{"id":11858,"date":"2021-02-09T13:35:29","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T18:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/?p=11858"},"modified":"2021-02-22T13:39:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T18:39:25","slug":"oconnell-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/fineartsalumni\/oconnell-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Erica O&#8217;Connell &#8217;17"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>After graduating from URI in 2017 with an Art BFA, Erica O&#8217;Connell attended Naropa University. She received a master&#8217;s in clinical mental health counseling and art therapy in 2020. She is now an art therapist and mental health clinician for a community based mental health agency.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Q. How did your URI degree best prepare you for your career path?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A. It prepared me by paving the path to graduate school and gave me a variety of skills so I felt prepared for what was ahead.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>In your opinion, what is the value of the arts both academically and in the community?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The value of the arts is exponential. I have the honor of using art to promote healing in therapy and it is a special tool that opens up a multitude of avenues for a person&#8217;s wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What advice would you give to current students or to young people thinking of pursuing a Fine Arts degree?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Art is something that is a lifelong journey. It is important to have the tools to express, however your expression takes form &#8212; whether it is through art or a different way. Art is expansive and continues to expand, there is no need to stay in the box of what an artist is expected to be and create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Art <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;I have the honor of using art to promote healing in therapy and it is a special tool that opens up a multitude of avenues for a person&#8217;s wellbeing.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":11861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fineartsalumni"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12203,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions\/12203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}