Obituary: Michael Edwards

Abstract

I first met Michael about forty years ago. At the time those of us involved in art therapy were forming a professional body which became the British Association of Art Therapists, activities like this bring people with common interests together who otherwise might never have met and this happened with Michael and I. Another related connection with Michael was the ”˜Education through Art’ movement which held great sway in the 1960s and 70s. The central idea in the movement was that art and aesthetic experience were pivotal in all learning and teaching, not a holiday away from ”˜real’ experience, but at the heart of living itself. In 1970 the International Society for Education Through Art held its Congress at Coventry in the UK, I ran a workshop at this gathering and Michael joined it. I enjoyed working with him, I thought he was modest about himself and I later came to see that one of his gifts was not to ”˜blow his own trumpet’ so to speak, an image I will return to, but to help people he was involved with to find out how they really wanted to be.