Terry Marks-Tarlow

When younger, I agonized whether to become an artist or a psychologist. After attending Rhode Island School of Design for a summer during, I concluded I wasn’t talented enough to be an artist. Besides that, I wasn’t confident I could earn a living as an artist or deal with the loneliness of social isolation.

So, I became a clinical psychologist with a specialty in creativity. Over the years, as I began writing papers and books, I re-entered art through the back door. I wrote about concepts that needed to be visualized. Yet no images existed. This “forced” me to illustrate my own books. As long as I conceptualized what I was doing as communicating rather than making art, I felt safe and legitimized.

Very slowly, through the years and decades, I have crawled my way back to fine art. I invite a model monthly to my house in Topanga for live drawing sessions. I have created the first coloring book for mindfulness that includes content and meaningful images, called Truly Mindful Coloring (PESI, 2016). As a psychologist and part of the Executive Board of the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, I co-founded and curate an annual exhibition of psychotherapist art called “Mirrors of the Mind: The Psychotherapist as Artist.” We are in our sixth year. The exhibition downtown at Art Share LA includes national and international submissions of visual and performing artists.

I have finally reclaimed my identity as an artist and am proud to be part of the Brain show!

I am a clinical psychologist, author, and artist who illustrates my own books, based in Santa Monica.