Shanoa Allowitz, owner of Alchemy Art in historic Old Town Heber City, began the first class of a six-session art therapy course by asking her two students to close their eyes and think about a relationship.
After the group had meditated on the emotions, strengths and weaknesses associated with their chosen people, Allowitz took a pencil and made it glide on paper in one continuous, looping line. She explained as she did so that she had just visited Chicago with her mother for her uncle’s funeral.
“I’m just thinking, ‘Mom.’ And I don’t know what’s going to come up,” she said.
The result was a series of intersecting loops. Allowitz asked her students to follow her example, letting the pencil lead them wherever it wanted to go.
“If you’re totally winging it, and you’re like, ‘This is not connecting at all for me. I have no idea what she’s talking about,’ that’s OK,” she reassured.
Students painted inside the penciled shapes they’d created with watercolors and outlined the pencil-drawn lines with Sharpie, rounding out any edges. Allowitz’s painting looked like a stained glass cell placed under a microscope.
The practice is known as neurographic art, a meditative drawing method developed by Russian psychologist Pavel Piskarev.
Alchemy Art student Danielle Turner painted what looked like a close-up of a colorful hot air balloon adorned with Christmas lights. She explained that she saw her family in the five bulbs: herself, her two kids and her parents.
Turner is the former general manager of Park City Television. She recently moved to Heber City to care for her aging parents. For the time being, Turner has stepped away from videography, though she would like to return to it as a hobby. She’s had jobs throughout her television career where she’s worked 70 to 80 hours a week.
“There was no time for me. So now, I’m in a phase of life where I’m looking for things that I like to do, kind of discovering myself,” Turner explained.
Meanwhile, Debbie Wilhelmy’s interpretation of her painting was all over the place. Pointing to bell-shaped curves of various heights, she interpreted them in various ways, from a representation of her family unit to herself in various stages of life.
Wilhelmy came to Allowitz’s art therapy class to learn how to paint. A fitness instructor from Kamas, she’s been shooting sports and nature photography on the side for over 30 years. As her eyesight has worsened, she’s found it difficult to capture the perfect photo, so she’s turned to other forms of creative release.
Wilhelmy said painting has been challenging compared to photography. She said she would have an easier time painting a realistic mountain landscape than painting from the heart, but she hopes art therapy will help her let go of perfectionistic tendencies.
Allowitz has seen all kinds of students since she started offering art therapy classes last year. Some come to learn the fundamentals of painting, while others come for the emotional release. Last year, a student processed the death of a spouse by creating a portrait.
“I think it was a good cry,” Allowitz recalled. “It was something where they were able to remember them and fond memories, but they also missed them.”
Allowitz has been an art teacher for over 23 years and currently teaches at Heber Valley Elementary School.
An encaustic artist who paints in molten wax, Allowitz dove into art therapy in 2024. She had just moved to Heber City, remarried and temporarily retired from teaching.
As Allowitz navigated new dynamics, she began exploring new techniques like mandala, an Indian art form involving the creation of symmetrical circles, and Zentangle, the drawing of structured patterns to create complex designs.
Her own therapeutic pieces explore a variety of topics.
One drawing shows a blue die tipping over, a representation of the feeling of instability. One painting explores Allowitz’s relationship with her body, a landscape of organic material met with a sky of blood splotches. Another painting shows two abstract figures hugging against the backdrop of a rollercoaster — a depiction of the ups and downs of Allowitz’s relationship with her teenage daughter.
A few months after she had opened Alchemy Art’s doors, Allowitz first offered art therapy in February 2025. It’s one of many courses she offers, from drawing to watercolor painting. She added art therapy to the roster because she wanted to share artistic practices that had helped her with as many people as possible.
The courses are for both adults and children ages six to 14, who are typically much less inhibited in the creative process and focus on simple themes: horses, planes or how much they love their mom.
Allowitz said the adults are much more hesitant at first, but she tries to ground them in artistic fundamentals while pushing them to creatively tap into emotional wells.
“You’re trying to use a visual language to solve, say, a situation or a relationship that you’re not sure what to do with. You want to access your subconscious and speak about it visually as opposed to writing it or talk therapy,” Allowitz said. “I don’t like them to just copy what I do. I like them to be able to use their creativity and their own experience.”
She said the hardest lesson she’s learned as an artist has been learning to be more connected to the process and less attached to the results. She hopes that through art therapy and her bevy of other courses, her students can learn to do the same.
“Art lessons here aren’t just about learning art,” Allowitz said. “My goal with Alchemy Art is to build a supportive, creative community where people can relax, be themselves and support one another while using art as a positive and meaningful outlet.”
Alchemy Art’s six-week art therapy courses for children and adults are open to additional students. The flat rate for the full six weeks is $200 for adults and $180 for children. Tuesday’s introductory session was free. Learn more at artbyshanoa.com.