I’ve come to believe that we need art order to be alive. Without it — whether experienced or expressed — our physical heart may continue beating, but our soul withers. Art is a fundamental nourishment. Just as food nourishes the physical body, art nourishes the soul. It is as simple as that.

As I’ve been making visual art these past few years, I’ve done a lot of thinking about what it is about it that has been so healing for me. I am still working on that. What I can say, is that in the process of painting and collaging, I have learned to surrender myself to my Soul’s yearning to move through my body and be expressed. With that has come a kind of joy and elation I have not known since I was a child.

Whenever I am creating — making, writing, painting — I have to outlaw the word ‘good.’ The process is about YES. And that process, the process of expression without hesitation, is more important to me than anything I could possibly produce. It is through that that I am connecting to my soul and can feel it becoming stronger, healthier, and more embodied. Through that embodiment comes medicine, medicine for myself, medicine for others. The more I engage the joy of my own soul, the more I am able to see it in others, and to encourage theirs to come forward as well.