"To Live With M Eyes Open" Painting

I begin my art work with a line of poetry, a prose quote, an emotion, or a piece of music. I want to know this concept on a deeper level of consciousness than the intellect alone. I go into my body. I listen to a deeper voice within me, not my head voice. I get very quiet in front of a piece of rice paper or canvas. I respond with my brush and my ink or color out of this deeper space, the place of heart and soul. The image is painted—almost, it seems, of its own accord. When I share this artwork, I find the viewer also stops for a moment and does the same. As they sit with the work, something takes shape within themselves, resonates in their own depths. Healing comes from that contemplative depth. The viewer’s own insights can then be released, freely given back into the world. It’s a combination of the printed concept and the abstract image. It feels magical. This is the way of the feminine, a way of knowing with more wholeness, with heart and soul. This work comes from a contemplative depth of meditation, both Zen Buddhist and Contemplative Christian, and from studying Zen artists, poets and Western abstract artists from Kokoschka through Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and all the abstract artists in between. I am known as a lifetime artist, teacher of art, and Jungian psychotherapist. I currently make my home in the midst of a garden of old-fashioned roses where I paint and write. People often refer to me as calm, deep, interested and interesting. When I’m not busy working on my newest drawing or painting or doing dream work with a client, you can catch me pruning the roses, sketching with my sketching group, or trying to keep up with my newest little grand-daughter. If you’re curious to hear more, here are four things you might not know about me. I lived 17 years in Canada so consider myself half Canadian. I flew my own single engine aircraft in Canada and still have my pilot’s license. I drove a school-bus through a snow storm down winding, old Hwy 101 in the Redwoods of California on a sleety, dark winter night. I also write and sing.