wren ross

Lives and works in Park City, UT

Artist statement

I am a visual midwife who is actively exploring the need for new gods and rituals in an age of diminished meaning. To birth a creative work is the only act profound enough to contribute to a new mythos. I am fine artist who has maintained a professional practice since getting my BFA in 2006. I'm also a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice centered on somatic-supported trauma-informed psychotherapy. For a long time I grappled with these disparate identities, having learned the importance of commitment to a single scope of practice and dedicating one's life to one's craft. However, the more I tried to flesh out the differences between my clinical and creative practice the less clear the differences turned out to be. – One of these is focused on emotions, the other is focused on organizing material; one is driven by education about archetypes, stigma, and somatic interpretation, one by response, personal history and learning, etc. Which is which? Are they in fact separate? It wasn't until recently (after motherhood, perimenopause, the beginning of my parents' aging, the ongoing evolution in marriage) that I recognized that the creative and clinical practices weren't at war with one another for importance or esteem, they were in a symbiotic relationship. Each fed and nourished the other; depended on one another to survive. The clinical practice provides me with exposure to the wider world and its intimate problems and miraculous remedies, and the creative...

Artwork