Dr Carla van Laar Creative Arts Therapy, 10 Townsend Bluff Road, Inverloch (2026)

07/04/2026

SUPERVISION STUDIO

This Sunday
10am - 12.30pm
and ongoing,
every second Sunday.

In the fortnightly Supervision Studio, Dr. Carla van Laar provides an art-based, experiential supervision space designed for creative therapists, counsellors, and practitioners in the helping professions.

Developed by Dr. van Laar, the process focuses on supportive, embodied reflective practice to explore practice dilemmas and professional issues through non-verbal and creative lenses.

The Supervision Experience

Participants engage in a collaborative and held environment that prioritises expanded ways of knowing and “bottom-up” experiential learning.

A typical session might include:

Creative Methods: Utilizing visual arts, movement, metaphor, story, and drama/improvisation to gain insight.

Embodied Reflection: Focusing on presence, ethics, and "embodied wisdom" rather than strictly clinical methods.

Group Connection: Small group sessions (capped at 6 participants) that foster relationship-building and shared learning.

Practice Content: Participants bring their most current practice issues—including client dilemmas or professional direction—to be explored in the studio setting.

Key Features and Format

Accessibility: Sessions are held online and can be booked via Carla van Laar's official website, making them accessible from anywhere.

Duration & Cost: Standard sessions are 2.5 hours and are registered with PACFA as a low-cost supervision option ($150 per session).

Facilitator Expertise: Dr. Carla van Laar is a PACFA Accredited Supervisor with over 30 years of experience as a Creative Arts Therapist, researcher, and educator.

Eligibility: It welcomes Arts Therapists, Holistic Counsellors, and diverse allied health practitioners; no prior artistic training is required.

Dr. van Laar also offers a Creative Supervision Annual Package that combines these group studio sessions with one-to-one individual supervision for a more comprehensive professional development pathway.

New members always welcome.

Contact Carla carla@carlavanlaar.com

06/04/2026

CREATIVE FLOW AROUND THE WORLD

I’m back in the Creative Flow Open Studio - daylight savings has finished and we are now back on AEST (hooray).

You can join me from anywhere -

Where are you Flowing in from?

Creative Flow is hosted from Boon Wurrung Country, Inverloch, Victoria, Australia, at the same dependable time every weekday.

We run on Melbourne time here.

Creative Flow runs Monday–Friday, 9.30–10.00am Melbourne, Australia (AEST/AEDT, UTC+10/UTC+11).

Melbourne observes daylight saving time.
Please check your local time zone during seasonal transitions.

Joining from around Australia
Victoria, Tasmania, NSW, ACT
9.30am

Queensland
8.30am (during AEDT) / 9.30am (during AEST)

South Australia
9.00am (year-round)

Northern Territory
8.00am (year-round)

Western Australia
6.30am (during AEDT) / 7.30am (during AEST)

Creative Flow Around the World

Depending on where you live, this rhythm may:

begin your morning
anchor your lunch break
reset your afternoon
calmly close your evening
Here’s how our Creative Flow time tends to land across regions:

Australia

Western Australia
Early birds.
A focused beginning before work, research, writing or study.

Queensland
Start your day creatively before moving into work or study.

South Australia & Northern Territory
A slightly earlier creative ignition — a gentle launch into the day.

Victoria, Tasmania, NSW (AEST/AEDT)
Join after your early morning routine.
Ideal for work-from-home rhythms, school drop-off parents, students and self-employed creatives.

Asia–Pacific
New Zealand
Mid-morning flow after your early start.

Singapore / Hong Kong / Malaysia
Late morning to midday reset.

Japan
A pre-lunch creative anchor.

North America
West Coast (LA / Vancouver)
Late afternoon creative reset.

Central (Chicago / Texas)
Early evening grounding.

East Coast (New York / Toronto)
After-work wind-down before the night begins.

Europe
UK / Ireland / Netherlands / Spain
Late evening creative wind-down.

France / Germany / Scandinavia
An intentional close to the day before bed.

You’ll find all the info about Creative Flow and how to join me here:

https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

03/04/2026

Nobody came. I practiced anyway.

Day 10 reflections on Creative Flow Open Studio

Today is Good Friday, and the day before my 54th birthday. Being a public holiday, I suspected it might be quiet on day ten of opening the online space for daily creative practice, Creative Flow Open Studio.

Regardless, my personal commitment is to show up daily and hold the space for those who feel drawn to join. I am never quite certain who will attend. The space is purposefully designed to be low-demand, with no pressure. People book a daily, weekly or monthly pass, and come when it suits their rhythm. My role is to be steady and dependable, ensuring the space is there when needed.

So I set up this morning and logged in. 9.30am came — and nobody else joined.

What did I do?
I practiced anyway.

I have been working on this painting for the past four days. Each morning, we set a private intention. Mine was to use the oil paint already on my palette and make marks in response to my environment — to simply enjoy the colours and sink into them.

As I sat with the lyrical patterns of the leaves of one of the native trees in our yard, my brush responded to what was entering through my eyes.

Across the sessions, I added more colour, layering marks inspired by the tree, the soft hues, and the changing light.

At times, the work felt like it needed something — contrast, definition, scale, softness, depth, colour, light — and I responded.

There is a wave in the creative process that can include chaos. It can feel messy, complex, hard to discern.

Stay with it. Trust the process.

There is also a moment when, as complexity builds, elements begin to self-organise. A new rhythm emerges. Something genuinely new comes into being, into existence - it is born.

Could this be the opposite of an existential crisis?

A sense of existential wonder, alignment, connection, peace.

I reflect on creative process as a peaceful action. An act of peace.

Yesterday, I had a missed call from a friend. When I returned the call, her recorded message repeated over and over, “Peace begins with you. Peace begins with you. Peace begins with you.”

In a world where war and destruction are wreaking havoc and turmoil, it seems to me that peaceful practices, far from being frivolous, are actually more essential than ever.

It feels so important to keep holding space for encounters with peace, for peaceful actions, peaceful practices, for encounters with awe, for connection to life force, our creative nature, with meaning and with hope.

If you find yourself yearning for peaceful practice, for a small window in your week, your day, your month, to reconnect with the creativity that resides inside you, you are welcome to join me in the Creative Flow Open Studio.

I will be here practicing, showing up, peacefully.

https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

30/03/2026

From "The Diary of a Creative Flow-er"

- Six days into opening Creative Flow.

People arrived today with their own choice of creative practice — today there was painting, drawing, journaling, playing with ink, and more.

The rhythm is consistent - arriving, settling in, making something, and often being "amazed", "surprised" and "loving" what can come into existence within our short space of time.

The weather is still good enough here for me to host Creative Flow out in the garden this past week.

Sitting alongside the native shrubs, with bees moving through the mini-blooms, foliage bobbing in the very light soft breeze, and golden Autumn southern light falling across the table, one small blossom has become my muse.

Today I found myself confronted by what can happen when one's oil paints are left unattended for too long.

Through my own neglect, my collection of oil paint tubes had become clogged, resistant, and hard work.

All week I have been squeezing, prodding, trying to coax something through the opening.

Today, I found myself slicing them open at the bottom and all of a sudden, the paint flowed with ease.

The paint moved easily again. All that colour, suddenly available.
I happily used all my beautiful colours and am left to reflect on the wonderful metaphors of working 'bottom-up', doing something differently, and not expending energy into the path of most resistance - or a clogged up paint tube hole. There's always another way.

Once I found my way in to my own creative flow through painting, I realised that there is a whole world in that one tiny flower, just sitting there, available for me to sit alongside, and observe closely.

With all its contrasts, highlights, colour, shadows, subtleties and mystery, the micro world of the flower is intriguing, and has much to show me in this precious half hour of Creative Flow today.
Plenty for half an hour.

What happens when there is a regular, dependable space to come back to — one that holds enough for something to unfold?
Six days in, I’m starting to see.

We’ll be back again tomorrow morning.

If you’re wanting to make a little space for your own creative practice, you’d be very welcome to join us.
https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

29/03/2026

What's your Creative Medicine?

Stitch, plant, write.
Paint, sculpt, pot.
Doodle, dab, compose.

Whatever your expression, you are welcome in Creative Flow.

We're back in the online Creative Flow Open Studio this week -

Every weekday morning
9.30-10am

Come and nurture your own creative practice alongside others.

Make it easier to begin.

Just half an hour a day strengthens your embodied memory — making it easier and easier to enter your flow.

Come once a week, come twice a week, come every day.

You'll always be welcome to join.

Find your own rhythm.

Low cost, accessible, join from anywhere.
$10 a day
$25 a week
$90 monthly

I’ll be there tomorrow — I’d love to see you there.

All the details and registration here:

https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

What will your creative medicine be this week?

28/03/2026

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE ENGAGE IN THE ARTS?

After a week of launching my new, daily, online space to support creative practice — Creative Flow Open Studio — and just as I was about to ease into the weekend, this new research crossed my path, and it genuinely startled me to attention. I quickly asked Pierluigi Sacco to email me a copy, and he very kindly obliged so swiftly that I opened it straight up, read it and became very excited!

In fact, I felt so activated and inspired by this compelling research that I sat in my bed with my Saturday coffee and wrote a blog — a quick overview of this remarkable new paper by Fancourt, Stringaris & Sacco, exploring the mechanisms through which arts engagement supports mental health.

What stands out is the scale and complexity of what they map - way beyond a single pathway or a replicable, prescribable activity.

They identify no less than 50 interacting mechanisms — emotional, cognitive, biological, social and behavioural — unfolding together, in context.

Reading this alongside my own practice and research, I felt a strong sense of recognition.

I am sure this is what many of us experience every day in creative and experiential therapeutic work: not isolated techniques, but co-occurring processes, woven together artfully, curated with care, crafted through sensitive sensibilities, shaped by the conditions we create.

Fancourt, Stringaris and Sacco's new research into "Mechanisms underpinning the mental health impact of arts engagement" raises important questions for how we practice in all areas of Creative Mental Health:

• What are we actually designing — beyond activities or sessions?
• How do we create the conditions in which these interacting processes can emerge?
• What supports safety alongside risk, so that growth becomes possible?
• What might shift if we move beyond individualised models and into relational, shared creative spaces?

These questions relate poignantly and very affirmingly with my intentions in developing Creative Flow Open Studio — a simple, consistent, shared space for creative practice to unfold, without pressure, performance, or instruction.

A held, dependable space where something complex can happen through the regular nurturing of our own creative practices, supported by low-demand company.

If you're interested in this wonderful new research — and what it might mean for practice — you can read my blog here:
https://carlavanlaar.com/what-happens-when-we-engage-in.../

I’d love to hear what possibilities or perspectives open up for you in the reading.

26/03/2026

What gets you into your Creative Flow?
What obstacles are there that get in the way?
How can some of these obstacles be bypassed, removed, or flowed around, like water?

This week, I've been soft-launching the new online space to support regular creative practice:
"Creative Flow Open Studio".

Over the first four days, we have already had over a dozen visits to the Creative Flow Open Studio!

I'd like to thank those people who have taken up this offer so wholeheartedly and joined me for just half an hour in the morning, especially Tanya Parr and Kelly Black who came this morning and gave me permission to share the images here of the artworks they have been working on this week.

Already, I've been receiving messages like:

"I'm coming this morning, I just really need this today."

And

"I'm not thinking about whether to do it every morning, just booking in, leaving my art materials all laid out on the table, setting the alarm for 9.15am and heading online when the alarm sounds - I've been removing the obstacles to my own creative practice."

It's heartening to receive these responses - affirming that this is a worthwhile space. When we make the space, and get into a rhythm, practice daily, the body remembers, the hands remember, our nervous system remembers - and obstacles are removed.

The more we practice, the easier it is to enter Creative Flow.

I'm deeply committed to creating this space and showing up daily.

I would love you to join the growing community of Creative Flow, and nurture your own creative practice. The world needs more spaces like this. Let's create it and nurture it together.

Find out more and join us here:
https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

26/03/2026

Supervision Studio is coming up this Sunday and there is one more place available if you would like to join this small group, supportive, online, creative, process oriented approach to supervision.

Find out more and register here:
https://carlavanlaar.com/supervision/

25/03/2026

Exercise your creative muscle daily.

A daily half hour can change your relationship with creativity.

Why 30 minutes?

Because creativity works like a muscle. It needs regular exercise to become strong - we are literally building creative capacity.

A daily half hour is enough to:
- arrive
- begin
- follow a thread
& engage a little longer than you might on your own.

Over time, beginning gets easier, creativity flows.

Through rhythm and repetition, we strengthen our creative muscle memory, and the creative flow state becomes more accessible to us. It becomes a resource that flows into everyday life, helping us to focus, respond, remain energised, and access our own creative nature.

Creative Flow is a space to build that rhythm — in shared presence.

Weekdays, 9.30 - 10am (Melbourne time)

All you need to do is show up, and create.

All the details can be found here:
https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

24/03/2026

This is the peaceful space I’ve been working from this week launching the new online container for supporting your creativity:

Creative Flow Open Studio.

Creative Flow is now open.

Each weekday morning at 9.30am (Melbourne time), we gather online for a quiet half hour of shared creative practice.

There is no teaching.
No pressure to share.
No expectation of outcome.

We arrive, settle, set an intention, and work independently in shared presence.

This is a space for rhythm, commitment, and creative flow to emerge over time.

You are welcome to join us.

🌱Register here to join us in Creative Flow:
https://carlavanlaar.com/creative-flow-open-studio/

21/03/2026

We had an absolutely wonderful afternoon here at the Open Studio. Thank you to all of the beautiful souls who came through, over 60 people, a really magnificent turn out. Old friends and new, from very young to our beloved elders.I truly appreciate you being here, and a very special thanks to Henry de Oleveira, Shane Hogan and Graeme McLean for the solidarity and very practical support.This event was hosted on beautiful BoonWurrung Country.Here is my Artist Talk for you. 💗

20/03/2026

Garden tour Open Studio on today 1-3pm 10 Townsend Bluff Road Inverloch See you soon 💗

Dr Carla van Laar Creative Arts Therapy

07/04/2026

06/04/2026

03/04/2026

30/03/2026

29/03/2026

28/03/2026

26/03/2026

26/03/2026

25/03/2026

24/03/2026

21/03/2026

20/03/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Look after yourself and learn :)