All images Copyright © Barb Hay
Pablo Picasso
My creative journey began in childhood, encouraged by my parents and supported in school through a wide range of mediums—drawing, painting, silkscreen printing, batik, and pottery. Like many, life eventually pulled me away from art. Work, family, and the pressure to “get things right” made creativity feel like a luxury.
In my late 20s, during marriage and motherhood, I lost touch with my own passions - but art supplies were always on the table for my children. While living in Germany and Hungary, I rediscovered pottery and art classes, slowly rebuilding my own confidence.
Friends began asking me to support their children through emotional challenges. I used art to help them find self-expression and self-worth.
In 2018, I completed a foundation course in Art Therapy. Though I couldn’t pursue the full Master’s due to financial constraints, I’ve spent over a decade exploring the tools that now shape my coaching practice.
Using art and creativity, I help you:
Rebuild self-trust and personal confidence
Explore limiting beliefs in a gentle, playful way
Reconnect with your inner child
Embrace imperfection and rediscover joy in the process
We’ve been conditioned to strive for perfection - to meet others' expectations. But that often silences our true selves. Through therapeutic art coaching, we make space to express feelings, stories, and identity without judgment.
You don’t even need a pencil. One day you might feel like painting with soft pinks, the next with bold blues. We work with shapes, texture, color - letting go of what it “should” look like and learning to feel instead of overthink.
Art isn’t about outcomes - it’s about exploration. Mistakes are part of the process. Some of the world’s most powerful art came from so-called “errors.”
Together, we’ll create space to tell your story, declutter emotional baggage, and remember the joy of simply making.
Our daughter has been fortunate to work with Barb during the period from approximately November 2016 - June 2017 weekly, and from October 2017 - March 2018 adhoc basis. Our daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia and struggles with her motor skills.
Barb developed a fantastic relationship with her from the beginning and worked to further develop her reading, phonics and processing skills through a variety of activities, sometimes working through her weekly homework. Barb was excellent at finding different ways and places to do each week's tasks to keep her interested and engaged throughout the sessions - inside, outside, painting, crafts and games that would all promote learning. Barb was able to draw from her own experiences in raising her family in designing the sessions.
Barb always provided a short update following each session, and kindly volunteered her time working with our daughter, it was a great benefit to have an opportunity to work with someone outside of the school. Most importantly, our daughter always enjoyed her time with Barb.
We have really appreciated the time that you spent working over the past 18 months, it has been a great form of learning support for our daughter.
Thank you.