The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering but to give a voice to it, to find a form in which it can be expressed. Expression is itself transformation; this is the message that art brings. The therapist then would be an artist of the soul, working with sufferers to enable them to find the proper container for their pain, the form in which it would be embodied.
Stephen K. Levine
I began to draw seriously when my adored older brother, Patrick, went off to Art College – he is 7 years older than I am. Following him to Hull College of Art, I decided not to continue in his footsteps when he went on to the Royal College of Art in London to do his Masters, despite being offered the opportunity to do my own MA there too. Instead, I wanted to start a family.
Painting is like breathing to me. It is what I do all the time. Every day I make art, whether it is painting, writing or making a movie.
~ Julian Schneibel
I was married in 1969 and graduated from the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting in Kensington, London, in 1970, after four years of study. Then, 43 years later, I began my Post Graduate Programme in Art Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths, University of London, in September 2013.
My focus changed in those intervening years. I now see Art as a powerful means of expressing thoughts and emotions, especially those that have been buried deep in the subconscious. I spent those middle years having eight children in total, conceived, adopted and fostered, and painting a little too and then teaching art in palliative care at the North London Hospice. All of this inspired me to study the Psychology of Art Therapy, a little late in the day!
And so the years pass and I have been painting in my studio at the bottom of the garden in our new home in Leamington Spa. Locally is a group of artists “LSA” (Leamington Studio Artists) which I joined and enjoy meeting with and exhibiting in our own “Art Room” in the centre of the town and in East Lodge which is our permanent home in Jephson Gardens. I help steward and other jobs with the group and really feel I have found my niche.
Currently, the flow of my work has incorporated my words with my images. Poetry is a relatively new discovery for me.