We were lucky to catch up with Kymberlee Stanley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kymberlee, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

As a professional artist and psychotherapist who uses visual arts in her private practice, I am lucky to witness the way creativity and compassion can change people every day. In a way, creativity itself has been my expression of being a “hope merchant” to the world. Although I have been a licensed clinical social worker for over 20 years, I began pursuing professional oil painting seven years ago, at the age of 46. I first started painting for my own healing journey, as I was homesick for the California coast after moving to Nashville in 2012. As a native Southern Californian I had left my friends, family, and a mental health program that I loved to join my husband and daughter in a new world of the South-I was lonely and needed a way to process the change and grief. I pursued classes, mentorships and jumped in to oil painting full force for several years and loved it. My husband built an art studio in our backyard and I painted and saw therapy clients there. I started the Nashville Painters Salon that met twice a month in my studio to build an art community, share painting experiences, and do group shows. I travelled back and forth to Catalina Island (where we lived for three years) to paint with plein air groups in Laguna Beach and Southern California, and to do festivals and shows for 8 years. I was developing my own voice as an artist who wanted art to bring solace, color and comfort to all that viewed it. As a psychotherapist, my work with clients started centered around a model of therapy called Internal Family Systems, which explored the different parts within the client working together to heal the whole. I wondered how I could combine my painting in the studio with my work clients use art to express their internal world and unknown “parts” inside. I started practicing my own way of using experiential art in my IFS practice and teaching groups of therapists the model I was using – expanding on how they can use art to heal in their practices as well. People starting coming to art workshops and were moved. Therapists came for workshops to debrief their own stress and vicarious trauma of what they held for clients on a regular basis. People were able to express and feel parts of themselves through expressive art that they could not through talk therapy. Although Art therapy has been a well established field with that has worked powerfully with people for years. I had began using my own version of expressive arts in therapy with “parts therapy”. I now use my art in two distinct ways: my own expression of art in my studio work, and also helping people use art to PROCESS life, and for self-reflection and understanding. My first career was as an elementary teacher, where I played guitar and taught art lessons on the side. But now, I am feeling such meaning and purpose both creating my own art, counseling individually, and helping others find their authentic selves through expressive art classes and “Parts Work”. I have learned that my career can borrow parts from a lifetime of my experiences. Nothing is wasted. We can share our story, made of many parts, with the world.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I knew earlier in my career that I can recreate myself as I go along….to integrate my past into future careers. For example, when I was an elementary teacher, I didn’t feel that was a perfect fit, but it was a part of me. When I became a therapist, I was good at it, and it was a part of me, but not a perfect fit. When I started painting, I loved it and always wanted to continue, but felt I wanted to integrate deeper connection with people, and helping people grow through honest expression. Now I figured out that I can make my own path by doing all three, at different times, and altogether all at once.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I took my first oil painting class at a hardware store when I was 17 years old. I saved the box of oil paints my mom bought me, engraved with my name and date, 1985. After my parents told me they couldnt afford to send me to private art school anymore, I stored my oil paint box until I was 46 years old. I didn’t know that oil paints can last 50 years or more, and I pulled them out to start oil painting again at age 46. You can start painting at any age.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kymberleestanley.com/
• Instagram: kymberleestanley1
• Other: I am a member of the Chestnut Group, Plein Air painters of Nashville
  Southern California Plein Air Association
  Oil Painters of America
  Nashville Area Association of Christian Counselors
  Catalina Art Association

Image Credits

Thank you Amber Beckham Photography!