Empaths, Mass Violence, and Circles of Humanity

Everyday one-on-one interactions can be difficult, or even draining, for empaths while those same interactions can barely register on the radar of others. Mass violence events, such as 9/11, school shootings, and other horrendous tragedies, elicit emotional responses from people on a massive scale, but they are seismic for empaths. As the news breaks about tragic events, there is an over-saturation of information and not a lot of answers. At those times, it's like slipping into a trance as I step outside of myself to absorb massive amounts of energy being released by others and channel them into something different, something positive. It's how I, and many emphaths, survive such events. The Pulse nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016, was one such experience.

The victims of this mass violence event weren't on the front lines of a war, they weren't charging into a burning building to save lives, they were... at a night club. And now they were dead. The senseless death of so many people so quickly was incomprehensible. I purchased alcohol ink and yupo for the first time shortly before this tragedy, and before I knew it, I was sitting on the living room floor working with dozens of pieces of yupo, all colors of ink, and masking fluid. The masking fluid was used to create circles. The collage artist in me took over and began cutting the pieces of yupo. In the days following the tragedy, the ritual was the same: meditate, cut, arrange, until finally emerged:

"Circles of Humanity"

Throughout the creation of this piece, I couldn't shake the feeling of how connected we all truly are. When tragedies like these strike some, they strike us all. In life, how we respond to our circumstances forms the narrative of our story. Through our story, with its twists and turns, its sadness and celebrations, we connect with people. Over time, some of these connections strengthen, some of them fade, some of them damage us, and some of them light the way. We are colored by these experiences. Through these colors, stories, and connections, we weave this tapestry of humanity. In the end, we are all connected; we are all humans, feeling love and pain. What we do today matters, so always choose love.

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All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Stories of Healing: From Violence to the 1st Art Show

Six months ago, I was asked to submit my work for an art show. Having never had one before, I had no idea what to expect. When the show debuted earlier this month, I never dreamt it would be the success that it was. As I walked home that night, under the almost-full moon, another epiphany moved through my spirit, as they often do in the presence of the moon. The origins of this art show became clear to me, and once again, I was lead back to an act of violence.

Over five years ago, I was the recipient of workplace violence. ('Recipient' may sound odd, but I don't view myself as being a victim.) I addressed this experience in this post, talking about how it was a gift in that it lead me down a different path, pushing me straight into my career as an artist. What I did not mention in that post is that after creating the piece mentioned in that post, "Leaving the Darkness Behind", I sought out a professional to scan it for me. Enter Buffalo Big Print, who scanned that piece and who has scanned all of my artwork since 2014. They are the ones who approached me last year about holding an art show in their gallery, and because of those wonderful people, this was possible:

As the pieces for this show were selected and the threads of the show were coming together, the show's title revealed itself to me. After all, these pieces were all "Stories of Healing". 

Back in 2014, in the days and weeks following the violent incident, I thought the universe had already bestowed its gifts upon me, that the doors of opportunity that were going to open had already opened. Yet, as I walked home on the night of the 7th of February 2020, I realized that the biggest gift to come out of this was given to me that night: my first art show. The second-biggest gift to come out of this was given to me that night, too: the kind hearts of friends and strangers coming out to make it a successful show. There was so much laughter and love in the space that night. That wonderful experience was worth the moments of violence 5 years ago. I hold deep gratitude for the violence. Its sharpness and abruptness were necessary to alter my trajectory. The doors continue to open, all these years later.


All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Breaking Constraints: A Patchwork of Contrasts

Discovering the possibilities is part of the magic of creating artwork. Letting go enough to be open to the possibilities is not something that always came so easily for me. With all of the constraints placed on me during adolescence, I often had difficulty expressing myself creatively. So much of myself was hidden away that I didn't know how to let go. This continued into early adulthood, but it began to break apart as I found my way back to art. In my previous piece, which I would call an "instinctive" piece, I broke through another constraint by experimenting with the possibilities of combining paint and collage. This next piece, which was very much an "intentional" piece, would find me delving further into that realm of possibilities. 

At the time this was created, I was nearing the end of a relationship. I was focused on the consequence of choices and actions while simultaneously meditating on the polar opposites (or contrasts) in all people and how those opposites guide us through those choices and actions. Where those vary from one person to the next is in how we respond to those opposites in our lives-- the positive and negative, the dark and light, the smooth and rough. Therein lies the uniqueness of our own experiences, through which is woven:

"A Patchwork of Contrasts"

Like its predecessor, "A Patchwork of Contrasts" was made by layering acrylic and watercolor paint. Applying thick layers of acrylic paint allowed for creating movement. Dicing up the finished painting and rearranging the pieces into a patchwork gave way to even more movement within the piece. The title revealed itself as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

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All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Alternate Outcomes and the Marriage of Painting and Collage

It can begin by simply brushing texture onto a page. That's what I remember about the origins of this piece, anyway. I started out by brushing thick layers of white acrylic paint onto paper, with the bristles of the brush creating ridges in the white expanse. Three colors-- orange, purple, and deep pink-- told me it was their time, so I found them among the dozens of tubes of acrylic paint colors, mixed them with small amounts of water, and squeezed them onto the still wet white paint. I left the paper lying flat and then walked away. 

During the night, the watery paint followed the path of least resistance across the page, leaving behind paths and pools of intriguing shapes, lines, and patterns. Although I enjoyed the combination of colors and the juxtaposition of textures I found the next morning, I knew it wasn't finished. The idea of tiles of color depicting similar images danced in my head, along with the fact that different sections of the piece had different stories to tell. So instead of adding water or more paint to alter the look, I picked up the paper, walked over to the paper cutter, and began to cut. Three cuts later, and the imagined tiles were sitting before me. 

To create the background, I started with a layer of white acrylic paint, and while still wet, overlaid with a wash of soft orange watercolor, using broad strokes to emphasize the movement. As I began to arrange the colored tiles, the theme of alternate outcomes was forming in my mind. I thought about how the choices we make and the actions we take inform the outcome of a given situation. With that idea, I knew that the tiles needed to physically connect in some way, and the piece took shape as:

"Alternate Outcomes"

This piece marked my first, albeit basic, marriage of painting and collage, which is an avenue that I would go on to explore in subsequent work. It marked a turning point in my relationship with my work because I realized that sometimes putting paint onto a page tells only part of the story. The pre-2007 artist in me never would have entertained that notion. After all, in artwork, just like in life, there can be alternate outcomes.

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All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.
 

Deciphering Dreams: Altering the Color of my Mind

One of my first online handles was pisceandream. Without knowing it at that time, I was telling the world how much water and dreams factor into my life.  Often they work in tandem, as flowing water and patterns in blue figure prominently in my dreams. In February 2016, the deep waters of my spirit were stirring once more, which drew me into the studio again.

The near-death experience of my best friend just 3 months before transformed many aspects of my life. Undulating amidst those changes was the end of a relationship. My dreams during that time were enigmatic, causing me to dwell on them during the waking hours. All I could see and feel were the changing shapes and shades of blue from my dreams. They clung to me with such intensity that had I not been pacified by them, I would have thought they were haunting me. 

My time in the studio creating this was fairly brief. With the underlying theme of water, naturally I turned to watercolor paint this time around. With the segments of blue in place, I applied artists' tape to conceal individual sections before painting over everything with metallic acrylic paint. Even with the finished piece, I still did not know what to make of or call it, so I spent more time deciphering its message than I did creating it. It wasn't until I came across this quote by Emily Brontë that I began to understand, "I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind." The truths that I knew through my dreams, presented in changing patterns of blue, were ushering in a new version of consciousness for this water sign. They were, in fact, forever...

"Altering the Color of my Mind"

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All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Finding Her Place in the Universe: Our Own Spiritual Journey

2016 was, for all intents and purposes, about finding and reclaiming my true self. As described to a friend, certain landscapes reached this year felt like I witnessed them before birth and I have been making my way back to them ever since. My next mixed media piece symbolizes and illustrates this.

The lapse of time spent working on this piece spanned close to a year. The sunface came first. When I created her in the early part of 2015, I had no idea what would ultimately surround her or where she would end up. The round sunface spent several months sitting in the art studio, watching in silence as I worked on other pieces. Occasionally, I would look into her eyes in search of where she belonged, but to no avail. Then one day, while working on another piece, I had what I like to call a "happy accident" with some acrylic paint mixed with water. Just before I discarded the paper it was on, I thought, "wait a minute," and on a whim, I cut out some triangular shapes. The paint just so happened to go with the paint I had used on the sunface from several months before and these triangular shapes would go on to become the rays around the sunface. By the summer of 2015, the sun was assembled and complete. I placed her on a sheet of white paper, where she remained while the backdrop to the piece came together over the next several months.

Independently of this, I used the same "happy accident" technique to create swaths of blue, black, and purple throughout autumn. What I thought would be the foundation for a different piece ended up serving as the backdrop to this piece. Leftover pieces from a holiday craft project found their way into the piece in January 2016. These strips of blue construction paper with gouache were added to bring intrigue and asymmetry to the composition. The final element emerged in early February. While listening to Gustav Holst's seven-movement orchestral suite, The Planets Op. 32, I was inspired to create planetary bodies out of semi-diluted acrylic paint. With those in place, this sun truly was

"Finding Her Place in the Universe"

From the time we become self-aware, we seek to understand ourselves and to discover our purpose in life and our place in the world. Some step into it with ease, others have to search for it for years, and still others never manage to find it. After years, if not centuries or millennia, this sun has found her place. She has her own corner of the universe that's as unique as she is, where she is safe and accepted, where she has devoted satellites, where she can reach her zenith, where she is free to just be. Through this piece, I began to understand my own place in this vast universe.

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All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Signaling the End: Sandstorm of my Mind

Sometimes being an artist is like being a cryptographer. The universe gives me messages that I have to decode. Instead of breaking the code with words or numbers, I rely on the language of colors, shapes, patterns, and textures to reach the place of understanding. With the next piece in my portfolio, I did not know what I was creating, or the meaning behind it, while working on it. Even when it was complete, I still knew as little about the piece as when I set out to create it. For the first time ever, it wasn’t until I began writing this blog post that I began to break the code and thus understand what the piece truly represented.

I was first introduced to Peter Gabriel’s superb score, “Passion: Music for the Last Temptation of Christ”, in Autumn 1999.  I was immediately mesmerized by the score which varies from epic, sweeping tracks to minimalist pieces. Naturally, some of the epic tracks are stand-outs, but some of the more subdued and obscure pieces really shine as well. “Sandstorm” is one such track that has always been a silent favorite of mine.

It wasn’t until 17 years later, one morning before dawn in April 2016 when I awoke unable to calm my thoughts, that my connection to this song would come to fruition. In the early hours of that morning, I stepped into the art studio, inserted my headphones, scrolled directly to "Sandstorm", and instantly I felt it reflect the spinning chaos of my emotions. As the music pierced my soul, I began creating the initial layers of what would become this piece. At the end of that first painting session, all I had was black, white, and grey on the paper. “And this means what?” I asked the muses, to which they gave no reply.

Work on this piece spanned several days without knowing where it was taking me. The only thing that was disclosed to me was whether or not I was finished. More often than not, I was told to keep working. Each time that I returned to work on this piece, much like donning a mask, I would step into the music, channeling its energy. As the tempo would build and swirl into a climax, the muses would guide me, whispering that it wasn’t finished. As such, I would create the next layer.

As mentioned above, even after its completion, I did not know what this piece was. “Great, I made an abstract sandstorm,” I initially thought to myself. The second I had that thought, I knew I was on to something, that this was an interpretation of a sandstorm. I couldn’t have known what this represented because I had not yet decoded the underlying message. A few weeks later into the middle of May, I chose the title, but I still did not fully understand this piece.

Through practicing Mettā, I am learning to reside more in my heart and less in my head. Through this practice, I have realized that often my heart comes to a place of understanding and acceptance well before my mind does. In the previous November, I knew in my heart that the long term relationship that I was in was over, but there was a disconnect between my heart and mind. It wasn’t until I set out to write this blog post that I understood that the swirling tempest that pulled me from my sleep that April morning was foreshadowing. My heart was communicating to my mind, signaling the end, and with my mind's reluctance to embrace it, it manifested into the turmoil and chaos that was the

"Sandstorm of my Mind"

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All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.