Author's Information

 

Born in Southern England to a clergyman father and a physicist mother with a grandmother who read palms (thought not for a living) I was set up! Set up that is for an interest in body, mind and spirit, a balance of left and right brain and an open and inquiring mind. One great grandfather was an artist and another was a notorious gunsmith!

We were a close knit family.  Growing up in war time with my younger brother and sister in a country rectory made us thoughtful, caring and resilient.  One of my earliest memories is of a night when I was bundled up in a blanket and driven to a neighbor’s house.  A bomb had fallen between our house and the church, cracking the eleventh century tower. Fortunately it did not explode; when excavated it was found that the detonating wire had broken, my first experience of a direct miracle.  Sharing and hand me downs were a fact of life….a treat was to share an egg for breakfast, and there were many nights spent in a Morrison shelter as we were close to the south coast, and in a direct line below bombing routes to London. Growing up in war time with the threat of invasion twenty miles across the channel and overhead made me a devoted proponent for peace; on the other hand I am aware of the closeness and bonding that came from sacrificing and fighting for a common cause. Wartime also gave me a sense of gratitude and obligation to those who died so we could live.

When introduced to Harry Potter I related immediately! For four years I left Paddington station on a similar school train, replete with friends and trunks, but no wizardry. My parents set a great store on education and with the help of a clergy scholarship I attended an excellent school, Cheltenham Ladies College, where I received a first class education with great emphasis in the liberal arts.  It was many years before I truly appreciated that foundation.  From there I  wanted to attend art school, but like many of my generation I was steered out of that fanciful notion to something more practical. I became a Nightingale nurse.  Four years of training at the Nightingale School of Nursing, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London was another great learning experience and foundation for living.  (In retrospect I find it interesting that I had pioneering women as role models, beginning with my mother who was the first woman physicist to have a paper published by the Institute of Physicists in London in the thirties. Miss Buss and Miss Beale who founded Cheltenham Ladies College in 1853 were pioneers in offering women a serious and cultured education, and Florence Nightingale, also in the mid nineteenth century, the pioneer in nursing). Our nursing hours were long, no eight hour shifts, but there was a great camaraderie among the nurses, and I learned much about human nature from the patients, and made some great friends among the nurses who I still communicate with. We all believed in living life to the full as well as working hard while there.

During these educational years and living in London, my life was additionally enriched with opportunities for experiencing and enjoying all the arts. The Turner collection at the Tate was one of my favorite destinations, I attended concerts, plays, ballet and opera often on student tickets; all of this engendered by art appreciation learned at school. 

On a more serious level it was during this time that I was also strongly influenced by my godfather, Leslie Weatherhead, who was at the City Temple and one of the best known preachers in London; very charismatic, he had a standing room audience with many students present and would take questions following the sermon.  With PhDs in theology, literature and psychology he was a great source of knowledge and inspiration to many, the author of many books, and known on both sides of the Atlantic.  In a subliminal way he might have influenced me to come to America, but it was his classic book “Psychology, Religion and Healing” published in the fifties, that caught my imagination and formed the foundation for the work I would do later in life; broadened in my case to psychology, spirituality and healing through art.

Following my formal education I came to the United States with a nursing friend.  We began working as pediatric nurses in San Jose, California.  Our plan was to work there for a few months then start traveling and work our way back to the east coast over a year’s time. As we made these plans, life took a different turn; we both met our future husbands!

I returned home to England for Christmas, and then came back to California to marry and settle down.  Dean and I lived first in San Jose and then at Lake Tahoe.  We were blessed with four wonderful children and remained in California for fifteen years where I loved being a full time mother and was very involved in community activities.  It was also during our time at Lake Tahoe that I began to sell my paintings through Gwynne Galleries and think of myself as a professional artist.

In 1974, my husband who had grown up in the Midwest, began to express a desire to move somewhere where he could work the land instead of building, and we decided that it would be good for the children to have a more grounded experience of life.  In 1975 we moved to eastern Washington where we experienced all the benefits and challenges of ranch life. We had several acres of fruit trees, more acres of alfalfa, and raised 300 head of sheep, not to mention a milk cow, chickens and horses and attendant cats and dogs.  None of us would have missed the experience, but we got into farming at a bad time with little capital, and unfortunately, in spite of hard physical work, the ranch failed and additionally the marriage.  By then the three oldest were in or set for college, and our youngest son, then 14, and I set out on a new life.

Obviously, with the ranch bankrupt, and no American nursing license, I had some concern about how I would be able to support us when something happened that led me in a whole new direction.

I attended a lecture by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross on “Death and Dying” in which she talked about the use of drawings to help people express their emotions at difficult and transitional times.  Beyond this she went on to say that the use of spontaneous drawings could help to identify key issues surrounding the situation of grief and loss that may not be expressed verbally.  I was fascinated.  I saw that this was something that could use both my background as a nurse and as an artist, and I knew intuitively that this was right for me.  After the lecture I asked Dr. Ross what it would take for me to pursue this interest in art as therapy.  When I told her about my background in art and nursing, she recommended that I consider studying more psychology with Gregg Furth PhD, a Jungian analyst, author of “The Secret World of Drawings”.  I decided to follow her advice.  At that time there were no formal programs for art therapy in the Pacific Northwest.  It took many years of study, work and practical experience, and an international committee to validate my English education background, but I was eventually accredited by the American Art Therapy Association in 1996.

Beginning 1982 I began working as an art therapist at Memorial Hospital. I worked throughout the hospital two days a week. When I was hired I was told it was on trial as art therapy was a new concept there, and that I would have to educate the doctors and medical staff as to when and how art therapy would be an appropriate modality.  From those tentative beginnings I never looked back.  I collected drawings from patients and put together a slide presentation which I also took to other venues, and all the time I was learning and benefitting from my work with patients.

 When I moved to Seattle in 1987, I continued to work in art therapy in private practice, with a holistic medical practice, and did some vital and important work for Childhaven.  Childhaven is an established and effective day treatment program for court referred children under the age of 5.  While I was working with them, I used art therapy for staff support, and we published research on “Indicators of Abuse and Neglect in pre-school Children’s Drawings” and presented it at the “International Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect” held in Kuala Lumpur.  My time with Childhaven was another valuable learning and enriching experience.

However I found that I was missing my work in medical art therapy, so I approached the University of Washington Medical Center to see if they would be interested, and in 1996 I was hired to lead a weekly art therapy support group for cancer patients and their families which I continue to this day.  I have now started a similar group at our Skagit Valley Regional Cancer Center.

Three years after moving to Seattle I was introduced to my second husband, Barrie, by mutual friends and we married in 1991. We lived in Seattle until 2003 when we moved north of Seattle to La Conner to facilitate our semi-retirement, and be nearer the grandchildren. We enjoy boating, the arts and the inspiring and productive countryside that is Skagit Valley

While art therapy is the theme of this book, my own art career has been concurrent with my work in art therapy and a helpful source of income.  Doing both, I find I do not get stale or burned out with either. Working originally in watercolor, I also work in collage and pastels, and show and sell in the Pacific Northwest. www.margaretcarpenter.com.

My hope is that the readers of this book are encouraged to deepen their own inner journey by any means they can, pay attention to messages in their art and dreams, and become familiar with their deepest self, trusting that their unconscious can lead them in a process of healing and transformation.

Education:
Cheltenham Ladies’ College, Cheltenham, England.  Fine Arts
Nightingale School of Nursing, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London.
Therapeutic Arts in Jungian Psychology, Gregg Furth PH.D.

 

2009-presentArt Therapist Skagit Valley Hospital Regional Cancer Center. Cancer support group.

1998-presentArt Therapist University of Washington Medical Center. Cancer support group.
Supervision of Art Therapy interns, Antioch University program.

1991-2001Art TherapistChildhaven, Seattle, Washington. Staff education and support.
Research Children's drawings

1986-presentArt Therapist (Private Practice), Seattle, Washington. Individual therapy.
Consultation. Teaching.

1983-2003Art Therapist Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Memorial
Hospital, Yakima, Washington. Group and individual therapy with patients.
Staff support through Dept. of Organizational Health and Wellness utilizing
MARI art therapy evaluation system.

1975-presentProfessional Artist (watercolors, pastels, collage). Seattle & La Conner, WA

 

PROFESSIONAL

Indications of Abuse and Neglect in Pre-school Drawings. Research for Childhaven, Seattle. 1993.
Consultant on Adolescent Response to Childhood Sexual Abuse. Co-investigator; Jane Cornman Ph.D., R.N., University of Washington 1990

Honors Graduate, Class President, Nightingale Training School, London 1959
Woman of the Year, Allied Arts Award, Yakima, Washington 1987

Women in Leadership for Peace. Invited to attend conference in the Soviet Union with the Soviet Women's Committee for Peace; Leningrad and Moscow 1986.

Tenth International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect.  Presented paper on “Signs of Abuse and Neglect in Pre-school Children’s Drawings for Childhaven, Seattle, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1994.
Art Therapy Delegation to China. Invited to meet with Chinese counterparts in cultural/educational exchange in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Guilin, China 1995.

PRESENTATIONS
Numerous presentations and workshops on “Art and Healing” to nurses, teachers and counselors including the American Holistic Medical Association; The Society for Arts in Healthcare; Jungian Conference; Seattle.