ROBIN WALKER, MA, LMFT
I've been a painter for as long as I've been a therapist --30+ years (GASP). I began painting while in graduate school when I realized that what I should have done was gone to art school. Crisis! I was practical, though, so I finished my degree and taught myself to paint. Since then, I've combined my love of psychotherapy with my love of art. My office is in an art studio (or is my art studio in my office?) As a self taught artist, I'm interested in expressive art--art that shows the way a subject feels, rather than the way it looks. I love expressing the shapes and lines of my subjects, and guiding my progress with composition rather than likeness. I'm always going for immediacy. I don't want to tickle it to death.
Self Portrait as a Therapist (Diploma)
(Acrylic and Charcoal on Canvas, 40” x 30”)
This is from a series I'm working on that explores not what I feel, but what I look like. I've distilled the basic shapes of my "therapist pose" as seen by my clients. Each version I do reveals a different truth of therapy to me. Here, the large head and diploma on the wall reminds me not to be too intellectual.