The Magic Carpet Ride

Anticipation builds from the first sentences as we step onto the Magic Carpet to ride with Dan through his life. This is an extraordinary memoir – visually engaging, symbolically rich, and brimming with wisdom. Through lyrical prose, compelling poetry, and dynamic images we are encouraged to share and learn from the emotions, hopes, and dreams that have guided Dan’s personal life, professional career, and life-long creative process. What a magnificent way to share the power of creativity and art therapy!

Lisa D. Hinz, Ph.D., ATR-BC, Author, Expressive Therapies Continuum: A Framework for Using Art in Therapy

The Magic Carpet Ride has a singular voice, the voice of a seasoned art therapist. The reader is treated to a real-life journey into the very heart of creative expression. Even the structure of the chapters was created from Anthon’s pastel drawings. Like the art it represents it has multiple layers of meaning. Dan Anthon’s richly illustrated volume, with over four hundred images, mostly his own, speaks directly to an array of audiences at exactly the same moment. The student in a formal art therapy training program will resonate with how the skill they are learning is applied with the precision of an adept musician. The seasoned art therapist can rediscover the soul of what drove them to the field, and how to place their own creative process at the heart of their practice. He demonstrates the subtle power of listening through an artist’s lens. But this labor of love, as he self-describes it, offers anyone interested in a creative life new and valuable insight.