Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kim Roberts. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Kim thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I’ll say from the outset, that being an artist is first and foremost not really a “job description” in my mind. It is a calling or a vocation. Making art is part of who I am. When I was a troubled teenager dealing with family dramas, I spent hours drawing and writing in my journals, never expecting – or inviting – anyone else to view these creations. So to expect to be paid as an artist was not part of my original thinking. I just wrote and drew because it made me feel better. I never even thought about earning a living as an artist until I started writing books – which by the way are not a big earner for most authors.
At a certain point I had some success with making art and found gallery representation, and started earning a decent living making and selling art.
And then just as quickly as those 5 galleries who had sold my art all disappeared for one reason or another, leaving me with the question of how to earn a living.
I’ve had to take a part time retail job to make up for the lost income, and I definitely do wonder sometimes about having more substantial work. But prior to focusing on making art, I had a successful career as a wellness teacher – leading retreats all over the world for 30 years – so it would be very hard for me to suddenly work in what most people consider a “regular” job. I don’t have the heart for it. I’m a healer, I’ve been told. I would be very depressed to try to fit into a corporate environment. On top of that, because I was in the wellness industry before it became so popular, I never got certified in anything – because the certification programs did not exist back then – so to try to get back into that industry is not an option any more. So at the moment, I’m experiencing a bit of anxiety and uncertainty about earning a living.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

It’s hard for me to label myself, but I’ve been told I am a healer, and a writer, and an artist. Years ago I discovered Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, and went to India to study with Pattabhi Jois – who has since passed – and got his blessing to teach. This led to a 20 year period of my teaching yoga and meditation at luxury resorts and retreat centers around the world. I lived all over South and Southeast Asia – India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, and got connected with several 5-star resort chains, who paid me to teach yoga and meditation to their guests.
Throughout this time, I wrote, and painted little watercolor sketches of the places I visited. I’ve kept a journal since I was eleven years old – a gift from my mother who saw that I was struggling emotionally after my parents’ divorce. So I knew the healing power of journaling from a young age. Then at twenty seven I discovered Ashtanga, and started to heal the underlying trauma on a deeper level. Healing and art are intimately linked for me.
At a certain point, while I was living in Paris, teaching private Ashtanga yoga lessons to the well-heeled, I started painting in the evenings in my tiny studio apartment. I continued painting with more seriousness, wondering how to make more time to create.
Then just before my fiftieth birthday, after I had just moved back to the US and bought a home in Colorado, I discovered there was an art teacher in my tiny mountain town who taught encaustic wax painting workshops. I had been fascinated with this technique for years, but there was very little information about it available. Encaustic wax is a medium that was used to paint portraits in the ancient Roman times, and the Egyptians employed this technique to create images of family members who had passed, so the family could mourn for a year before placing these paintings in the tombs with their loved ones. There are examples of these portraits – called the Fayum Mummy Portraits – in the Louvre and the Met. So I signed up for a workshop with this teacher in my village, and connected immediately with the process. I felt like I had found my element- whether it was the encaustic process itself, or just the invitation and freedom to paint, I felt strongly at home. At the end of the workshop, the teacher looked at me and said, “I don’t know you at all, or what your situation is, but it seems to me you should stop doing whatever else you are doing and make art and write.” The moment he said this, it resonated so deeply as truth that I immediately broke down in tears. It felt like coming home.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Absolutely. My own experience taught me that art heals. Both making and appreciating art are powerful ways of processing the emotional baggage we all gather through our lives, and finding ways to connect with others who have passed before us and experienced their own traumas. I learned early on to find solace in books – JD Salinger, Henry Miller, and Kurt Vonnegut all left their mark on me. I discovered I was not alone in my struggles with making sense of the world. I also learned early on that visiting art venues was a form of spiritual worship. I can’t count the number of times I have suddenly stood in front of a painting, or attended a theatre production, or listened to music, or read a book, that brought tears to my eyes and shifted my world view. True art has depth, unlike much of what we see on the screen these days. It’s unfortunate that we’ve replaced the transformational experience offered by art with the drama of modern entertainment.
Then when I started creating my own forms of art – painting or sketching or writing – I started to understand how this process works. The creator is like the trailblazer, confronting emotion or the search for meaning, which, if successful, transmits a glimpse of this process to the viewer or reader or experiencer. A good artwork doesn’t provide an answer as much as invites the contemplation of a question. If the timing is right, and you come across a piece of art that speaks to you, you get the download, and your life is changed.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the freedom I have to follow my inspiration. I’ve never been very good at following rules, and so I the prescribed life was never interesting to me. I lived as an expat in Europe and Asia for most of my adult life, which was already outside the norm. But then in addition to that, my work has always been focused on healing. I’ve never been all that great at focusing on the “bottom line” even when I managed a yoga studio at one of the most expensive hotels in Hong Kong. My focus has always been on what is true and meaningful. And mostly that means connecting to the heart of people and helping them connect to their own hearts with love and compassion.
I was trained as a psychotherapist, earning my masters degree in “contemplative psychology”, which recognizes the power of being present as a healing force. When we spend so much time or energy trying to fit in to someone else’s agenda, we miss out on this simple ablility to be present and contemplate what is important to us.
So many of us in the modern era struggle with issues of self-worth and self-love. We grow up learning to follow a path laid out by others, and when we fail, or don’t want to do that, we are judged. So many of the problems in our world would be fixed if we each – individually – learned to love ourselves and forgive those we feel hurt us. My life has been made meaningful by working with people and helping them to feel loved, so they can blossom, and create their life’s work. I never would have been able to discover this had I followed a traditional path in life.
Becoming an artist lets me express the poignancy of the human situation in all the ways I feel are important, through creating, writing and sharing insights about the art of healing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kimrobertsart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimrobertsart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KimRobertsArt/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimrobertstoolsforevolution/
• Other: https://awakeningwithart.com/