is magic, it is definitely magical! The imagination holds a fabulous play space where we can find many of the answers we are searching for.

My thesis, Artist is a Verb: Meeting the Fear of Making Art with Making Art, looks at my own process of walking through fears around art making and also my work with clients and their path to building creative confidence. I have found the Expressive Arts Therapy and Coaching model to be very helpful in creating a safe place to play and explore, an opportunity to create change in your life, as well as grow your artist self if you choose.

During my expressive arts training I became an avid painter and visual artist. I try to paint or do art daily, the result of a challenge I made to myself to do 365 Days of Art back in 2003. I have now been doing art in my daily life for over 7 years. I do not create masterpieces, I put paint on paper. That is the joy for me, the marriage of the brush, the paint and the paper. It is nice when the end result is pleasing to me, but it is the process that makes my heart sing!

My portraits are my own personal investigation into relationships with people I know or have met, into aspects of myself and into the human condition. Most of these simple portraits are drawn while I am blindfolded in the blind contour fashion: the pen stays on the paper for the entire time, creating one continuous line.  Once drawn, I then open my eyes to paint. This style arouse from my deep desire to paint and right next to it my fear that I would be stalled in perfectionism because I did not know how or what to paint. This process continues to give me pleasure and the opportunity to try new things as a painter.

I work mostly on 22” x 28” paper using acrylics and sometimes embellishing my work with collage. In the past two years I have been asked to do pet portraits in my blind art fashion and now consider myself a “pet portrait painter of a different kind.” My gallery shows have been a great way for me to meet people who are afraid to do art and share my own story.

Click here to see Tish's art