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Author: Babs McDonald, PhD

Babs McDonald has degrees from Virginia Tech, North Carolina State University, and the University of Georgia. Her PhD is in Adult Learning from the University of Georgia, where she studied personal transformation and environmental spirituality. Babs is the founder of Natural Inquirer, a free natural resource science journal published by the USDA Forest Service for K-12 students. In 2017, Babs experienced an ischemic stroke, sending her on a personal journey to learn and experience as much as possible about stroke recovery. In this essay, Babs describes her experience of using mindful art as a self-styled occupational/physical therapy.

My Journey Using Art as Physical Therapy

Babs McDonald describes her journey toward recovery from an ischemic stroke through painting and sketching. Through numerous examples of her artwork, she details her experiences pushing through impairment to create images chronicling her life. Based on her success, she advocates for the use of fine art techniques to foster upper limb movement in stroke survivors. Creating her art, she says, has taught her that “there are no failures in my recovery, only new challenges.”