FACULTY
"When we seek to find the best in others, somehow we bring out the best in ourselves."
Ann Magnuson Davis - Expressive Arts Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Founder of Mistakes Welcome
Ann holds a Master’s of Public Health degree from Columbia University. She spent the first twenty years of her professional career as a community organizer. Ann was formally introduced to the arts in 2012 while living in Hawaii. In 2017 she completed her Master’s degree in Expressive Arts Therapy (with a focus on peace building and conflict transformation) from the Expressive Arts Institute San Diego and European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland. It was here that Ann first experienced the healing and transformative capabilities of the arts. She is passionate about sharing these gifts with others, and believes wholeheartedly that art helps us to make sense of our world. The arts provide an opportunity for self-exploration and expression where one might not otherwise exist.
Ann is also in her advanced year of training in Dr. Peter Levine's trauma healing program, Somatic Experiencing (SE). SE is a powerful partner of expressive arts in that it, similar to expressive arts, is an embodied and naturalistic form of healing that helps people reduce stress and return to a sense of regulation and mastery in their lives.
Ann has served as an expressive arts practitioner (with an emphasis on trauma healing) at Monarch School in downtown San Diego since 2014. Prior to this she taught visual art in public schools throughout San Diego County. She also runs a small business called, Mistakes Welcome, where she sees individual clients and holds group expressive arts classes for school aged youth.
Ann believes, the freedom to make mistakes and the opportunity to reflect on and learn from them in a supportive environment is the basis of intellectual growth. She strongly believes that we are all uniquely crafted, and her work is grounded in honoring this individuality in a way that is biologically respectful to each child she comes into contact with. Ann aims to provide her students with a safe and secure space where they can: explore their identity, find a sense of belonging, understand their voice and choice matters, regulate their bodies and brains so new neural pathways can be formed and they can experience their full agency and autonomy.
