Karen Silton has been a professional ceramist, fine art mosaicist and educator for the past twenty years. She has a BA degree in Sociology from UCLA. She is presently a doctoral candidate in the Depth Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, CLIE Program (community, liberation, indigenous, eco psychologies) in Carpinteria, CA. She has received numerous private and public commissions and her artwork is in collections worldwide. She has taught at Pierce College Extension and at Otis College of Art and Design, Glendale Community College Extension, and the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

In 2018 Karen Silton established Communities Create to work collaboratively with Los Angeles community-based non-profit health and social service agencies and organizations to improve health equity by providing community artmaking for individuals experiencing homelessness, intimate partner violence, incarcerated and post carceral, foster youth and veterans. Our purpose is to foster self-expression, self-efficacy, imagination and a sense of community for vulnerable communities.

Karen Silton, a trauma-informed community psychologist and professional artist works with health organizations and agencies to provide Arts for Well-Being workshops. These organizations understand the need for creative activities for a holistic approach in serving their clients. They also understand the added benefit of working with a trained professional to provide this arts component as an integral part of the programs and services for their clients.

The founding of Communities Create has come from years of artmaking in marginalized communities as well as concentrated study of the importance of creativity as a catalyst in creating change in one’s own life and within communities.