To say that I am quirky is something of an understatement. My favourite expression is that I live so far outside the box, I can’t see it any more. Some of my very favourite things are old doors, creaky things, bare feet, the moon, old stuff that’s falling apart, shooting semi-automatic handguns, and creating conversations in silly voices for animals, insects, or anybody else I happen to find in nature.
I find the greatest of pleasures in some of the simplest of things, like giggling, covering my living room ceiling in years’ worth of my children’s art work, going for a walk, decorating, bad puns, red peppers, misty days, listening to a howling wind, and my very favourite music played loudly enough to burst the neighbour’s eardrums.
As a child growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I remember driving my poor mother nuts with how fast I could burn through paper. Now, as an adult, transplanted and living in a quirky, 1700s cottage in a tiny village in England, it is my husband who I can drive nuts, as he watches me tear through paints, pencils, canvas and papers while I continue to be driven to express my deepest thoughts and feelings.
My life has been filled with some very powerful experiences which have covered a huge range of feelings and ‘learnings’. I am a very spiritual woman, and I tend to think and feel at a very deep level, always searching, digging, and learning, trying to understand people, myself, the world around me, and trying to move forward on a human level, as well as spiritually. My life has provided a wealth of opportunities for me to be either broken, or to move closer to becoming whole, believing Wayne Dyer’s assertion that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but rather we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
It is through the joys, the challenges, the hardships, the pain, the learning, and the wonder of the relationships and experiences in my life, that I am driven to create tangible expressions of what goes on in the deepest parts of my soul, either through my painting, or through my writing. Most of my work with art, and with words, reflects my ponderings and lessons in both the human and the spiritual realms. My first book, “The Spirit Within”, published and promoted by Authors Incorporated, will be available for worldwide distribution by approximately the end of March, 2005.
People often comment on how appropriately I’ve chosen titles for my paintings. This puzzles me every time. I thought that art was supposed to be an expression of something in particular, and for me, the process begins with the title, and the painting follows.
Given that most of my life was spent in Calgary, the roots of my artistic endeavours are there, with a life rich in experience and learning. However, England provides the soil and nutrients that my soul needed to be able to take my learning to new places, even deeper inside me. As the learning and healing continue, the need to express and release do, as well. It’s as though my time in Calgary was the weaving of the fabric of my life, and my experiences became many small pieces cut from that fabric. The vibrant and healing energy of England has allowed me to begin to stitch those pieces together, honouring the Divine spark within me, creating a patchwork quilt which grows more beautiful each day, as my Spirit learns from every human moment.
I am thankful for all the experiences I have had, no matter how painful some of them have been. I believe each has been a necessary part of my journey, and I choose to see them as blessings and gifts. From these, come The Titles. And from The Titles, come The Creations -- the Creations of my Soul.
