About Jay Boyer

Built from experience. Delivered with intention.

Jay Boyer is the founder of JB Empire Arts and the creator of the SELM™ method and Art Pharmacopeia™ program. Her work is grounded in seven years of experience in mental health settings, and in the years before that, when she was a young person navigating the foster care system herself.

Every workshop she builds is designed for the young person she once was.

Art Therapy Practitioner

Holistic Health Practitioner

Peer Support Specialist

safeTALK Certified

Golden Scissors Award at Sotheby’s NY

The Story

From the foster care system to the front of the room.

Jay Boyer grew up in Los Angeles. From the age of 12 to 19, she was in the foster care system, entering after the death of her grandmother, who had been her only caregiver. In the years that followed, she found her way forward through art: drawing, painting, making things with her hands when words weren’t enough.

That early experience didn’t leave her. It became the foundation for everything she builds. When Jay stands in front of a room of youth, in a group home, a mentoring center, a school gymnasium, or a community hall, she isn’t coming in as an outsider. She’s coming in as someone who has been on the other side of the table.

“I build every workshop for the young person I once was, the one who needed a safe place to feel, and didn’t always have the words.”

After years of volunteering as an art instructor and completing her Peer Support Specialist certification through the State of Arizona, Jay formalized her practice. She built the SELM™ framework, Symbolic Emotional Literacy Mapping, as a structured way to do what she had always done instinctively: help people name what they feel through color, shape, and symbol instead of words alone.

She earned her AA in Fashion Technology from San Diego Mesa College, graduating with honors in 2026, the same year her wearable art piece Metamorphosis debuted at Sotheby’s New York through Fashion Week San Diego, earning the Golden Scissors award. She completed her Scholistico Art Therapy Practitioner and Holistic Health Practitioner certifications the same year, adding clinical structure to what her lived experience had already taught her.

Today, JB Empire Arts serves youth across San Diego County through partnerships with organizations that already show up for young people every day. Jay’s goal is straightforward: to make art healing accessible to every organization that serves youth, and to prove, session by session, that it works.

Jay Boyer facilitating a workshop for youth at a partner organization in San Diego County.

Credentials & Training

The clinical foundation behind the work.

Jay’s practice is built on formal certification, documented training, and seven-plus years of hands-on experience across mental health, community wellness, and youth development settings.

Art Therapy Practitioner

Scholistico, CPD, IPHM, CMA Accredited · June 2026

Accredited certification in art therapy practice, covering therapeutic frameworks, session facilitation, and the clinical application of expressive arts in mental health contexts.

Holistic Health Practitioner

Scholistico, CPD, IPHM, CMA Accredited · August 2026

Certification in holistic health practice, integrating mind-body approaches, wellness frameworks, and whole-person care into therapeutic and educational settings.

Certified Peer Support Specialist

State of Arizona, Hope Lives / Vive La Esperanza · 2019

State-certified peer support specialist and forensic peer support specialist, trained to provide lived-experience-based support in behavioral health and community settings.

safeTALK & suicideTALK

LivingWorks · 2018

Certified in suicide alertness and suicide awareness. This training equips facilitators to recognize risk, respond appropriately, and connect youth with support in high-stakes moments.

Cultural Competency & Ethics

Mercy Maricopa Integrated Care · 2018

Completed Cultural Competency 101: Embracing Diversity and Cultural Competency 200: LGBTQIA, foundational training for delivering equitable, culturally responsive care across diverse youth populations.

Fashion Styling Foundations

Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) · September 2026

Certificate in fashion styling from FIT, State University of New York, informing the intersection of wearable art, creative expression, and identity that runs through Jay’s work across both ventures.

AA in Fashion Technology, Honors

San Diego Mesa College · 2026

Associate degree completed with honors, including completion of the San Diego Mesa College Honors Program, recognized for excellence in scholarship, commitment, and service.

Business & Financial Literacy

Core 6 · 2024

Completed Core 6’s Business & Entrepreneurship Program and Financial Literacy Investment Program, applied business development training alongside the growth of JB Empire Arts.

First Aid / CPR / AED

American Heart Association · 2018

Heartsaver First Aid with CPR and AED certification, standard safety training maintained for work in youth program settings.

The Artist

Where art healing and wearable art meet.

Jay is not only a practitioner. She is a working artist. Her creative practice spans visual art, fashion design, and wearable sculpture, and it informs every workshop she facilitates. When she asks youth to express themselves through color and form, she is asking them to do something she does herself, every day.

In July 2026, Jay’s wearable art piece Metamorphosis debuted at Sotheby’s New York as part of Fashion Week San Diego’s showcase, an exhibition pairing visual artists with fashion designers to create work that lives at the intersection of fine art and wearable form.

Metamorphosis earned the Golden Scissors award. It is currently exhibited at The Mental Bar in San Diego’s Black Arts and Culture District.

Golden Scissors Award, Sotheby’s New York, July 2026

Awarded to Jay Boyer for Metamorphosis, a wearable art piece debuted through Fashion Week San Diego at the Sotheby’s New York exhibition. The award recognizes outstanding creative achievement at the intersection of fashion and fine art.

Community & Partnerships

Rooted in San Diego. Ready to go wherever youth are.

JB Empire Arts began in San Diego, and the relationships built here are the foundation of everything that comes next. Jay has worked with organizations across the county, from foster care agencies to workforce development programs to community cultural events.

These partnerships aren’t just credibility. They’re proof that the work lands. Youth who have never been given a creative outlet find one. Staff who carry heavy caseloads find a moment of calm. Organizations get something they can point to when funders ask what’s working.

One Safe Place
Promises2Kids
Just in Time for Foster Youth
San Diego Mesa College: NextUp & FAST Scholars
San Diego Workforce Partnership / Imperial County
Neighborhood House Association
San Diego Urban Warriors, Inc.: Kuumba Fest
San Diego Black Arts & Culture District
Alliance for Regional Solutions

What Partners and Youth Say

In their own words.

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Testimonial from Promises2Kids, Mesa College, or San Diego Workforce Partnership. Gather with written permission before launch.

Full Name

Role, Organization

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Testimonial from a program staff member or director at a partner organization. Gather with written permission before launch.

Full Name

Role, Organization

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Testimonial from a youth participant or guardian, with explicit written permission. Initials or first name only if preferred.

Full Name

Role, Organization

The Philosophy

What Jay believes about this work.

Art healing is not an activity. It is not a distraction or a reward or a way to fill program time. It is a structured, evidence-informed practice that gives people, especially people who have been told their feelings are too much, too complicated, or too hard to talk about, a way to name and work through what they carry.

Jay built SELM™ because she needed it to exist. Because she knows what it is to be a young person with feelings that don’t have words yet. And because she has seen, session after session, what happens when someone is finally given the right container for what they feel.

Lived experience is a credential.

Every practitioner brings a framework. Jay also brings the memory of what it felt like to need this, and not have it. That is not a weakness in her practice. It is the center of it.

Structure creates safety.

Open-ended creative time can feel unmooring for youth who have experienced trauma. The SELM™ framework gives every session a structure, a beginning, a process, and a landing place, that lets youth feel safe enough to go somewhere real.

The room matters before a word is spoken.

How a space feels when youth walk in determines what they’re willing to risk once they’re inside it. Jay transforms every room before a session begins, not as decoration, but as part of the therapeutic design.

Organizations deserve proof, not just promise.

Jay builds outcome documentation into every Roots and Canopy partnership because the organizations doing this work deserve to show their funders what’s changing. Impact that can’t be documented is impact that doesn’t get funded twice.

Work With Jay

Bring Jay and JB Empire Arts into your program.

Schedule a 15-minute discovery call to talk about your youth, your program, and how the workshops fit inside what you’re already running.