Friday Figures
Billie Bivins
Exhibit: July 20 - August 24, 2012
Reception: August 3, 2012, 6-8pm
Artist Statement:
While studying to become an art therapist, I enrolled for my first oil painting class. Immediately I was drawn to this medium. Oil painting is forgiving and readily adapts to whatever you bring. I think of oil painting as a 3-dimentional medium – sculpting with paint – particularly when you use a palate knife rather than brushes. The palate knife also keeps me from obsessing over details, an easy opening for my internal critic, since I am not accomplished at rendering.
For several years I have worked with David Andrus at the Cambridge Center on Brattle Street. He has a great studio oil class on Friday nights, painting from live models, which adds a powerful aspect to making art. My process is typically the same, where for three hours I move through a variety of emotions, including, but not always, enthusiasm, trepidation, frustration, horror, criticism, excitement, discovery, despair, and, if I’m patient and push through, accomplishment and satisfaction.
Bruce Moon, a pioneering art therapist and writer who inspired me early in my studies, states, “If you are an art therapist you must make art.” In my work where I counsel clients and support them in their emotional and life journeys with talk therapy and non-verbal processes, it is vital that I stay connected to my process and allow myself to be as open and vulnerable to growth as I encourage my clients to be.
Billie Bivins is a Board Certified Art Therapist and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. In addition to working at the Guidance Center in Cambridge, where she provides therapy for teens and adults, she also has a private practice in Belmont. At the Belmont Media Center Billie has produced over 50 shows of Make Art…Feel Better, a show which examines, extols and exhibits the creative process.