Creative Practices Grounded in Expressive Arts: The Works of Laura Hensley
Laura Hensley is an artist and psychotherapist based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her professional work is richly informed by Jungian theory and practice, and as a result, often includes encounters with archetypal forms and numinous energies. In tandem, her personal creative practices are grounded in Expressive Arts, a multimodal approach to healing and personal growth built on Jung’s same foundational concepts and practices, in particular his exhortation to us all, to “allow the unconscious to speak.”
Accordingly, Laura’s visual imagery is often the result of meditation leading directly into spontaneous, intuitive, quick experiments with any number of possible materials, including painting and drawing, collage, fiber, photography, natural and found objects. Many times, what emerges from the psyche is a mandala – the Sanskrit word for “sacred circle” – that contains direct and surprising communications from the unconscious. To encourage others in this centering and illuminating practice, Laura is pleased to offer a mandala-making workshop via the Library on March 21, 2026. We hope you’ll join us – please find further event information below and a link to registration.
Workshop: Making Mandalas —Imaging the Whole Self
Workshop Title:
Making Mandalas – Imaging the Whole Self
Date:
Thursday, 5/21/2026
Time:
7-9pm
Location:
Saint Leo Tampa Education Building
1403 N. Howard Ave.
Tampa, FL 33607
Join the C.G. Jung Library of Tampa Bay and Library board member/guest presenter Laura Hensley for a Red Book inspired evening of exploration and visual creativity. We will dive deeply into the symbolic nature, psychological function, and cultural history of mandalas, and participants will be invited to give form and expression to the archetype of the Self by making a “sacred circle” of their own. This will be an easy, low pressure process, and require absolutely no artistic “skill” or training. Art materials will be provided, though participants are welcome to bring their own if they’d like.
What is it about the circular form and its compelling and frequent presence in the cosmos, in our earthly world, and in human culture? Observing its geometry from a symbolic standpoint, it is clear that across time and history, the circle has been regarded as an image of wholeness, unity, integration, and completion. The ritual process of making a mandala produces a container for fragmented and fractured feelings. It centers and soothes the soul and nervous system, allowing us to both embody the form and align our minds with what Angelo Spoto calls “the Original Whole Self.”
Making mandalas is an art practice available to everyone. Laura’s approach to creating visual imagery, in both work and play, is heavily informed by Expressive Arts founder Sean McNiff’s broad and inclusive encouragement: “My experience has repeatedly proven that any person can express himself or herself in an authentic and intriguing way, with just about any art form” (Trust the Process, The Art of Letting Go, 54). In fact, Laura has found that some of her least sophisticated visual images have been the most personally potent, and delivered the most profound and transformative messages of the unconscious.
Artist Bio
Laura facilitates creative healing processes for other adults through her psychotherapy practice in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she specializes in Expressive Arts Therapy, Sandplay Therapy, Jungian dreamwork, and EMDR. For further information, visit creative-therapies-llc.com. Her current artistic passion and focus is for visual journaling – a slow-musing, long-winding way toward Jung’s bidding to all, to “create your own Red Book.”