Written by Sarah Bowman
Lois was one of a handful of founding members of MNATA in the seventies. She reports that she held every possible leadership position in MNATA! She remembers that the music and movement therapists would sometimes meet with the art therapists to share therapist-developing experientials.
Lois reports that she was a yogi, and that her pursuit of art therapy was interrupted early on by a brain aneurism that required surgery. Not only did she go back to school at six different universities and colleges to finish her coursework for art therapy, she also had a long career. She first worked at Oneida Education Center in Saint Paul with the mentally ill who lived in boarding houses after the asylums closed, and then at Saint Joseph’s hospital in Saint Paul. She brought a variety of transformative healing art therapy directives to the adults in both settings. Later, she taught art therapy at Lakewood Community College. During this time, she also raised a family of six children with her supportive husband. Although she is no longer working as an art therapist, she is still a champion of art therapy. She is now an Honorary Lifetime Member of MNATA. She has 15 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.