8 Things We Swear By: Practice Manager Dot Dannenberg
We loved Cup of Jo’s recent “8 Things We Swear By” post for providing a snapshot of personalities and neat things to try. Just for fun, and to let you get to know our team a bit better, we’re doing our own series with an art therapy & self care bent.
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Dot Dannenberg is Alexandria Art Therapy’s Practice Manager & Communications Coordinator. If you’re a client, you’ve probably emailed with her about intake paperwork and scheduling. You can also find her behind the scenes on our Instagram and blog, and writing our biweekly newsletter, How the Light Gets In.
Here, Dot shares 8 things she loves…
Daily Ritual: I try to bike as much as possible. I’ve got a vintage Schwinn single-speed from the ‘60s, and there’s nothing I love more right now than biking through the fall leaves of Old Town and Del Ray with my kid in a bike seat on the back. My friend Maggie once told me that biking is the closest feeling to being a child again, and I think of that often.
Artwork: Whenever I’m at the National Gallery here in DC, I always stop at Helen Frankenthaler’s “Mountains and Sea.” It feels like home–not so much the home I grew up in, but the one I’m always trying to create for myself.
Art Supply: Zentangle Tiles. I’m not actually that into Zentangle drawing, if I’m honest, but I love the feel of the paper they use for the little squares, and I find that the small size always invites me to create. Earlier this year, I completed a 100 Day Project doing mostly watercolor paintings on Zentangle tiles, and it was so satisfying.
Inspiring Space: This is probably the product of the pandemic, but lately I’m super inspired by…other people’s houses. I just love being in someone else’s home and seeing the things they’ve collected and kept. The intimacy after all this time of separation feels really invigorating.
5. Song: My husband says I’ve killed this album because we literally play it every night for our daughter when she goes to sleep, but I love Dustin O’Halloran’s Lumiere, especially “We Move Lightly.”
6. Scent: I don’t like most candles or perfumes because I’m one of those sensory-overload people, but I’m always a sucker for an almond-scented bath product.
7. Book: I can’t stop recommending Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow. I don’t usually like books about grief or about time travel, and this one has both, and was the most comforting thing I’ve read in years.
8. Aha Moment: I was struck by this line in Elizabeth Strout’s novel Oh William!: “Whenever I don’t know what to do, I watch what I am doing.” If I am trying to make a decision and don’t know what to do, I should pay close attention to what I am already doing. Have I already begun to pull away from something? Am I already devoting a lot of time to a particular choice? This has helped me to notice my actions and tap into the things I’ve unconsciously already decided.
Want to see more from Dot? You can follow her personal Instagram here, or subscribe to our newsletter on Substack.