KAREN SILTON, MA
As an artist and now psychologist trained to work in communities, I see art from the perspective of helping to reveal and express both the individual and collective unconscious. As a longtime professional artist and art educator working in diverse media, my focus was on creating art from my own unconscious and all of my art has been filled with vibrant, symbolic imagery, primarily from nature. In the time of COVID, while being sheltered, I turned towards nature and especially watching birds for respite. I felt the desire keenly to take flight. My training in a depth psychological program for community, liberation, indigenous and ecopsychologies, has opened up my awareness and consciousness for how artmaking alongside those who’ve experienced homelessness and correlated mental and physical health issues cannot only alleviate their suffering, it can also stir and awaken consciousness. Potentially a sense of psychological and emotional freedom along with it. I have been able to both witness and nurture what can emerge in a group context through artmaking without participants having the need or requirement to express the complexity of their emotions into words. Especially with clay and other tactile media, those with little or no prior experience with art begin to create forms and imagery intuitively and before our eyes their spirits and energy transform. As I witness their self-expression coming forth, I also notice that is is often accompanied with new hopes and dreams for the future and more ease to express through words as well. For me, art and psychology are intimately connected and continue to hold great promise for healing and opening consciousness especially in communities dealing with psychosocial trauma.
I am because we are
(Watercolor and Photograph, 8” x 18”)
This piece incorporates many symbols and layers as visual metaphors for interweaving the unconscious and conscious worlds. I particularly like watercolor for its fluidity and transparency as well as being able to render forms. The circle is both symbol and metaphor and one that has appeared often in my artwork during COVID. In this piece, I began with the spontaneous watercolor expressing my innermost unconscious and reflecting a sense of the divine. I eventually embedded some of my photos taken locally here in Woodland Hills, CA, during Covid at the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve. Expressing the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit individually and collectively with all living beings.