Les Possibilites • by Lori Chandler

The Road Not Taken

Two Roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down as far I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this one day nigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— Robert Frost

Discovering my True Potential with Creativity
Ah, the beauty of looking back, seeing the paths one went down, the roads taken and not taken, and how all those choices led up to today. There is NO doubt that Art and Artistic Expression saved me from an unfulfilled life of monotonous, dead-end roads, where I never would have discovered my true potential. I’ve always needed to find some form of creative expression within each and every project, and along every road I’ve traveled, those vast creative needs always pushed me to a higher purpose and even greater growth. They are a powerful life force that holds the keys to unlocking dreams and unleashing infinite imagination—and they ultimately charted my course.

Here’s where my journey has taken me…

Road 1: While all my friends took Spanish in junior high, my mother suggested I take French. French classes led to an opportunity for me to study in Paris and my mother championed the cause. She wholeheartedly believed that living in Paris and absorbing its culture would have an enormous effect and influence on me and would set my course for life.

Lesson Learned: She was right, naturellement. Paris had an effect unlike anything I’ve ever known. I became obsessed with anything and everything a la Francais and still am to this day.

Road 2: I decided to pursue an elementary teaching credential mainly because I really liked making elaborate learning centers! (For my final project I staged a puppet show with a cast of 10 that was part Cirque de Soleil and part CATS, the Broadway play.)

Lesson Learned: I had creative needs that had to be expressed and could not be ignored!

Road 3: While substitute teaching I came up with the idea to launch a Bed & Breakfast Inn in a restored Victorian mansion. I decided to furnish the Inn with antiques and accessories that were offered for sale because antiquing and styling were passionate hobbies of mine.

Lesson Learned: The challenges and enormous responsibilities of starting a business, operating and growing it.

Road 4/Final Destination: It was inevitable that I would open an antique shop as buying and selling antiques was always a huge part of my life. What it morphed into has finally brought all of my lifelong passions under one roof. The shop Vignettes is my French-inspired, creative outlet, dream lab—where the furnishings, accessories, and décor all have a unique French twist—Merci Beaucoup Mon Mere! The icing on the gateau is that I’m surrounded with the most creative, talented artisans and designers in the business and being brought together in an inspiring environment has made us all better at what we do. Creative expression and collaboration run rampant, ideas are brainstormed and built on, and the sum total truly is, even greater than its parts.

Lesson Learned: The adage “Let what you love, be what you do” says it all.

To learn more about Lori Chandler, visit vignettesantiques.blogspot.com.

Walking by Faith • by Christine Adolph

A Master Juggler of Life
Growing up in the ‘70s, we had a lot of wallpaper in our house. Like most children, I loved patterns and color and had fun challenging myself to find the repeat in wallpaper or fabric. In high school I worked at the local fabric store and took art classes and it seemed like the natural thing for me to study art for a career. There was a small department at the art college I was enrolled in called Surface Pattern Design. When I heard about this program I knew in my heart of hearts that this was what I was supposed to study. No question about it. I received a BFA in Surface Design and an MFA in Textile Design. At the age of 24 I began freelancing as a Textile Print Designer and at 26 I became a part- time professor in the Textile/Surface Design departments at FIDM and Otis College of Art and Design in LA. I had also become a mother of a baby, a wife, and a master juggler of life.

Surrendering my Plans
At 29, after the birth of my second daughter, it became clear that I had too much on my plate and I couldn’t sustain the commute to LA or the outside work, and I surrendered “my” plans. With the support of my husband and the conviction that I made the right decision to put my family first, I let go of these opportunities that I had worked so hard for and decided to walk by faith even though I couldn’t see what the future held. I hoped that if I took the steps to obey this internal nudge that a new career path would emerge that would line up with my values and priorities. I had NO idea what I would be doing and honestly had fears that I was throwing all this hard work and education away. It was a leap of faith.

I began to do a lot of art journaling, collaging, and working with foil imaging too. It was the first time in a long time I was doing work just for me and just because. I would stay up late at night and work while my kids took naps. This art making was so life giving and this art process really did “save” me. I had no idea where all this work would lead (it’s still some of my most favorite work). This was around 2002. The Internet was pretty new and I discovered Mary Engelbreit and Kathy Davis’s websites. They both shared information about licensing their art. I started researching art licensing and put it in the back of my mind as an interesting idea.

The Right Road for Me
One day in 2003 I was going stir crazy with my toddlers and I threw them in the car and went up to Michaels, just to get out of the house. I discovered a magazine called Somerset Studio and I was so excited to see that there were other people doing what I was doing! I bought the magazine and devoured it. In small print I saw the address to the publisher and they were only 20 minutes from my house! I couldn’t believe it. I quickly sent an email to their art director and she forwarded my email to one of their editors and we set up a meeting. I brought my portfolio up, met them, and instantly connected. At the time they were putting together the True Colors publication and I had the privilege to be able to go through all of the journals firsthand. This was life changing, seriously. I began to write articles for a couple of their publications and even made it on a few covers. They had some beautiful art stamp lines by Claudine Hellmuth and Lynne Perella. I noticed that they were missing a good floral collection in their signature mixed-media look. I took the initiative and made a few style/concept boards and did a presentation for the publisher. They loved my ideas and we quickly signed a contract and this began my licensing career.

This first licensing deal gave me the courage to knock on a few more manufacturers doors in the craft and hobby industry. I’ve taken my licensing slow and focused on developing a few very solid long-term relationships in the craft and hobby industry (as well as building up a large archive of work). I only took on what I could balance with my role as mother. Around two years ago I signed on with an amazing licensing agent and have grown my business to license my art more broadly beyond the craft and hobby market. Now my art is not just on scrapbook product, die-cuts, and rubberstamps, but also on greeting cards, wall art, quilting fabric, gift books, gift bags, home décor, stationary, journals, kitchen textiles, and more. The teaching I did early on has also paid off as it has allowed me the ability to teach an AP Studio Art program at the private high school that my kids attend. What a gift this is for me to be on campus with my own kids while getting to mentor young artists!

I thank God for the conviction to make that hard decision to do what I knew for me was right and allow those career doors to close, which ultimately led me down the road I was meant to be on. It just took some walking by faith even when I couldn’t see.

And just maybe they will bring a little beauty to someone else too.

To learn more about Christine Adolph, visit christineadolph.typepad.com.

Making Art & Beauty • by April Meeker

“Incompetence” Turned Opportunity
In the third grade my teacher became frustrated that I mixed up my B and D. She didn’t like me much to begin with, and she took this opportunity to put me in my place by taping down a big sheet on my desk with a Bb and Dd. It mortified me, being out there for all to see. It felt like scarlet letters all my own. Proof of my incompetence.

I struggled in this woman’s class. It wasn’t a happy place for me. At Christmas time we were given an art project to work on. We were given specific instructions on how the pieces were to go together. The thing is, I didn’t really agree that my Santa should look like that. So I put him together the way I liked. Of course this didn’t fly with the teacher. She kept me in at recess to redo the project as per her specification.

This incident was the best thing to happen to me that year. It got me through and I’ll tell you why. I knew in my heart that my Santa was better than the one she had assigned. I knew this without a doubt. This meant that she was wrong. She didn’t know everything. All at once I saw myself on an equal playing field with her. It was almost like she shrunk down to my same size. She was still the teacher, but she was wrong. I wasn’t dumb or disobedient just because she said I was.

Making my Own Happiness
Of course this was just the beginning. Years later I have many stories to tell about how my own art or the art created by others has buoyed me up through stormy seas. Recently I have felt inundated with bad news. Controversy. Turmoil. I had to take a break from media and news. It all became just too much. I made a conscience decision to turn to art.

And I thought to myself: Self, let’s do happy. Let’s do innocent and beautiful and organic. I stood in front of a blank canvas and out came a bear. Then came a fox and an owl and before I really knew it, I was working on a full-blown woodland animal project. Because, after all, woodland animals have nothing to prove. No political point to make. No unnecessary violence.

These woodland animals are saving me. They are a force in my life bigger than any news story. They have taken on a life all their own. Hopefully, they will carry me through until the time I am able to face the ugliness of the world without getting overwhelmed.

And just maybe they will bring a little beauty to someone else too.

To learn more about April Meeker, visit secondsisterdesigns.com.

Art Saves • by Kerri Winterstein

A Part of Me
Creativity has always been a part of me. Not just a part of my life, but part of me. Entwined with my happiness, my identity, my daily ups and downs, my sense of accomplishment and pride.

When I was a girl, I spent hours in my room—creating collages from magazine clippings, sketching faces in one of my many notebooks, perfecting my handwriting, making detailed illustrations for school projects. I specifically remember having the thought, Maybe I want to be an artist when I grow up. But I brushed it off almost completely every time, thinking that in order to be a “real” artist I’d have to either teach art, or move to New York and become a struggling, eccentric, under-appreciated artist who wore overalls covered in paint every day.

Obviously, these were the days before Etsy and craft blogs and “handmade” became synonymous with all things chic and trendy and charming. I’m unsure of where I came up with those two specific ideas of what a real artist must be, but they stuck. For so many years, I figured arts and crafts would remain a part of my childhood unless I conformed to either of those two silly visions in my head—and neither of them appealed to me in the slightest.

What I didn’t know at the time was that my art could be more than just something I did in my free time, more than just an interest of hobby. It could be more than just something I kept hidden in my notebooks or among my crafting supplies and shared with only my family and close friends.

Joy in my Creative Side
In my early 20s, I began crafting again. I found my own style and discovered new techniques, spending hours surrounded by bits of paper and thread and felt. My life was filled with so many things, but I didn’t feel completely like myself when I was denying my creative side. Once I gained that bit of knowledge, it changed me. I realized how much more joy I felt when I took the time to use my mind and my hands to make something beautiful. And the more I looked around me, the more I saw people taking their crafts from a simple hobby to their livelihood. It made me stop in my tracks and remember that thought I used to try so hard to put aside: Maybe I want to be an artist when I grow up.

Maybe I did. Maybe I still do.

At the encouragement of family, friends, and a whole community of incredible people I met through my blog, I opened my Etsy shop. Now, more than five years and 600 sales later, I couldn’t be more thankful I took that first step. Although my shop isn’t my livelihood, it doesn’t have to be…and, in a way, I’m not sure I’d want it to be. In creating items I love and in sharing them with people all over the world, I feel such a sense of accomplishment. I feel a sense of community with anyone who chooses to support artists by purchasing and promoting handmade goods. And I feel like I’ve satisfied at least one of my childhood dreams.

Meant to Be Shared
In my mind, creativity is meant to be shared. Whether I sell one item or one hundred, it’s all about the process, the joy, the experience.

One of the greatest things my own creative journey has brought me is, simply put, validation. I know that the most important part of being any sort of artist is to be true to yourself and make what you like. But there is nothing quite like knowing what you create has touched someone in a real way, or has inspired them, or is something they like enough to share with their friends or give to someone they love.

It feels pretty amazing to have the confidence to share my art. To be brave enough to try a new craft. To have someone look at something I’ve made and say, “Oh, that is so you.” I still struggle with insecurities, and sometimes wonder whether or not what I do is “good enough” to be out there with the other beautifully handcrafted items out there. But at this point that worry doesn’t hold me back. It keeps me on my toes. It reminds me to stay true to my own, personal style. It encourages me to take a step back if I need to, and to always enjoy the process as much as the final product.

And while I may not openly define myself as an artist, per se, I know I am one. Which is such a comforting thought.

To learn more about Kerri Winterstein, visit yourwishcake.com.

Embracing my Artistic Abilities • by Lynn Richards

A Safe Haven with Art
Growing up in a crazy, dysfunctional, alcoholic home, I found places I could hide. From a very early age, those places were my journal, God, and my grandmotherʼs home. My grandmother was an art teacher in Carpinteria, California, and every summer we would spend a week or so at her mobile home.

I can still close my eyes and feel the warmth and smell the deliciousness of scents that I still connect with peace and calm. There was no drinking or fighting in her home. Instead, there was clay and watercolors and paper and tools and Japanese brushes. There were sun-filled days of learning to lay a wash, forming an animal from clay and learning to glaze it, being taught to throw on a kick wheel, and feeling the heat of a kiln. There were trips to the beach and the smell of lighter fluid used to get the tar off of our feet. And quiet. So much quiet.

A Turning Point
My love of the scents of paper, clay, and paint followed me all my life. I found a safe haven first in high school in the art room and later in the art room at Jr. College, where I would lug 25 pounds of clay in at a time and lose all sense of time.

My mother demanded a career path from me somewhere during my second year at the J.C. and I (of course) chose art. She immediately forbade the idea and tried to push for a future in computers. This was a turning point in my life, one where I wished I wasn’t the child in the family who kept the peace at any cost. Instead of rebelling and telling my mother to take a hike and follow my passion, I took my utterly defeated self out of school and found myself managing a bakery for a large grocery store chain. I was all of 20 years old.

An Artist
During the next 30 years, a lot of growth occurred. I married, my husband and I found Adult Children of Alcoholics, and I had a baby. I never gave up on art, but it wasn’t my main pursuit. I had a second baby in my early thirties and she happened to come to us with Down Syndrome. To say she has rocked our world for the better is an understatement. Through both my children I have learned to pursue passion, to play, to love unabashedly, to be determined. I have learned to slay some of my dragons, stand up tall, embrace (some) imperfection, and to love with everything I have.

How have I done it, people ask me? At first I would say Jesus and therapy. Now I say Jesus, therapy, and ART.

Today, I am staring down my 51st birthday, and I have fully embraced my artistic abilities with the complete support of my husband and family. I am an artist. How could I be anything else? It is in my genetics, in my blood. The life lessons I have learned and am still learning come out on the canvas, begging to be told, craving to be heard by someone else who might benefit from the message.

To learn more about Lynn Richards, visit alittlebluesky.blogspot.com.

Epiphany Under the Wishing Tree • by Christine Rose Elle

You know what’s weird? Most of my life, I have been kind of mad at art. I mean, I never considered it something that saved me. I always thought the drive to create was a curse. I’ve wished that I could just ignore it and be an accountant. But I changed my mind irrevocably during a pilgrimage to Peggy Guggenheim’s grave.

Peggy’s Palazzo
Peggy is in sweet repose in the garden of her Venetian palazzo cuddled up with her ten dogs. The whole kit and caboodle is situated right next to Yoko Ono’s Wishing Tree. The Tree is a more recent addition to her gravesite. Visitors to Peggy’s museum palazzo write a wish on a scrap of paper and then tie it to one of the branches. The wishes flutter in the breeze like leaves waiting for the wind to catch one and carry it on.

I sat under this tree and thought, “If Peggy were still alive, she and Yoko would have been boon companions.” At least I liked to think so.

I am a big solo traveler. I love to wander, get lost, and become glassy and dreamy with the wonder of it all. Especially in Italy where I lived for over a year, and more especially in Venice. Where Peggy resides.

On this blustery day in late January, the water of the lagoon is threatening to creep in. The streets are empty. The canals and calles are at their windiest and only the gondolieri are lurking about like crows squawking for riders.

I have been to Venice enough now to know my way around by memory. I don’t actually know the names of any of the streets or plazas—I only know “Go right at the mask shop with the Punchinello faces, then you’ll see the bridge for St Marks.” The route to Peggy’s palazzo is in my bones.

Wondering with Peggy & Yoko
Sometimes on the way from my tiny apartment, I pretend that I am a distant relative. I muse I am a long, lost niece who inherited Great Aunt Peggy’s passion for patronage, surrealism, and pets. Somehow her peccadilloes skipped several generations and settled on me to carry them on.

When I arrive at the museum, I rush to view my personal favorites from Peggy’s extensive collection, the Joseph Cornell shadow boxes, and the Max Ernst fantasy painting “The Robing of the Bride.” I like the bride because she is as naked as a jaybird except for a giant orange aviary eagle robe. But my most favorite paintings are by Peggy’s daughter Pegeen. Her paintings are intimate wee little things with a surprisingly bold palette. One self-portrait shows her adrift in a gondola among the choppy canal waters wanting desperately to be bright and simple. At first, the painting captivates with childlike charm, but upon closer look, you can see sadness so deep the colors glow with it. Her figure bobs, desperately lost among the turbulence grasping for canal markers that are nothing but liquid reflections. Pegeen did in fact succumb to her darkness at only 41 years old in an overdose many assume was suicide.

So, I wonder to myself under the Wishing Tree, is this creativity a curse? Why is creativity like a siren song that has always beckoned to me? Sometimes I show up to the page and pretend that I can deny it and be someone else today. That thought is as much a folly as pretending to be Peggy’s lost relation.

I sigh and turn my complimentary scrap of wish paper between my gloved fingers. I can’t get past the suffering that Peggy and Yoko must have felt in their lifetimes. The gutting loss from the death of a child, and the brutal senseless murder of a visionary husband.

Creativity Chooses Us

It occurs to me that despite their suffering, art is the glue that bound them through their lives and was their foundation. Art was the only solid thing among emotions too volatile, intense, and unrelenting to describe. My silly wishes of wanting to write and publish books seem dainty in comparison.

It also occurs to me that creativity and art are communications that transcend words and go directly to the depths of the soul. They allow you to express the unspeakable. Art becomes the voice. If you are vulnerable and honest with creativity, it can be a blend of your endless screeches of despair and the softened whispering pleas. And it can also be the very wings of bliss.

It is my belief that creativity chooses you. It chose me.

I wipe tears away with the back of my hand, the wool of my gloves softening my own dark thoughts.

And then it hits me. Creativity is not the curse I always thought it was, but a common language between artists that I can access and speak. If I can hear what people from other times and places are saying, then the curse is really a gift of the ability to transcend time and space. I can hear the voices of others speak their emotional landscapes though colors, brush strokes, pen marks, etchings, shapes, and textures. If I can hear them, then surely someone can hear me.

So I pick up a tiny yellow pencil and make the only wish I can that connects me to the voices that came before me, and the wishes that will come after: “Dear Peggy and Yoko, please. Please let me live up to my potential to hear and be heard. Love, Christine.”

To learn more about Christine Rose Elle, visit christineroseelle.com.

An Ode to Art • by Tracy Verdugo

Oh sweet creative spark that stirred inside me 19 years ago—the birth of my art journey, coinciding with the powerful moment of the birth of our first daughter, gently nudging me to begin to try to express myself in paint, in words, in song, in dance.

You have given me the gift of easing my anxious mind, slowing down my racing thoughts that sometimes turned to panic in those days before I knew the healing power that could be found in a gentle stroke of brush on paper, in the listening between the notes, in the quiet watching of the shadows and the light seen through the eyes of an artist, in the appreciation of the beauty in all things …

You have guided me through the terror of showing my true self to others, watching as I eased into singing on stage and putting my paintings out into the world, watching as I began to guide others on their own creative journeys and in so doing, began to understand my own journey more fully.

I thank you for showing me the beauty of others reflected back to me, mirrors of each other, and for giving me the grace of realizing more each moment that in shining my creative light brightly, I can truly allow others the gift of shining their own.

To learn more about Tracy Verdugo, visit artoftracyverdugo.blogspot.com.au.

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We Welcome :: Lorrie Spotts

Finding Myself • by Lorrie Spotts

In 2008, I was feeling pretty lost. This is not such an unusual story for a busy, working mom. Or any mom really. Or any woman for that matter. But let me just get down to it— here is how my Art Saves story begins …

Taking the Leap
My husband was away on a fun trip with his friends. While he was gone I found myself feeling resentful. And jealous. And mad. After I put my young kids to bed, I began searching the web. I am not sure quite exactly for what, but I was searching. I found myself reading my first blog post from a woman who was teaching a scrapbooking class. She described this as a retreat where hundreds of women would gather to take several different classes. I live in Los Angeles. The retreat was in Nashville. I had never travelled without my children or my husband. I had only been on a plane a few times in my entire life. There were many reasons not to go on this trip. But I took a leap.

I signed myself up. It was an interesting conversation when my husband came home. But my husband is supportive, always has been. He gave me his encouragement and off I went. I cut and glued and created for three days straight. It felt blissful.

Picking Up my First Paintbrush
But then I came home and eventually that feeling of being lost continued. I heard about another retreat, this time in North Carolina. It was a different kind of event where classes were in “multi-media” art. I had never heard of this. This retreat did not start off well.

Ladies were gossipy, one of my least favorite things. Classes were packed and to be honest, not organized well. It gives me a headache thinking about it even now. The one class that I was not looking forward to was a painting class. The artist did these beautiful faces, but it looked way beyond my ability since I had never painted.

It was first of the day and I thought that I would just get it over with. I walked in, and picked up my first paintbrush. That was it for me. I just knew deep in my bones, that was it. I had to keep doing this. I can barely remember the other classes I took on this long weekend. Late into the night I found myself alone and working on this painting of a brown-haired girl. Her eyes were vacant, she was one-dimensional, and there was nothing in the background. I could relate to her. I saw that she could be improved.

Following a Fulfilling Path
Once I got home I began a more specific search. First I went to bookstores looking for artists that spoke to me. I fell in love with Kees van Dongen, Vera Neumann, Anahata Katkin, Stephen Mackey, DJ Pettit, and Flora Bowley. Then I began to sign up for online classes where I learned a bit about backgrounds, color choices, and texture. I practiced when I could. During meetings at work I doodled and sketched. My meetings became more interesting, and I became more productive in them. I began meeting people online with similar interests. I followed blogs of artists that I admired. Instead of feeling like I was lost, I found myself on a very specific path.

My feeling of being lost is gone. I do still feel overwhelmed at times. Mad at times. Too busy most times. But at night I close my eyes. I imagine colors that I like, faces that I might paint, classes that I could take, new shapes that appeal to me. I go into another world and it relaxes me. It guides me. It fulfills me.

These days I paint whenever I can. It is not every day and often not even every week. But when life gets tough, I know it is time to sit down with my brushes. I roll my shoulders a few times. I close my eyes. I take a deep breath, and continue finding myself.

To learn more about Lorrie Spotts, visit laspotts.blogspot.com.

Living an "Art-Full" Life • by Rayme Sciaroni

ART SAVES—wholeheartedly, YES! For me, I can’t imagine NOT living an “Art- FULL: life! Through visual arts, music, theatre, writing … all of it is art in its many different and wonderful forms!

Hands-On with Creativity
I was the middle child of five growing up. Two older brothers who were closer in age were the best of buddies, as well as my younger brother and sister—also closer in age to each other. Feeling somewhat left out, I gravitated toward the piano. I would play for hours and hours—first by ear, but then when my mother saw my passion for it, she began getting me piano lessons … which I didn’t like at first. Reading music was a struggle for a while, but a necessary “evil.”

I was always creating, crafting, and teaching myself from a magazine how to macramé when I was a teenager. I later taught myself how to knit and immediately started designing my own sweaters! Being “hands-on” with creative outlets was the only way that was “right” in my Being. My head would come up with an idea, and I would see the end result clearly. Then I joyfully executed it, usually to find my end result looking better than my original vision!

Creativity in All Shapes and Forms
I found I created best with limited resources. Using only what was on hand, due to lack of funds or simply not knowing what was “out there” or what else might be possible had I access to it. It was always such a pleasure to come across something like a discarded length of colorful telephone line wires encased in a protective black plastic—I came up with hundreds of uses for jewelry, accessories, holiday decorations, and greeting cards! I found that even with a limited budget, the creative mind won’t stop! (Unless of course we choose for it to stop …)

I never tire of designing clothes, greeting cards, choreographing a dance (which for me IS a “moving design”), writing music (designing with sound), and writing stories where I can implement ALL of these passions into one creative project! My story of “Dinner for God” is for me, the epitome of Art Saves. All of my creative desires have culminated into telling a heartfelt, inspiring story that weaves in original music, favorite foods, tips, and hints to encourage readers to “fly with what you have.”

There is no such thing as an un-creative Being. They simply don’t exist. And where there’s creativity, there’s Art! It comes in millions of different shapes and forms. I only want to live FOREVER so that I can continue making it!

To learn more about Rayme Sciaroni, visit dinnerforgod.com.

Who I Am • by Rachelle Panagarry

Sitting Up and Taking Notice
Art has saved me, it really has. In fact it has been the thing that has helped pull me through some really difficult times, especially when things took a turn for the worse with my own health. Being creative was a real conscious decision that I made one day whilst laying in a hospital bed sometime in 2010. I was there being treated for some unknown ailment, which turned out to be an infected pacemaker that eventually led to serious heart complications. You might be thinking this was a bad thing—and it was—but it was also one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me. It made me stop and think, and really see what I wanted from my life. I guess when you are surrounded by women who have suffered heart attacks, and some of them a similar age to me, you sit up and take notice. That’s just what I did.

Longing to Make More Art
I had been teaching in schools for the last eleven years, being a late starter after getting my qualification at 30. Raising a son as a single mom and teaching was something I loved to do. I adored the children, the school, and everything about it. But despite this love, for the last five years of my teaching career I had started to long to make more art, to be more creative myself, just for me. I had even begun to browse through job vacancies for art teachers, art tutors, or anything else related to art. I couldn’t really put my finger on what exactly I was looking for but I just knew in my heart that it was ART.

So with the illness forcing me to take a break from work, and the wake-up call that it gave me, I started making art once more. One evening whilst watching TV, I got out a bag of paper scraps, glue, acrylic paints, and an old canvas and started to make a picture. That very picture, my “Madame Butterfly,” was the one that made things happen. She was the first piece of art that I’d done in years, but not only that, she was the first piece of art that I actually believed was “quite good.” It was with that tiny spec of confidence that I put her “out there” on the Internet for the whole world to see, and that’s when art really saved me.

Fully Embracing my Arty Self
The last twelve months have seen me transition personally and grow creatively in more ways than I could ever have imagined. I now have a very supportive husband, two step-children, and a four-year-old daughter (and she’s an arty chick too—I’m starting her young!).

I fully embrace my true arty self these days. I write a blog, paint, draw, glue, and generally get messy every few days, and I LOVE it. I have had the pleasure of writing guest posts on some fabulous websites, had some of my art published, become a licensed artist, and met so many lovely new friends. I still teach, but now it is just art workshops both online and in person. Most of all, now I can say this too, I am an ARTIST—that is who I am.

To learn more about Rachelle Panagarry, visit arteyecandy.com.