ABOUT FIRE TREE STUDIOS
PURPOSE STATEMENT The purpose for Fire Tree Studios is to provide a safe and sacred space for clients to discover and explore their creativity, joy and personal truth utilizing the expressive arts, coaching and yoga modalities.
Fire Tree Studios is manifestation of a vision to re-integrate creativity, spontaneous expression, joy, and more authentic living into peoples' lives.
Fire Tree Studios is located in the Hyde Park area of Austin, Texas. There is a painting studio for groups, classes and workshops and a smaller studio for individual sessions.
ABOUT MELISSA D'ANTONI
I began my career at the birth of the Internet industry working for agencies and software start-ups and rode the wave of innovation and landed at the Intel Corporation in Internet Marketing.
Yearning for a deeper experience of myself, I decided to pursue my own creative passions. I took a painting class at the Painting Studio in San Francisco and this experience radically changed my perspective on the creative process and launched me on a journey as to what was most important in my life. After completing an Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga teacher's training at It's Yoga in San Francisco, I went on to pursue my Masters in Clinical Psychology with a focus in Creative Expression at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto.
After three years of clinical study on the path to become an Expressive Arts Therapist and Marriage and Family Therapist in California, I trained as an intern for two and a half years with Pacific Institute, an Existential-Humanistic clinical training institute that provides alternative gerontological care at AgeSong Senior Communities' assisted living facilities in San Francisco's Hayes Valley.
I designed and developed Pacific Institute's first Expressive Arts Therapy program utilized by interns in their clinical work with the elders. I also completed a year-long Expressive Arts Therapy/Sand Play Therapy internship counseling children at Alvarado Elementary School in San Francisco.
During this time, I completed a two-year facilitator training in Process Painting and integrative expressive arts with Chris Zydel, Expressive Arts Therapist and Creativity Coach at Creative Juices Arts Studio in Oakland. I served as Chris's apprentice facilitating painting classes, workshops and retreats in California, Hawaii and at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.
Most recently, I completed a life coaching and consulting training with my mentor, Dorothy Divack at the Center of Excellence in San Francisco and New York.
After studying all these great modalities, I came to integrate the three systems that have supported my own growth and transformation the most-- the expressive arts, life coaching and yoga.
