Muskoka Mosaic: Call of the outdoors leads to passionate career

Introducing Karen Robinson

ART SPEAKS. Karen Robinson followed the thread of art throughout her life, which has now led her to a career she is passionate about, art therapy. Photo by Mandi Hargrave

HUNTSVILLE – After years of cottaging on Oxbow Lake, the call of the great outdoors finally lured Karen Robinson to permanently move to Muskoka from Toronto.
It was 1990 and after working at a large corporation for 13 years, Robinson decided she wanted to live in the environment where she likes to play.
“I’m an outdoors girl,” she said. “I like canoeing, hiking, cycling; I’m happier in the outdoors. I always feel better after a walk in the forest.”
Robinson loves experiencing all the four seasons have to offer in Muskoka, everything from swimming to skiing.
“I love that I can just step out my door and do all of those things and that there are lots of people around who also share that interest,” she said.
After moving to the area, she followed her love of art and found a career she was passionate about, art therapy.
In one way, art has always been a part of Robinson’s life beginning with her time in Toronto where she would take the occasional course at OCAD University, formerly known as Ontario College of Art & Design.
“It’s always been a thread in my life but it gained importance once I got into my 40s,” she said.
While living in Huntsville she opened a studio gallery in her home in the late 1990s, which she still runs from her home now in Emsdale.
It was during that time that she also became interested in working with children and decided to finish her undergraduate degree in psychology and fine art at Nipissing University, which she did in 2005. She was then accepted to teachers’ college, but before that was set to begin she took a two-month course at the Haliburton School of the Arts, called Expressive Arts.
“I came away from that course feeling so motivated and certain that’s the way I wanted to work with kids specifically,” she said.
She then worked as an educational assistant with the Trillium Lakelands District School Board and the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board for three years.
“As an educational assistant I realized I wanted to work with children, in a more indepth manner, who struggled with various emotional or mental health issues.”
Robinson then completed a two-year post-graduate degree in art therapy from the Toronto Art Therapy Institute. “I do believe that often all the different experiences we’ve had in our life come together and if we choose to pay attention to them it may well lead us to a path that we’re going to find even more rewarding than the previous one, if we have the ability and the opportunity to do that,” she said.
As a form of psychotherapy, art therapy allows people to express themselves with difficult or unexpressed feelings and learn how to work through them with the creation of art.
Robinson said it can be used on people of all ages, but she thinks it is the most effective way to help children.
“It’s not going to be their natural first course of action to sit and talk about the problem because they might not understand it and they might not have their language of emotions developed,” she said. “The art can tell me so much about what’s going on in their life and how they perceive themselves, how they perceive their place in the world and if something’s gone askew somewhere. There’s so much information I can glean by looking at the art and asking the right questions. It’s a starting point.”
Robinson said the work is very interesting. Although she often hears sad and difficult stories about how children have grown up, she maintains an optimism that she can help make a positive difference through her work.
“This is something I can do as long as I wish. It’s work that continues to get better, the more seasoned a therapist is, is a positive thing,” she said.
With her job, Robinson said it’s important for her to maintain balance with her career and personal life. She makes it a priority to enjoy art herself and to find time for physical activities.
As an artist, she prefers pen and ink sketches and likes to draw on site. She’ll go and sit for hours while she recreates an image, becoming completely immersed in the process.
“I lose that time reference and to me that’s a signal that you become completely engaged in what you’re doing and you’re really in a very relaxed state,” she said. “For me it’s a great counter-balancing activity.”
Robinson also enjoys painting, working with clay and spending a lot of time walking with her dog, Molly.
Thanks to Mardi Edmison for recommending Robinson for Muskoka Mosaic. If there is someone in the community you’d like to see profiled, contact Mandi Hargrave at 705-789-5541 ext. 285 or email mhargrave@metrolandnorthmedia.com.

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