Professor, Department Chair of Art Education & Community Arts Practices and Program Head of Art Therapy
Art Education, Art Therapy
Lisa Kay, EdD, ATR-BC
- Email: lisakay@temple.edu
- Phone: 215-777-9264
- Office: Tyler B10J
Lisa Kay is an artist/researcher, art educator, and art therapist whose creative voice is manifested in and enhanced by the integration of these three identities. She considers art, teaching, and therapy as an integral part of her art practice.
A board-certified art therapist, Kay's research interests combine her curiosity about artistic development, the psychology of child art, and the healing potentials of the arts with children, adolescents and adults. Her publications concern the intersections and collaborations of contemporary art education and school art therapy, resilience and art making with adolescents who have experienced trauma and adversity, narrative art in healing, and the use of creative arts and visual imagery as both pedagogical and qualitative research methods. Kay's recent book Therapeutic Approaches in Art Education brings together ideas and resources from her art education research and art therapy practice.
Kay is a National Art Education Association’s (NAEA) Distinguished Fellow, Class of 2021, a Fulbright Scholar, the recipient of the National Art Education Association 2014 Women’s Caucus Mary Rouse Award and the 2016 Council on Exceptional Children, Kennedy Center Very Special Arts Peter Geisser Special Needs Educator of the Year for her significant professional contributions.
Lisa Kay's coedited book "Restorative Practices in Education through the Arts" that explores ways the arts address trauma-related issues with a particular focus on healing beyond adversity is due to be published in 2025.
EdD, Northern Illinois University, 2008
MA, University of Memphis, 1980
BFA, University of Memphis, 1975
Selected Awards
Distinguished Fellow
National Art Education Association 2021
Peter J. Geisser Special Needs Art Educator of the Year
National Art Education Association (NAEA), The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), VSA (2016)
Outstanding Special Needs Art Educator (2015)
Pennsylvania Art Education Association
Mary Rouse Award (2015)
Women’s Caucus, National Art Education Association
Fulbright Scholar (2011)
Bridging Borders: Art Therapy, Art Education and Qualitative Inquiry, Hungary
Selected Work
Kay, L., Heise, D. & Johns, B. (in press). Restorative Practices in Education through the Arts. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.
Kay, L. (2020). Therapeutic Approaches to Art Education. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.
Kay, L. (2018). Yellow Bricks: Transformative Art Pedagogy. In A. Hunter, D. Heise, & B. Johns (Eds.), Art
for Children Experiencing Psychological Trauma: A Guide for Art Educators and School-Based
Professionals (pp. 157-166). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kay, L., & Wolf, D. (2017). Artful Coalitions: Challenging Adverse Childhood Experiences. Art Education,
70(5), 26-33.
Kaiser, D. H. & Kay, L. (2016). Arts-Based Research: Creating Knowledge in Art Therapy. In D. E. Gussak,
& M. L. Rosal (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Art Therapy (pp. 663-672). Chichester, UK;
Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons.
Kay, L. (2015). Research as Bricolage: Navigating in/between the creative arts disciplines. In A. Meadows
& M. Viega (Eds.), Music Therapy Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Kay, L. (2013, March). Bead Collage: An Arts-Based Research Method. International Journal of Education
& the Arts, 14(3), 1-8. Retrieved from http://www.ijea.org/v14n3/