Category: Art

This piece was inspired by a very special angel in my life.

A few years ago I decided to stop painting, and I put it on the back burner. Before this, I would wake up and paint from the time I got out of bed until I would go to sleep. It was my world. It was a gateway for me to go deep into my inner reality, and strike the vein of my deepest inspirations. It was truly my love.

Then something shifted within me, and I decided that other things were more important. Painting lost its appeal, virtually over night. All the sudden this thing that I loved more than anything, that connected me so deeply to myself, felt empty. It was like being madly in love with someone, and then waking up one day and having no feelings for them whatsoever. It was very bizarre.

So I took 2 years off. I decided I needed to focus on making money, and get involved in more “real-world” stuff. Time to grow up and face reality. And so I forgot about painting for a while.

Then I reconnected with an acquaintance from years ago. She said she had been following my art ever since we met, and how profoundly healing it has been for her. She expressed how much it impacted her, how sacred it was, and how much it meant to her.

She encouraged me to start painting again, expressing over and over how important it was. My art meant more to her than it meant to me, it seemed. To witness how much my art affected someone, I decided to give it another shot.

Now, as I’ve started painting again, I feel that same connection to myself that I felt years ago, but with new ideas, concepts, and wisdom. It feels like a renaissance occurring within me, reconnecting with my art. At night, I have dreams of artistic ideas. Throughout my day, continuous artistic visions pour through me like a fountain. It is like there is some world seeking expression through me, and my consciousness is picking up on its language and able to give it life in our reality. To me, this work feels like a bridge to something significant, yet unseen.

But this whole resurgence of creative inspiration, was sparked by one person. One person who saw me. One person who expressed how much my creativity meant to them. One person who believed in me. One person who really saw the light in me, when I didn’t fully see it in myself.

Please, never hesitate to tell someone how much their gifts mean to you. You don’t know the impact that you could have, just through simple words of acknowledgement, encouragement, or expressing gratitude for someone’s talent. I believe it is a powerful practice, to look for the genius in other people, and to openly acknowledge it to them.

There is no greater love, than a love that connects us more deeply to ourselves. That inspires us to bring forth our best. And who calls forth the treasures that live deep within us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you God.

Thank you for this angel in my life, and every angel that has assisted me in stepping into the person that I am today.

This piece is a prayer. A statement of devotion. A promise to myself, and to the Creator.

It is a promise to devote my life to what I know to be true in the deepest corridors of my being – that there is a profound treasure that lives within all of us.

All evolutionary patterns serve one function – to call forth this treasure from deep within you.

The reenactment of every trauma, every season and circumstance of your life, and every relationship to come and go – everything revolves around helping you bring forth the gift that lives deep inside of you.

This piece is a symbol of this. The golden being with the halo in the center represents the treasure within, while the circle that surrounds him represents the wholeness that it brings.

The squares surrounding the circle symbolize different scenes from the journey of life, encompassing different seasons, circumstances and relationships – all of which revolve around the treasure that rests in the center.

When we come into harmony with the intention to bring forth the gift that lives within the core of our being, we come back into harmony with the rest of existence. We return home. This is how we are healed. This is how we are made whole.

This piece symbolizes a fundamental universal law. It also represents for me personally, a deep commitment and devotion.

I often create works of art that serve as energetic medicine, to remedy what I may be going through on an intimate personal level, knowing that that is what will contribute most directly to our collective healing. 

I created this piece as I was processing drastic changes occurring in my personal life, where I found myself in a very deep period of inner turmoil and confusion.

I often turn to my creativity to process and alchemize my shadows. When I paint, it becomes a sacred space for me for connect deeply with myself, to find my center and receive the guidance that I need. So I went to that inner sanctuary of color, light, and form to extract medicine to assist me. This piece is the result.

What was being asked of me, was to strengthen my devotion to loving myself the way that no-one else ever could. To alchemize my weaknesses into strengths, and to look upon the parts of myself that I have attempted to reject through the eyes of unwavering compassion. To see myself more deeply when I have felt invisible in the midst of others. To transmute my loneliness into a deeper relationship with the part of me joined with all things. And to become an angel first unto my self, so that I may embody that for the world around me. 

I created this piece to materialize this intention. 

The arch around the being symbolizes their inherit holiness, with its satined-glass and cathedral-like effect. The sunrise behind them symbolizes the light of perfect love awakening within the individual, and the golden beings on either side represent our support from the worlds beyond. The circle represents wholeness, and the beings holding hands on the bottom represent the world of sacred praise we are in the midst of creating together. It carries the memory of our ancient future. 

Even though my work carries a colorful and playful ambiance to it, for me, it is profoundly shamanic and transformative. It is alchemizing, symbolizing a deep and heart-felt intention to heal, not only myself, but others through the illuminating light of perfect love. It depicts a journey, a story, of the most epic proportion – the revelation of who we truly are.

As my style grows and evolves, I notice a mandala-like theme emerging within my work. Actually, the blueprint for this particular piece came to me upon receiving a wave of inspiration as I was looking at Tibetan Buddhist Mandalas. 

To me, this mandala represents the sacred journey of the soul. It represents the journey of incarnation, with its trials and tribulations, with its alchemy and growth. It depicts the support that we are met with both physically and non-physically, as we carry out the assignments that are seeded within us from beyond the veil. This piece also shows the multi-layered realities that we inhabit. 

I don’t know about you all, but my whole life I have always felt like I have had one foot in this world, and one foot in a world beyond.

Several years ago, I sat with a very gifted medium, and one of the things he told me I will never forget: 

‘You are just barely hanging onto this physical world by a shoestring, mate!’ (He was British ha).

This made me laugh in the moment, but man did it hit me after I processed what he said. It definitely explained why I’d had such a hard time operating here (those that know me personally know it hasn’t been an easy ride haha). It also explained an element of my creative streak, and why I am the way I am. A blessing and curse I suppose lol. I am realizing now, that I feel more “here” the more I can bring an essence from these worlds here with me.

I have always intuitively felt like a part of my niche is to be a bridge between this world and the next, and in my own personal path that’s what art has been for me – a bridge into a vibrant light-filled dreamy world that I feel deeply connected with. It sparks a memory. A memory of something that feels like Home. This feeling of familiarity inspires me to keep creating, because I remember more of who I am the more that I create. 

The deeper I go into my work, the more I find an ancient shamanic essence wanting to be brought forth.

Recently the circle has been speaking to me. Often, ideas for paintings come to me in my dreams, and lately I’ve been having dreams and visions of the circle. Carl Jung, in his book “Man and His Symbols”, states that circles are a universal symbol of wholeness, and when they appear in one’s dreams, they often represent a form of psychic wholeness and healing. As I step more into who I am, it makes sense that the circle would be working its medicine on me. 

Recently, I have found inspiration through incorporating circles into my work. With that, I now find myself measuring out symmetry, balance and geometry, rather than free-handing it like I used to. I can feel this process unlocking new dimensions of creative depth, evolving my style into its next phase of expression. And of course, my art can only be a mirror into myself – revealing the nature of my own psychic growth. That is the profundity of creating art – it is always our own self-portrait.

The name of this piece came to me before I even put a brush to the canvas – “To Honor What is Holy.” Initially, I thought about the sacredness of the Earth – lush and bountiful forests, vast oceans brimming with life, and mountain peaks capturing inflections of light at the sun moves across the sky. 

And then I thought about what is holy within each of us – our inner genius, our unique creative spark. And how when you discover that within yourself, and set the intention to use it in service to all of life, you unlock some of deepest codes of this universe. This is when the world of synchronicity opens up, and you discover you live in a realm of magic. 

Now, walking this path doesn’t free you from challenges and initiations along the way. Challenges are inevitable – it’s part of the alchemical process of our growth. God knows I’ve been through my share of trials and tribulations (homelessness, addiction, depression, poverty, heartbreak, etc.) But the key is to never abandon yourself in the face of such adversity. To never lose touch with what inspires you and fills you with life. Through remaining connected to your deepest inspirations, even in the face of adversity, you build resilience and strength. You also build a love that is not limited by the bounds of your conditions and circumstances. 

In my opinion, that is what it means to honor what is holy – to remain true to the deepest parts of yourself, in spite of whatever it is that you may be going through. To be your own best friend, your own guide, through all the up’s and down’s. To walk in faith, knowing that all of life is supporting you in blossoming into the person that you were always destined to be. 

When we honor what is holy within us, we can’t help but honor what is holy in all that surrounds us.

For those of you familiar with sacred geometry, you will recognize the Vesica Piscis as the theme of this piece. 

For those not so familiar with sacred geometry, the Vesica Piscis is an ancient symbol depicted as two overlapping circles, representing the union of polarities and the creative force that is catalyzed between them. It has often been used to represent the union of god and goddess, of earth and heaven, and the merging of humanity with Divinity. It is the root element in the Kabbalah’s Flower of Life, and it also symbolizes the birth of Creation. It is used cross-culturally in many ancient traditions, including Christianity, Greek, Judaism, Egyptian, Norse/Celtic, etc. 

This symbol has been a major theme for me this past year, showing up repeatedly in my dreams and visions. There have been instances where I have found myself suddenly waking up in the middle of the night, startled to find the Vesica illumined in my mind’s eye. 

When I receive such symbols bubbling up from the depths of my psyche, I translate them into art, as it helps me to process and synthesize what is showing up.

For me personally, I feel like this symbol has been initiating me into a new paradigm of understanding myself in relation to others.

For my entire life, I have been an extremely solitary person (especially growing up as an only child in a relatively nomadic family). So rather than having a wide circle of connections, I have always had a very small group of friends, and my inner spiritual life has been my primary source of self-nourishment.

Recently, I find myself learning lesson upon lesson of the importance of  branching out to form authentic and meaningful relationships with others. I am finding masks and layers of self-protection that I didn’t even realize were there, now coming down, so that there is an opening for deeper vulnerability, connection, and creative possibility. And of course, this has been terrifying on one level, and totally liberating on another. 

As a microcosm of the macrocosm, I will say that it feels like a collective evolutionary wave is sweeping through our world to remove the blocks and dependencies that have kept us from what is real, what is true. And what is real, is what we share. Everything else will wither and fade, because it was never meant to last. But what we share deep down, our point of connection within our heart of hearts – that is what is real. 

So for me, this symbol has been initiating me into a new phase of growth, of moving beyond my cocoon of self-protection to embrace deeper points of connection. Collectively, I believe we are all going through this in our own unique ways. 

Right now, in our world so much is falling, fading and dying so that new life may be brought forth. And each and every single one of us is a bringer of this new life, learning how to see ourselves and others with a fresh pair of eyes. 

May we see the world anew, as together we breach deeper points of connection.

Everything we see, we color with something of our own essence. Thus, every perspective is unique, like a snowflake. Our greatest contribution is to share our unique way of seeing the world, so that it may take life beyond ourselves, and live through the hearts and minds of others. All of the great artists and revolutionaries that walked this earth – this is the code they lived by. 

Just as the sun extends itself for the sake of giving life, so too is our nature to extend our essence for the sake of enlivening creation. 

When we express from the rawness of our oceanic depths, there can be no comparison. How could you ever compare something that was designed to be unique? There is only the child-like joy that comes through expressing one’s inner life. Living close to our creative pulse is how we align with the intelligent design of nature, for when we are in touch with our own inner nature, we are in touch with heart of nature herself. 

A unique aspect of how I see the world, has to do with inner sight, or inner seeing. Some people might call this “clairvoyance”. It’s been a major part of my everyday experience – perceiving the subtle and energetic aspects of reality. On a physical level, I see solid objects – people, plants, things, etc. But then it is as if another layer of vision is superimposed upon my physical sight, where I see swirling colors and beautifully elaborate patterns of energy that emanate from physical things. So, I “see” multiple levels of reality simultaneously – from the physical to the energetic. And this isn’t anything “special” – I personally know many people that use inner sight, yet everyone’s experience of it is completely unique. 

My whole life, I have been fascinated by these “visions”, and have yearned to express this rich and intriguing aspect of my inner life. My paintings are a way for me to share this. My style takes on a primitive and child-like quality, as an expression of innocence, of seeing through the eyes of the heart. In my visions, the colors are wildly alive and vivid, more vivid than what I see with my physical eyes. It is as if the colors are bursting with light. So, the vitality of color in my work helps to depict the beaming colors in these visions. And the visions are very musical – always flowing and dancing – thus my work has a certain flowing quality to it. 

There’s an intuitive aspect to these visions as well – because the swirling colors and patterns contain information. They are part of a deeper language. It has been (and still is) a process for me to understand and interpret the energetic language of this inner sight. I’ve used these visions in service to offering readings to people, and to my surprise – there’s often a high degree of relevance to the patterns that swirl and spin in my mind’s eye. 

It is all so fascinating – creativity, inspiration, intuition. Not only do we we inhabit a miracle, but we ARE living miracles. We are blessed to the degree that we bless others with the gift of our unique indwelling essence.