Tangled in Blue: Honoring Grief, Holding Time - A Lecture with Dr. Royster

In this intimate lecture, artist and art therapist Dr. Rochele Royster explores grief as a sacred site of testimony, transformation, and ancestral remembering. Drawing on the fiber-based practices of Judith Scott, the slow stitching of Black and Brown mothers, and African diasporic mourning traditions, Royster invites us to reconsider grief not as something to fix but something to tend.

Through stories, visuals, and reflection, this talk weaves together needle methodologies and art therapy frameworks with the wisdom of those who quilted, mended, and made meaning from what was torn. It is a call to resist urgency, perfectionism, and the extractive logic of capitalism and to return to rootwork, ritual, and care.

This event is open to SAIC students, faculty, and alumni, as well as art therapists and counselors. It is intended to support those in the fields of art therapy and counseling. Please note: topics of trauma, grief, and loss may be discussed.

Objectives:

1. To explore grief as a communal, relational, and ancestral practice
2. To examine fiber art and needle methodologies as forms of resistance and repair
3. To reconnect art-making and mental health practice to ancestral care and cultural ritual

Speaker Bio

Rochele Royster, PhD, ATR-BC, LCAT is s a community psychologist, board-certified art therapist, and former special educator whose work sits at the intersection of community care, Black liberation, and creative praxis. Her research explores the role of arts-based healing in dismantling systems of oppression and cultivating collective resilience. With a deep commitment to liberatory pedagogy, Royster engages participatory methods that center lived experience, intergenerational wisdom, and culturally rooted wellness practices. Her work disrupts dominant narratives in mental health and art therapy and expands the field toward more justice-oriented, decolonial frameworks rooted in collective care and resistance.

Host or Publisher SAIC Department of Art Therapy & Counseling