Meg Robinson
Artist and writer Meg Robinson was born in Belfast but grew up in Scotland. After early years with unusual parents and characterised by misfortune, Meg's life has followed a quest for meaning that has led her to explore and to draw inspiration from some of the world's great wildernesses from Alaska to South America.
Meg is based in the magical Alpujarras region of Andalucía in Spain from where she offers year-round "Healing Art Journeys" retreats, and in which she is committed to help people rediscover their sense of adventure, and play, in life.
Early Years
Meg's creative apprenticeship began with work in a mice-infested pottery in Edinburgh, wrapping chocolates in a Dickensian factory, being a life model to pay the rent, and spending six adventure filled months exploring art, architecture, poetry, philosophy, life and love in East and West Germany, Holland, Belgium and northern France.
Returning to London in 1962, Meg enrolled at The Heatherly School of Fine Art where she spent six further blissful months learning to draw and paint, experimenting with materials and ideas, compiling a portfolio, writing poetry, and generally becoming a fledgling artist/poet. Then began her 'formal' art training at St Martins Art School in London.
A year later, after falling in love with a Scottish poet, she transferred her studies to the Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating, she qualified as a teacher of art, and taught art for 12 years before creating her own private art school in Aberdeen Scotland, called The Independent Painters Workshop, 'IPW'. The art school was based on the ideas of the Paris studios of the turn of the century.
A Recovery ...
Meg's path to Alcázar began in 1996 when, having recovered dramatically from a ten year chronic illness (ME) and a string of bereavements through a mix of meditation, Reiki healing, drawing, painting, and creative writing, she closed her art school and became a nomadic artist. Her travels over the next five years took her to Alaska, northern Canada, California, New Mexico, Ireland and Spain, providing much of the self-discovery and inspiration that she now draws on in her art and retreat work.
During this time Meg was deeply inspired by two mentors, Didier Danthois, creator of 'Fool at Heart', with whom she discovered a means of self-expression and self-discovery through clowning, and Gernot Dick, an extraordinary fearless wilderness explorer, teacher, painter and photographer.
Gernot, whom she met in northern Canada in 1999, encouraged her to explore her inner and outer wilderness experiences in her paintings, installations, and writing, which led to a major solo art exhibition in Dublin in 2000, and two further exhibitions in Ireland. These featured 40 new works created over an eighteen-month journey from Spain to Alaska
In 2001 she fell in love with, bought and renovated a small tumbled-down house in Alcázar. It took a year to rebuild, and with much laughter and a few tears (she couldn't speak any Spanish then), it grew and grew. Now a large, beautifully spacious house on three floors, "Healing Art Journeys" welcomes guests from around the world for retreats. Meg is completely committed to helping people rediscover their sense of play, adventure and purpose in life.
A Passion for Peru
Meg continues to explore digital art and photography, and has published five books of her soulful images of Spain, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, exploring themes of compassion, forgiveness, and healing.
She has also written an acclaimed travel memoir, 'Drawn by a Star', which includes the synopsis of a film she has subsequently written, based on two characters she met in Patagonia.
As part of the research for the film, Meg headed for Bolivia in March 2009 to work with a theatre company for street youth, but found herself bewitched by Peru and the Sacred Valley (leading to Machu Picchu).
Here she hooked up with a charity working with street children - www.pathoftheheart.org, and made friends with a young indigenous couple, ex street-children themselves. Together, but initiated by them, they have started an aid programme - www.highmountainaidperu.com - taking basic food supplies twice a year to 70 isolated families who live high in a valley close to Machu Picchu.
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Now 80% of all proceeds from the sale of Meg's art work, books, and retreats goes to funding these two projects which she has committed to help.
