MR. T., CAN I DO SOME POTTERY?" These are the first words out of David's mouth as he walks into James Torrenzano's art therapy class, causing the adults in the room to exchange surprised glances. Pottery is precisely what everyone wants David to do---to dig his hands into gooey, red muck--but it's nothing anyone expected him to seek out, at least not this soon. His teachers and counselors at the Herndon Center, a program for emotionally disabled seventh and eighth-graders in Fairfax County, Va., have known a different David. He was the new boy who suffered from several obsessive disorders, the boy who scrubbed his hands 10 times a day and touched things only with his foot. But today, just two weeks after having come to the center's art therapy class for the first time, the hefty 14-year-old asks permission to sit behind the potter's wheel and get control of a spinning mess of mud.
Torrenzano doesn't hesitate. "Can I touch your hands?" he asks, as the two belly up to the wheel. David, who wears steel-toed boots and stows a pencil, point up, in his sweat sock, gives his OK, and Torrenzano shows him how to cup the clump of clay pirouetting before them.
"Wanna take some risks and see what happens?" the teacher ventures, making clear by his tone that it is David's choice. "Sure," says the boy, his ready hands harboring the revolving red treasure.

In Torrenzano's classroom, this is success. Here, success isn't measured by whether students master pottery, or perspective, or painting; it's measured by whether students are able to trust enough in themselves and in the people around them to push past their fears and take chances. "Unless you have trust," Torrenzano says, "you go nowhere."

Trust is a central goal of art therapy, a technique merging special education, art, and psychology that some public school districts are using to get troubled students to open up. (See side bar, page 16.) Trust isn't something the children in Torrenzano's classroom come by naturally. Like others enrolled in the Herndon Center, these kids have problems brought on by neurological conditions or difficult life situations. Some have been physically or emotionally abused; some suffer from autism, depression, or attention deficit disorder; many lack even basic self-esteem, causing them to be severely withdrawn.

They are students like Donald, a burly boy who pins his chin on his chest and speaks nearly inaudibly--except when he's drawing images of tanks and exploding airplanes. Or like Manuela, a girl in a mini-skirt and tight turtleneck, who according to teachers, has been involved in gangs. Or like Chris, who speaks freely of his preference for darkness. "Everyone says I'm depressed, but I'm not depressed," he says. "I just don't like light."

Torrenzano's art therapy class aims to give students like these a better sense of themselves, using art to draw out their fears and their problems. The eventual goal, says the 41- year-old teacher, is to give kids who are at odds with the world the tools to get along outside the special-education setting. In the shorter term, though, Torrenzano says, the idea is to offer them "relaxation in the storm, grounding in chaos; [to instill in them] a sense of wonder and enchantment, a sense that they are ..... artists."

Door to Discovery At the door to the art therapy room---Room 409---is a coat tree hung with a mask, its face half- white, half-black. Slung atop the mask is a fedora. Below it is a sign that asks all who enter, "What mask are you wearing today?"

Inside the door, one quickly gets the sense that the art therapy space is more sanctum than classroom. Six art tables are pushed tightly together. At their center is a fountain Torrenzano built himself---a pool of rocks, greenery, and tiny turtles where cool waters flow constantly. Complementing the water sounds, the notes of New Age music stream from a stereo system concealed in a cabinet. To one side of the room, two parakeets make their own music in a cage through whose open door they pass at will. Sometimes they fly to the fountain, sometimes to an old dogwood branch planted beside a potted palm---each time creating such a rustle of wings that students take notice.

A Japanese garden dubbed "Quiet Motion" occupies another piece of the space. Set off by a privacy screen and mock Oriental rugs, it invites students to sand and place stones in arrangements they find pleasing. These aren't standard classroom furnishings, and the conversation that takes place in this room isn't standard classroom talk, either: "Mr. T., did you go to the pond last night?" one student asks, nostrils working the air. "I did." Torrenzano replies. "I got some really good pond water, too."

Like many things one encounters in Torrenzano's class, the term "pond water" needs translation. It's the name this teacher gives to the water with which he regularly wipes art tables before students arrive in his classroom. Poured from an ornate cobalt-blue flask, the pond water- --actually, rosewater---gives the classroom a sweet floral scent that Torrenzano says helps students relax. An in some small way, he says, it gives them consistency.

Sometimes, people see this environment as something less than serious school. Once, Torrenzano says, a parent complained about her son's participation in his class. Torrenzano had shown the boy some magic tricks and the parent, a devout Christian, grew concerned. "The parent thought .....this was the devil's workshop," he says. "She was concerned [her son would] see me as a god, as something he shouldn't see me as. Once we met, though, it defused a lot," and the boy remained in the classroom. In general, Torrenzano says, the parents who visit his classroom and learn of his techniques, "feel the wonderment."

The uniqueness of Room 409 isn't lost on students, either. "Some people are really loud and obnoxious in other classes, but not in here," says Elissa, an eight-grader drawing a rainbow in shades of blue. "In other classes, they can't do their work, but in here they sit down." The peacefulness helps make doing art more enjoyable, she says---as does the way Torrenzano emphasizes creative process over product. "Even if [my art's] not perfect," Elissa says, "it can be my way."

Torrenzano's classroom isn't conventional, but then neither is he or his calling. The outward signs: Three earrings line the rim of one of his ears, and a beaded ankle bracelet peeks from under the hem of his pants. He is the quintessential cool teacher.

A Georgetown University graduate, Torrenzano started out majoring in premedical studies, but switched to art and psychology after a travel stint abroad that included time spent "contemplating pyramids." Hoping to combine his interests professionally, he went on to earn a master's degree in art therapy from George Washington University in what is one of the field's pioneering programs.

An artist himself, Torrenzano has hung some of his own works with those of the children in his classes. There's the unfinished painting of a woman metamorphosing into an eagle amidst a celestial background, and there's the painting of a winged man walking down an alley lined with doorways and shadowy figures. Torrenzano says he painted the latter piece, which features the words "The truth will set you free," three years ago which coming to grips with his divorce.

Whether the focus is on himself or on his students, Torrenzano's philosophy about art is the same: "Art is healing," he says. "It's like medicine."

This philosophy under grids the practice of art therapy---whether it's used in schools or, as is more commonplace, in hospitals and prisons. The field basically embraces two schools of thought. One is that art can be used to develop a treatment program for troubled individuals. The art produced yields clues into what the person, who might well be unexpressive, is thinking or has experienced. By interpreting that art, therapists can help other professionals--- psychiatrists or counselors, for example---develop a treatment plan for the patient.

That's not the sort of art therapy Torrenzano practices at the Herndon Center, though he does consult with other staff members on students' progress. His brand of art therapy is more art for art's sake----the notion that the act of creating, in and of itself, can help people feel better. And when people feel better, Torrenzano contends, they perform better in other endeavors, such as academic classes. Hired 17 years ago to work in Fairfax County's special-education program, Torrenzano came to the Herndon Center two years ago, when it was brand new, at the invitation of Principal Teresa Zutter. Torrenzano knew Zutter from the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center, where she had been education director and he had been part-time art therapist. At the detention center, Torrenzano worked with young people awaiting trial for violent crimes, using many of the same approaches to draw them out of themselves that he now uses with the students in Room 409.

Zutter says she could have chosen to offer any elective she wanted at the Herndon Center- --French or regular art, for example---but she chose art therapy and Torrenzano. Cost didn't factor into her decision, she says: Despite the classroom's unusual furnishings, art therapy requires no more money than any other elective. Zutter chose the course, she says, because she was seeking something that could help keep already troubled children from developing destructive behavior patterns that could lead them to places like the detention center---or worse. "Here, we try to adjust behaviors before they really trench in," Zutter says. "Children here can still be molded; that's where art therapy comes in."

"I'm claustrophobic! I hate stuff on my face." These are April's words, as she becomes the first person in Torrenzano's fifth-period class to "get masked." Torrenzano is the mask maker, methodically applying thin wet strips of white casting material to each student's face in an effort to capture his or her persona. Later, students will handle, ponder, and paint the resulting masks according to the images they see of themselves.

Resting on the chalk board ledge are masks other students have made, masks that already have been painted. One is solid aqua, save for bright purple lips. Another is painted half in yellow, with the other half painted to resemble a computer chip. Still another is black and all- over white splotches. Torrenzano works patiently, telling April, who still hasn't quite accepted the white goop displacing the makeup on her face, to "go" inside yourself. Thing of someplace safe---the forest. Enjoy it." The 14-year-old settles down somewhat, mouthing an occasional "mmmmm" now that her lips are plastered over.

When Torrenzano finishes the casting process, which takes about five minutes, he leads April to a pastel hurried rug equipped with a pillow and encourages her to lie still for five more minutes until the mask sets. When the mask is firm and Torrenzano pops the makeup-smeared mold from her face, April makes a declaration: "That felt disgusting." "Was it really disgusting?" Torrenzano gently challenges. "Oh, it was OK." The mask-making is a key component of The Hero's Journey, an art therapy program Torrenzano designed for use with his eighth-graders. A multi lesson process, it asks students to travel, through their artwork, on a journey of self-exploration.

One activity involves a mahogany box filled with cards depicting comic-book characters with names such as Iceman, Professor X, and Domino. Students choose a character from the box whom they consider a hero and draw the character. Later, they're asked to draw another picture from a card in the box---this time, a card depicting their villain. The idea in this latter assignment, symbolically, is to face one's fears, one's interior obstacles, Torrenzano says. In a later lesson, he molds masks of the student's faces; removing the mask is symbolic of peeling off one's disguise. And some time after that, the students draw their self-portraits as heroes, people with power who can face the next challenge in their lives. For these eighth-graders, that challenge is likely to be high school and all that lies beyond.

Beyond they get to that point, though, there's lots of work to be done---pictures to draw, masks to make, fears to overcome. As Torrenzano's last class for this day leaves Room 409, David, the fledgling potter from several periods earlier, returns to inquire after his creation. "I was wondering, when do you think it will be done by?" he asks, referring to how long he must expect to wait for the kiln to turn his moist bowl into a vessel sturdy enough to contain something like, say, ice cream.

"It takes about a week," Torrenzano replies. "Oh," David says. "Well, OK," apparently accepting the fact that some transformations can't be rushed. His business is finished, David heads for the door and then stops, turns around, and gives his teacher a crackling high-five, bits of clay still lodged in his fingernails.