Art is an important aspect to my life. I’m not sure really what it’s purpose is other than a way for me to connect to that universal intuition. It seems such a part of me now, that it is hard to imagine my life without drawing but it was not so long ago that I started calling myself an Artist. It is things like this that blow my mind when I realize how much I can change in a short period of time.

A Few Years ago if you had asked me if I was Artistic or an Artist I would have said no. And I guess that would have been true at the time. I’m not sure how interesting it is to go into the play-by-play of how it came about but suffice it to say that I started by coloring in a mandala book because my kids seemed to like to do it and I was running out of distractions. One thing led to another and within a month I was drawing things in my journal and was a little taken aback by what I was capable of expressing with coloredpencils. It took a bit longer and a bit more drawing for me to call myself an “Artist” – somehow that seemed like a title I could only use if I had achieved a certain education or recognition. Like if I just decided one day to call myself a hairdresser because I figured out the right scissors to use, or call myself a swimmer because I didn’t drown after figuring out how to dog-paddle, or a healer because I knew to put antiseptic and a band-aid on my child’s scraped knee.

It is not that I have never drawn before. I drew a lot as a kid, and then my freshman year of college I was an art major. However, that was over 20 years ago and when I stopped drawing it was with the feeling I had no talent and that it was not something that I should even try to do. There were reasons I felt that way. The environment was fairly competitive and I was young and not very good at tapping into that source outside myself, allowing inspiration to move through me. So, I dropped it, in my typical black and white fashion, never to look back, convinced that I had no talent what-so-ever.

So now, even though sometimes I feel weird saying it, I do call myself an Artist. I guess this is important because it is a part of me and how I express myself and I am trying to honor who I really am. I don’t know if most people would consider me an Artist or not. But so what?... it is not like I’m calling myself a surgeon and picking up a knife without a degree or certification.