Lane Gardner

As a longtime trailblazer in the field of therapeutic arts, Lane Gardner’s work is an emerging voice in a world where innovative solutions to our rising mental health crisis are desperately needed. She is a fierce advocate for helping people uncover, recover and discover their original superpower: creative expression. Taking the pressure out of trying to be an ‘artist’, Gardner’s method utilizes the unique and one-of-a-kind creative expression of each individual as the perfect tool-kit to support both deep healing and everyday mental health.

As a motivational speaker, Gardner is dynamic, passionate and innovative. Bringing her experience as a former professional singer/actor to the stage, her presentations are not your standard keynote speech: they are an immersive experience that integrates the power of spoken word, audience engagement and live music.

Gardner’s bold and soulful approach to destigmatizing mental health and creativity weaves together soul-crushing stories of her early life in a fundamentalist religious cult and how she learned to use creative expression as a means to survive, with inspiring and triumphant tales of countless individuals who have transformed their pain into power through this creative process. Gardner’s TEDx talk, "Can Creative Expression Help Our Rising Mental Health Crisis?" features the powerful original song she helped students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, to write and record after the horrific mass shooting at their school in 2018.

Gardner’s award-winning book, "LIFELINE: Recovering Your Mental Wellness Through Uncovering Your Creative Brilliance," is part heart-rendering memoir, part powerful tool-kit, inviting her readers into her irreverent and often deeply intimate world of learning how to reclaim her own brilliance while masterfully teaching them how to do them same for themselves. "LIFELINE" received the 2024 Distinguished Favorite Award in the category of Self-Help: Motivational from the NYC Big Book Awards, as well as the 2024 Finalist Award in the category of Non-Fiction: Creative from The American Book Fest Awards.

As a nationally recognized, award-winning arts educator, Gardner has devoted nearly three decades to teaching countless young people and adults in public and private schools, schools of Special Education, youth centers, community centers and arts organizations across the country. As an innovator in Human Development Through The Arts she has developed, designed and facilitated workshops, programs, curricula and staff developments to draw out and cultivate the innate strengths and gifts in each of her participants; building confidence, authenticity and deeper connection to themselves and to their communities.

As a singer/songwriter, Gardner released her debut album Fertile Ground, in 2015 on her own label, Third Road Records. Her music is available on all streaming platforms and sometimes you’ll even find her adding a song or two to her motivational talks, her frequent podcast appearances and live interviews.

Gardner is President and Co-Founder of THREAD, a 501(c)(3) therapeutic arts non-profit organization that serves the needs of adult individuals and communities who suffer from trauma, including survivors of abuse and chronic illness, those struggling with addiction and mental health, incarcerated men and women, veterans, and those impacted by inequity and discrimination of any kind. THREAD also implements programs to address the urgent needs of communities affected by gun violence, natural disasters and other crisis scenarios.