JILL WATERMAN, PhD
When I retired from the UCLA Psychology Department in Summer 2013 after 32 years, I began thinking about painting. I’d always been interested in art but never pursued anything while I was a busy professor and mom of twins. In taking classes now for about 6 years, I have found watercolor painting to be a wonderful creative outlet, tension reducer, and way to explore a looser, freer way of being. In contrast to writing a professional paper or giving an academic lecture which is planned and rigorous, watercolor paints flow into each other, creating unexpected and interesting effects over which the artist has only partial control. As I am continuing to supervise students and see a few clients, I feel that I have become more intuitive, reflective and affectively attuned in my work as a result of painting. I also more frequently use art in my therapeutic interventions with children, which I find engages them as well as helps them access their emotions in a deeper way. I only wish I had started sooner to bring this wonderful creative endeavor into my life.
Fenced In
(Watercolors, 12” x 18”)
This painting expresses my feelings during the coronavirus pandemic as well as about the current racial justice movement. Everything seems chaotic and explosive while I feel fenced in on several fronts. Especially as an older person who is more vulnerable to the virus, I feel fenced in being at home constantly, unable to see my children and grandchildren in the Bay area, travel as I love to do, see friends and colleagues, or go to my beloved art class. But I also realize how privileged I am to have a safe home, enough to eat, a fulfilling profession, and good health care. So this painting also signifies the chaos of discrimination, microaggressions, and long- term systemic racism that fences in so many people of color. These two come together in my distress that my age and the pandemic prevented me from demonstrating against racial injustice as I would have liked to.