I was born in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada and moved to the small neighbouring town of Wallaceburg very early in my life. My family had a poultry farm and my grandfather raised Belgian Draft horses just outside of town. I lived across the road and therefore grew up like a regular farm girl. I loved all living things from the tall to the teeny tiny small. My childhood was full of dirt and I loved it! I was always creative even from the time I was very young. Give me art supplies and books and I was happy. I loved being surrounded by any and all types of art materials. I may not have known exactly how to express myself and so there was always barely used or just tried mediums lying around.
I had a pretty normal childhood but it was obvious in many ways that I was creative from a very young age. When I was little my dad would have garden tours in our yard and I would take people around to all the flowers and tell them stories about them and give them all different names. I always dressed in my own style and my best friend and I used to spend hours making homemade videos based on my stories. It wasn’t until about grade 6 that things started to shift for me. I, like most youth went through that time in your life where things are a little dark and you aren’t really sure how to express your awkwardness with confidence. The world makes you believe you need to fit in and so you try and you suppress and bit by bit your creativity gets put on the back burner.
At the age of 11, I started to seem a little more spacey than normal. My parents would catch me drifting off and I would have no recollection of what we had been talking about. It was a scary time for me and after some tests I was diagnosed with Epilepsy. At such a young age and not quite being able to grasp what this diagnosis really was I became ashamed and self conscious. With all these new emotions I searched for an outlet to express myself and fell into poetry. I wrote poems in class when I shouldn’t and I curled up at home with a pen and a notebook. There was comfort in putting my emotions onto pages. I had the opportunity to go to Europe with my family when I was 12 and we visited many Art Galleries and Museums in Antwerp, Belgium; London, England and Paris, France. I was captivated by the art world. I carried my little notebooks with me and wrote poetry on the steps of the Musee Rodin. I have a picture from that day that hangs on my inspiration board in my studio. My young love for art was just growing a mile a minute.
The following year there was a big change in my health as I had my first Grand-mal seizure. Before this all my seizures had been little staring spells and now this was something completely new. I was lost in a sea of confusion, confusion after seizures, confusion about seizures and confusion about my future and who I was. High school was not an easy time for me. I suffered anxiety and depression, partially due to my new situation and partially to medication. The only times that I really felt like me were in English and Art classes. I had only one friend that I truly trusted and confided in and he is now my husband today.
As high school came to a close I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and like most creative types. I was made to believe that there is no way to make a living doing art and writing. “It is just is not realistic” people said. So I took the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the Graphic Artist that my mom used through work. It was fun. I got to play on her lovely apple computer and it was something new and different that intrigued me. I had hope now that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to take what I loved and make a career out of it. I went to St. Clair College in Windsor and Graduated with a Diploma in Graphic Design. I started out freelancing and worked in the field for a few years until I moved back to Sarnia and entered a whole new creative endeavour, Theatre. I started out as the Box Office Coordinator at the Imperial Theatre and slowly drifted into working with costumes and make up on performances. Ultimately I ended up stage managing. I joined the Art Walk committee and became involved in all the downtown arts. I taught little art lessons for children at the local art gallery and I worked on my own exhibit called Hearts and Hands. Then my Theatre group decided to move to Petrolia and well, with no license I could not follow. It just so happened that I had recently reconnected with my childhood sweetheart and in no time we were engaged and married and it was not long before we moved back to Wallaceburg and ended up back on my family farm. It was like I was returning to the beginning. I was a farm girl again and at the end of a long day filled with horses, goats, sheep and pheasants, I was once again covered in dirt and loving it!
A year or so passed and then my life was flipped upside down and spiralled out of control. At the age of 30 my husband was diagnosed with a very large “inoperable” brain tumour. We went from a young fun loving couple out on the farm to 5 days a week chemo and radiation with a prognosis that was, lets just say, not good. “I am sorry” they said “there is nothing we can do”. So life became a constant battle to exist. Little chores did not matter, just making it to tomorrow was the only important thing on our to do list. Years went by and we withered. Life was a whole new normal and we had no light ahead to keep us going. Then as if by fate someone stepped in and shook our world. That moment when we found out there was someone who could help us after all, someone who could save him. And save us he did. Two major brain surgeries later and many trips out of province my husband was given a clean bill of health. Yes there is still doctors and check ups and life can still overwhelm. We have our struggles but he is safe. With my Epilepsy it is important to try and keep myself well and yet I continued to struggle.
I spent a whole extra year just existing. Sitting there hour after hour, just thinking and drinking a lot of coffee. Slowly that thinking became creating, at least in my head. It took time, a lot of time and I tried many things to get myself up and going but ultimately I just continued to exist, not live. Then one day I stumbled on this app. It sounded intriguing and since downloading something on my phone required no more commitment from me than to continue as I was I thought “ Oh, why not?”. It was then, that moment that I reconnected with the little girl who always knew her business was to create. It started with one drawing and a daily prompt for sketches, and then people liked them! They actually liked what I had made. So I decided a pencil and sketch book was only the beginning and before I knew it I had taken over the kitchen with paints and canvas’ and art supplies galore!
I now have a bit of a following. I have sold many of my art pieces and sets of cards that I’ve created. I am now sitting in my studio, Little Introvert Expressions, that my loving and healthy husband built for me, partially hoping to regain some room in the kitchen I am sure. I am surrounded by my art. Pieces framed and Canvas’ hung on every open space that the walls have to spare. Shelves of art supplies, easels and my old roll top desk give the room its ambience. This is a fresh beginning. I have fought a good fight to get back here and here I am now, not just existing but truly living. In the end, art brought me back!
