Neighbors of Westover Hills Magazine: Creative Couple Can’t Be Stopped

Neighbors of Westover Hills features Kim & Peter Robbins in the September Anniversary issue.
Resident Feature: Kim & Peter Robbins

By Joshua Baethge

The story of Kim and Peter Robins begins when the two met as ninth-graders in an Oklahoma City high school. They dated for ten years, attending college together at both Trinity University and Oklahoma University. For the past decade, they have called Fort Worth home. The two creatives have both found success in the arts. He is a renowned photographer who specializes in western photography these days. She is a photographic artist whose work has been featured in galleries across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado.

The couple’s journey to Fort Worth has taken many turns. Kim left OU for Dallas to become a model for
the Kim Dawson Agency. Eventually, Peter followed to pursue a career in photography. Kim then moved to New York and worked for the Wilhelmina agency. In 1979 she was on the cover of Town & Country Magazine.

Eventually, the pair got married and moved to Milan, Italy for two years for Kim’s modeling. While she was at the height of her modeling career, Peter began doing work for major publications like the Dallas Times Herald, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post. He also started doing more advertising and fashion photography.

He got many assignments from companies like Marshall Field’s Nieman Marcus, who he worked with for over
a decade. They began using Kim and Peter together for projects like the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog. The couple returned to Dallas but traveled to Europe on a regular basis.

“Peter was really evolving and I had been in my modeling career longer,” Kim Recalls.

“My second career was to become a stylist where I actually got people ready for the advertising. I transitioned from modeling to styling for advertising.”

Eventually, the Robbins started a family while living in Dallas. During this time Kim started getting more into photography. Today their older son Daniel lives in Denver. He’s married with two daughters. Younger son Jason lives in California. Both work in cinematography.

“We have a whole family that all enjoy doing similar things,” Kim says.

In 2010 Peter began segueing out of traditional work to focus primarily on fine art western photography.

“I started working on ranches and fell in love with that, just telling the story of the American cowboy and the American rancher,” he says.

The couple’s Crestwood home doubles as their gallery. It’s also where they make their fine art. Kim is a regularly featured artist at Pottery Barn and West Elm stores. Last year as the pandemic began to dominate daily life, people started placing lots of custom orders on their website.

“We were really busy, which was a surprise during COVID because everyone was working from home and they had bare walls,” Kim recalls.

The Robbins recently returned from a four-week adventure to ranches in Oklahoma, New Mexico Wyoming and Montana where Peter took photos for a corporate client. He prefers to work on horseback so he can get the best perspective for his shots. He says the good thing about working with Kim is that they have very different styles. He may shoot a subject one way while she takes a totally different approach.

“We work together a lot of times to kind of tell stories and make art for companies and individuals,” she says.

When Peter began focusing more on western photography, they were living at a home they’d built in Lucas. However, between friends and work at events like the cutting horse show, they found themselves more drawn to Fort Worth.

“It was the perfect fit. It’s near all the ranches, it’s got the ranching history and it’s got very strong supporters of the arts,” Kim says. “I will say it is one of the neatest places I have ever lived and it’s filled with some of the most amazing people and generous people I have ever met.”

Peter says that Fort Worth is still an extremely tight-knit community and that they were welcomed in with open arms. Both say they love what they do, meeting new people and expressing themselves through their art.

“It’s not always easy working with your spouse all the time, but we’ve been married 40 years,” Peter says. “It’s been fun working with Kim all these years and we have a really special relationship.”

Related Images:

This entry was posted in Press.

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*