Me and Jenny

Twin – I am first and foremost a twin.  The irony of being a twin is that although it’s unique, you are also genetically exactly the same as someone else and you could arguably say that you are literally conceived at the same moment in time and space as someone else.  It calls to question all sorts of challenges around identity, individuality, being existentially alone or collectively connected, etc.

Artist? – My mother is a painter, and from the time that my twin Jenny and I could talk, she let us experiment in her studio.  Although you could say that I had some talent, I was by no means a prodigy.  In fact, I was always ambivalent about being an artist.

One of Dave Moyer’s Paintings

Not Artist, Art Therapist – When I was younger I had a good friend, Len Parker, who spent all of his free time drawing elaborate fantasy characters inspired by artist Frank Frazetta.  Then in my twenties,  I dated another consummate artist, David Moyer, who invented a painting technique called Farbelism.  Everything Len and Dave did was in the service of their art.  Not only did I not have that kind of passion, but I also didn’t particularly like what felt like the solitary life of the artist and I had no clear message that I needed to communicate through art.

When I discovered art therapy, a field that uses art to help others, it combined my artistic sensibilities with a way to connect with others.  But I stopped making art regularly because for me it had been so fraught with ambivalence and perfectionism.

T and Mommy 2005

Death and Mandalas – Although, as an art therapist, I was frequently doing quick process-oriented artwork, I didn’t make art with any consistency until 2005 when my brother ‘T’ died of bile duct cancer within 6 months of being diagnosed.  I got stuck in grief and realized that, like the proverbial physician, I needed to “heal myself”. 

Of course, logically,  I knew I should be using the tool I offered to my patients—art–but I couldn’t imagine getting back into the relationship I’d had with it before, in which everything I made had to be perfect.  So I started making small 4 x 4 inch mandalas I called art thoughts. Sometimes, even though some of these ‘thoughts’ were just disorganized scratches, they did for me that thing art can do—they helped me get out what was stuck inside and start working through my grief.

Jenny Wilkinson Peace

Watching Others Do Art and Make Beautiful Things – Throughout the many years that I’ve been an art therapist, it never ceases to amaze me what stunningly powerful art people make.  This realization comes from a deep appreciation for the unique ways that people express themselves in the art process—even the simplest sketch tells the story of the person who made it. 

It’s also been eye-opening to see how consistently people who are self-avowedly not artists seem to enjoy making art.  For example, my sister Jenny started to make mandalas with me and then took up painting.  She thoroughly enjoys doing art and doesn’t care about whether it meets the standards of “fine art”.  This was intriguing to me, having had such a conflicted relationship with art.  I realized that I really needed to revisit my assumptions about being an artist and, if nothing else, have more fun making it!