Skip to content

Take a Peak: Sarah Fitzgibbon

Healing potential of creating inspires artist
Powell River mixed media artist Sarah Fitzgibbon

Mixed media artist Sarah Fitzgibbon grew up in a creative household and was inspired to pursue art from a young age. She incorporates paint, clay, fabric and recycled materials into her work. After completing her BFA in fine arts, she began teaching art classes. This May she completed a graduate program in art therapy, a form of expressive therapy that uses the creative process of making art to improve a person’s physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.

Are you originally from Powell River?
I’m originally from Edmonton and glad to call Powell River my home since 2009.

Who or what inspired you to first get into art?
My dad was a painter and his studio always fascinated me. The smell of turpentine still reminds me of him. He originally inspired me to be creative. I was also very fortunate to attend a high school that specialized in visual and performing arts. I then went on to get my BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary.

What kind of art do you create?
I consider creativity and making art just a part of who I am as an individual. It’s just something I’ve always engaged in. The creative process allows me to fully express myself in ways that can’t be done through other forms of communication. I guess I would consider myself a multimedia artist, as I make art using many different types of mediums.

What else do you do artistically?
When my family and I first moved to Powell River I landed an awesome job running after school programs, workshops and teaching art lessons at Skylight Art Studio, where I worked for six years. Through my many experiences working at the studio, I discovered that art and, more specifically, the creative process can be used as a tool for exploring feelings, personality, identity, dreams, desires as well as difficult stuff that happens in life. It was another form of communication and self-expression. Because of this awareness, my attention shifted from the art itself to the process of making it. I was not interested in the technical or aesthetic quality of the finished pieces but in what was happening for the person during the process of making the art. This led me to explore the healing qualities of art and the creative process. I enrolled in a distance art therapy graduate program in Nelson, BC, which I completed this past May.

What is next for you?
I recently accepted a job with Powell River Child, Youth and Family Services Society and look forward to further developing my therapeutic skills as an art therapist in my home community of Powell River.

For more information, contact sarahfit@telus.net.