Karen K. Milstein

Artist’s Statement:

Clay is a balancing and healing medium for me which provides an opportunity for work and play. This  contrasts refreshingly with life in my everyday world. My professional work, training, and orientation as psychologist, psychotherapist and healer, which I also greatly enjoy, involves a great responsibility to others. As a potter, I can bring my healing intention into the physical world in a more spontaneous, immediate, and “free” fashion.

The process of creating with clay is a healing one for me personally, and is enriched by my Kabbalistic understanding of the formative act as a faint reflection of the original creation of our universe. Currently I'm enjoying experimenting with masks and mask-like faces, using both animal and human-like forms. In the process of their creation, I'm always looking for the freshness that can result from purposively introduced but ultimately random distortion - chaos in action.

Frequently I also create rattles, which for me express the shaking awake of our consciousness, and provide those who use them with the opportunity to be playful. Many of the images I inscribe on these come from nature, from Spirit, from my training in mysticism and shamanism. Some have to do with boundaries, with balance, with integration – themes which arise in my professional work. Some come from my unconscious, and others have been suggested by the efforts of my patients. All my rattles, in one way or another, represent wholeness and healing.

My intention is for all my pieces, whatever their form, to embody a healing and spirit-elevating essence on a variety of levels.

Karen K. Milstein, PhD, LISW