Anything is Possible

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE – 36X36 – ACRYLIC ON BOARD

I have done creative things all my life, but never knew I could do visual arts until I turned 40.  In my youth, I wrote a lot of prose.  Nothing was organized or focused.  I was always drawn to artists.  My best friends were very right-brained. Julia Cameron refers to people like me as “shadow artists”.  I stayed in the shadows.  I designed and made quilts, which for awhile I sold to help with our family income.  But it still did not occur to me to take anything about this aspect of myself seriously.  My awareness of my own artistic side was waiting for the key to release me from the stone barrier, which was erected around my ‘artist’ self in early childhood.  Keys show up in odd places. After awhile, A friend gave me a book by Betty Edwards named “Drawing on the Artist Within” just before my Dad died.  He was very dear to me, and as the process of mourning began, I sketched him and other members of our family using old black and white photos as reference. It took me hours to carefully draw his face. While doing this, I remembered him.  I understood him better.  I was stunned to see this side of me growing rapidly.  My artist self was making up for lost time.  All the amateur psychology I had developed along the way began to assert itself in the choices I made artistically.  These were the first steps of my artist journey home.  The lovely surprise of being introduced to art was an intense one.  This all happened over 20 years ago.  I have been showing and selling my work since those first few years.  It has caused me to think differently.  Artists train their brains to “see” an object from all angles, to study what it “is”.  Art also generously gives one a real sense of adventure. It has kept me on target with “purpose”.  It has been my meditation in stressful times, and it has calmed me when sorrow or fear, or anxiety tried to interrupt my life.  I am very thankful for all art has given me! Not to mention it has fed, clothed, and kept me warm for years.  It is, without exception, the most transformative adventure I have experienced.