My Art Story...

Art is my healing.

Art is my medicine.

Art is my home.

Art is my best friend, my lover, my solace & my safe place.

Art has always been my therapist, my confidant & my secret keeper.

I have shared my deepest & darkest thoughts with my paint; allowing my brush to tell the story of my pain, my grief, my shame...however that would play out.

All of my feelings would pour out of me & on to my canvas.

The outcome was never my concern. Creating something beautiful was sometimes a very surprising side effect of my emotional release.

Sometimes, what came out of me was far from beautiful.

Sometimes I would scream & cry as I painted. Sometimes I would simply throw it away afterwards, or paint over it at a later date & that was all beautifully perfect.

Art is my purpose.

It always came easily. It always flowed from me & through me. It was intrinsic. Creating art was my way of coping with all of the chaos spinning around me.

Art was my anchor. My savior. My quiet, my calm & my peace.

The truth is that I didn’t fully understand the power of this practice until I stopped doing it.

I didn’t see just how magically innate it was for me to create, until I stopped creating for myself.

I started to create out of commitment.

When I was in college, I was told that my techniques were all wrong.

That my self-taught methods were subpar & incorrect.

I was beaten down with all of the rules & the “proper & correct” ways to create.

This all felt very wrong, but I kept showing up.

I kept stuffing all of my feelings down deep & I started to create out of necessity.

I started to change my process to appease my professors & to try to fit in with my classmates.

I received my Bachelors degree & I started to teach high school Art.

But, I had lost myself.

I had lost my way.

I had lost my process.

Something that once flowed out of me so mellifluously, had now become a constant struggle.

The brush didn’t feel the same in my hand & I seemed to be easily distracted by my now sterile & “proper” process…

so I stopped.

I stopped listening to my heart.

I stopped creating altogether.

I started teaching. I mean, after all, I had just destroyed myself to receive the “right” to teach. So, I did it…although, teaching art never felt right either. Grading art always felt so wrong. Forcing “proper techniques” on my students would make me cringe.

So, I stopped.

I stopped teaching art.

I stopped creating art.

I simply stopped.

Life went on.

I forgot how to create.

I had lost my muse, although I wasn’t even sure what or who that was?

How was I going to find something, or someone, or some moment in time that would re-spark my creativity again?

Diving deep into my own path towards healing is where I found my muse.

Where I rediscovered my process.

My sacred practice.

I found myself again, buried under years of not enough & covered in a shroud of self-doubt. The muse that I had been searching for was me.

I was all that I needed to create.

Me & my own heart.

Nothing else mattered.

Technique or skill doesn’t matter.

The rules don’t matter.

What other people have to say about my art doesn’t matter.

Just me & my heart…with my brushes, my paint & my intrinsic need to speak through my canvas.

Those are truly the only things that matters.

I invite you to join me.

To find your inner muse.

To find your inner goddess.

Come paint with me.

Come heal with me.

With love, Melissa