About Rose
I'm a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) and a practicing artist with a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Those two disciplines are the foundation of everything I do at Freeform Studio. I work with children and teens navigating stress, trauma, loss, and emotional challenges, experiences that are hard to put into words. In navigating these challenges, each child is both trusted and supported on a path that is uniquely their own.
The Art and Therapy Connection
I trained as an artist and as a clinician because I believe those disciplines belong together. I hold a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master's degree in Counseling and Psychological Services from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. Both inform everything that happens in the studio.
What I learned as an artist, and what I still believe, is that the first step to healing or changing is to be seen and known, both by yourself and by others. The creative process offers a way for that to happen authentically. Not the finished product, but the process itself: the spontaneous, improvisational, embodied act of making. The kind of creative work that actually reveals something is free and uninhibited, without expectations of outcomes. It's messy by nature. And it translates powerfully into work with children.
Why Children
Kids don't have context for their experience the way adults do. They tend to internalize what's happening around them, good and bad, and they don't always have the tools to make sense of it. That's why early support matters. It's easier to break down barriers to creativity and self-expression while children are still young, before self-consciousness takes hold.
I also just love working with kids. My approach is spontaneous, embodied, and improvisational. We move, we play, we create together in the moment. It's interactive and sometimes funny. Even when we're processing the most difficult aspects of a child's life, the work can be playful. And honestly, it should be, or it doesn't really work with kids.
Meeting Every Kind of Kid
My experience working in schools and community settings has given me the chance to work with children of many types and temperaments. From kids who are immediately open and willing to be vulnerable, to those who are quiet and guarded, to those who are restless or resistant. None of that scares me. Drawing those kids out is one of my strengths. If your child isn't the type who would sit still for a traditional therapy session, that's okay. That might actually be a good reason to be here.
Catching the Spark
Every child carries a spark. Something alive, creative, and entirely their own. It's in there no matter what they're going through or how they're showing up right now.
A lot of growing up is learning to follow the rules, to subvert yourself to whatever is expected. For kids who are also carrying stress, trauma, or pain, that spark can get buried under a lot of weight. But it doesn't go out.
I don't see children as things that need to be fixed or fit into a mold. Sometimes what a child has inside of them is more important than what's expected of them by their environment. My job is to pay attention, to really study the child, and to catch that spark when it shows itself. And then to tend it carefully, so it can grow.
That's what catching the spark means. It's the moment in the studio when something shifts. When a child who's been guarded starts to open up, when the materials give them a way to say what they couldn't say before, when you can see them beginning to flow. It's the heart of this work, and it's why the studio exists.
Credentials
Education
- Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC)
- Master of Fine Arts — School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Master’s degree, Counseling and Psychological Services — Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
Select Exhibitions
- Minneapolis Institute of Art (Solo Exhibition)
- Kathryn Nash Gallery
- Chicago Urban Arts Society
- Fernway Gallery
- Highpoint Center for Printmaking
Grants & Residencies
- Jerome Foundation Residency
- Acres Residency
- Oxbow Residency
Continuing Development
- Ongoing professional development in expressive arts-based therapeutic approaches, embodied creative process, and improvisational methods in psychotherapy
Selected work by Rose Johnson
