Originally Published on The Feast
MEETING ERIN ROBBINS IS SUCH A PLEASURE—not only is she a warm and beautiful woman, but within a few minutes you also know that she is a beautiful soul. Her life is a testament to the survival of a human being’s inner drive to create, to draw from all that surrounds her, condensing and synthesizing it into textured visual art composed from the deepest, jewel-like colors of the palette.
From the time she was a little girl growing up in Los Angeles, Erin has been possessed with the drive to bring images to life on paper and canvas. She attended UC Santa Cruz, graduating with honors in 1975 with a degree in Arts, Crafts, and Their History, and went on to get a masters degree in Expressive Arts Therapies from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA. Studies in meditation and Eastern spirituality as she traveled to and lived in India inform her work even today. Her life’s path seemed set as she spent the next fifteen years teaching people how to access and live creative lives.
Then, tragedy struck as, in 1997, Erin experienced severe head injuries in a head-on automobile collision. During a period in which she could no longer rely on logic and linear thinking, she began to experience the world in a new, more immediate way. As she expresses it, “If paintings are windows, mine peer into a world where the line between archetype and ordinary reality is blurred, where the ancient rubs shoulders with the present. Through these windows, stories come to life, stories that can only be told in the potent and mysterious language of art.”
When you are in Erin’s presence, in her lovely home surrounded by brilliant colors, tapestries, and iconic images, a wonderful feeling of peace enfolds you. She works in oils, acrylics, and mixed media and often focuses on a variety of ethnic female images to portray the poetry of her work and her heart. Classes and workshops are also available. Erin makes her home now in Nevada City, California, and examples of her paintings can be seen at https://www.erinrobbinsstudio.com.
© Photograph of Erin Robbins by Suzanne Hall, Grass Valley, California.