I'm Robin Christensen

I see art everywhere. Nature inspires me, but so does the look of an old chair, etched wood with scroll, or a spindle welded into form. I love to experiment with color and texture. Most anything will suffice: acrylic, fabric, stone, glass, or tile. But even more interesting is that which I don’t see, until a gradual change of light rests on a canyon wall; or throws a shadow under a tree’s canopy; or reveals the iridescent blue, curled under the crest of a wave.  

My love for painting was a gradual one. I didn’t like art class, due to those rules, so I didn’t believe that I could fit art into my everyday world. After all, did I really understand art? I did have some talent and I needed extra money for college, so that is what I did–I painted signs and such.

Later, and with exception to a rewarding career as a high school teacher, I was otherwise self-employed in sales. Once, while giving a presentation, I noticed a client glancing, periodically, into the other room. I sought her distraction and found a possible culprit – it was either the lovely spread of refreshments, or the otherworldly looking angel framed perfectly on the adjacent wall. It was beautiful. I gasped and thought back to my, paint for college days, and thought, why didn’t I paint like that?  

The ladies were excused to the other room to enjoy the various cakes and teas, while I stayed at the table to work with a client. A friend of hers, who was next in line, said,“ You need to see that angel painting!” Interested, I too, looked in that direction. I was stunned. With the added light, I could easily see that it was my work on that wall!  

I kept quiet about it, until the next day, but in that moment, I felt the love for what I had accomplished all those years ago, and knew in my heart and soul that art was, and is, where I belong.