I am a multimodal Creative Arts Therapist (AThR) and professional member of the Australian, New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association (ANZACATA). They are the peak professional body for creative arts therapists in the Asia/Pacific.

I hold a Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice with a specialisation in Community Arts & Health, awarded by the MIECAT Institute—the Melbourne Institute of Creative and Experiential Art Therapies.

As a Creative Arts Therapist, I work multimodally. This means I value all forms of expression/creating as equal. I work across visual, digital, physical and musical artforms.

As a practitioner, I place lived experience at the center. I am trauma-informed, LGBTIAQ+ friendly and neurodiversity affirming.

I am a service designer with a background in digital and physical customer & visitor experience design, having worked at large arts institutions in Melbourne for the majority of my career.

My approach is relational and multimodal, influenced by the MIECAT Form of Inquiry and Relational Systems Thinking.

I am passionate about emotional culture and wellbeing within workplaces and communities.
I firmly believe that grounding organisational values within how we feel at work and deliver our services is an integral part of connecting what we say with what we do.

I am an accredited Emotional Culture Deck Practitioner, certified by elephants&riders. Combined with my training as a Creative Arts Therapist and experience as a systems and service designer, I help organisations form values, define strategy and deconstruct systems.

I studied both Musical Theatre and Jazz Improvisation at the Victorian College of the Arts. I have toured nationally and internationally as a cabaret artist, under the stage name Jessamae St James.

My art practice is now focused on site-specific work that explores experiential and therapeutic qualities using analog and digital tools.