Editor's Note
Sarah Gysin, MA, RP, RCAT
Ottawa, ON
After a long hiatus, it brings me great joy to announce that Envisage is back and better than ever! Announcing the return of Envisage just as the sounds, smells, and colours of summer begin to emerge seems quite fitting, and it feels like a great time for new beginnings and change to flourish.
As editor of Envisage, last autumn I made the difficult decision to pause the magazine and rework some of its structure. This online space has always been first and foremost a platform to highlight and uplift the voices of our community and provide a space for art therapists to share their work, their discoveries, and their stories. In keeping with this intention, it was so important that we continue to assess and ensure that Envisage remains accessible, inclusive, and welcoming to all forms of knowing. It was also important for us to consider the future sustainability of Envisage, and the time our volunteers spent to ensure that the magazine was running smoothly.
In light of this, Envisage is now taking the form of a biweekly/monthly online publication using a blog format, rather than the previous format of issues. Every month, two or three articles will be shared on the website. This allows for us to spread our content more evenly throughout the year, increasing capacity for readability and engagement, as well as giving a bit more space for those working on Envisage to continue their roles in a sustainable capacity.
Call-outs for submissions will be ongoing throughout the year, but we have limited the word count of our submissions to a maximum of 1000 words to encourage more short-form content that is accessible to more of our reviewers, writers, and readers. For longer works, or those that are more involved academically, we still encourage you to submit to CATA’s academic journal!
Envisage continues its commitment to creating a culturally safe and anti-oppressive space for art therapists and art therapy students. It will continue to provide a space for our community to work on the decolonization of our practice as art therapists and feature work that is reflective of all ways of knowing, beyond a Western lens. This is something I will continue to uphold and prioritize in my role as editor of the publication.
Over the next few months, you may notice a few changes here and there as we tweak the way we run the publication and open space for this new format to grow and take shape. You can also expect a few more articles this month and next, as we work through some of the content, we received last autumn and ensure that all of you who have submitted are featured! We will be re-opening submissions at the beginning of August to accommodate for this timeline.
I would like to extend a big, warm thank you to all of those who have demonstrated patience and understanding with our restructuring process these last several months. I know many of you are eager to begin to share your work with us again, and we are so thankful for the community of art therapists that have shared this space with us over the last several years of Envisage’s publication. We would not be here without all of you.
If you’re interested in learning more about volunteering or helping review the articles that our readers submit, please reach out to me at magazine@canadianarttherapy.org.