My artistic journey began to unfold when I moved to Portugal. During the following two years, I received art instruction in the village of São Martinho do Porto. Following this, I began the fine art bachelor’s degree program at John F. Kennedy University, in Berkeley, California. The art, psychology and spiritually-focused curriculum taught me to be an authentic artist. At John F. Kennedy University, I have learned and developed the skills to express myself, heal and teach, by drawing from within.
Now I possess adequate power to create art from an internal place to express my life, according to my own values. Art is a form of meditation and contemplation that allows me to heal, transform and reinvent myself. The classes I’ve taken in spiritual Native American practices have helped me become at one with the world around me. My images and work have opened new doors. This creative process conjures my own need to take a closer, deeper look and reveals hidden imagery and thoughts through visualizations and dreams. These function as a record of release for me. I am allowed to let go of past and future metaphors through personal exploration and art.
I. Journey Begins
I moved to Portugal in 2004 and received extensive art instruction at the Cultural Center in São Martinho do Porto. The instructor, Ms. Augustinha , was skilled in almost every art form imaginable. I continued to paint acrylics to interpret various artists such as El Greco and Portuguese artists. I painted floral pieces, seashore epics and village fountains on clay roof tiles. For one piece, I used a found rectangle shaped roof tile covered with dried moss and painted a typical Portuguese fountain on it. I used the moss to create park-like scenery (i.e. Fig 1). I also explored working in mixed-media, using seashells to create 3-dimensional collages and painting on burlap, silk, and linen to create doilies and scarves. Ms. Augustinha taught me how to restore antique art and church relics. She showed me how to use gold leaf and how to paint statue figurines (i.e. Fig. 2). I used these new skills to paint figurines in the Nativity scene and for later restoration projects such as the ones I restored in my 2008 online mentorship. Painting the facial expressions, elaborate wardrobes and the animals was a challenging but rewarding experience for me because it gave me the confidence and artistic abilities to restore objects professionally.
My Portuguese instructor was very impressed with my art work. She invited me to show my art at several exhibits and to join an art association known as the Associação Escadote Cultural . I presented exhibits of my art work in São Martinho do Porto and Ourem, Portugal in 2005 and was invited to exhibit my newest creations in São Martinho do Porto and Alcobaça, Portugal in 2006. When I returned to the U.S.A in mid August, 2006 I immediately signed up for art classes at the Piedmont Adult Education center to continue to paint and to learn new techniques. Meanwhile, I did much soul searching and asked myself what it is that I want to do with my talent. I did extensive meditation that included writing daily in my journal and spiritual work with my healing and angel guides. In the book Healing with the Angels, I discovered I could tap an inner guide to aid my creative and healing process by “listening to the angels talk” (Virtue, p.84). Also, I visited many art museums, art galleries, exhibitions (such as San Francisco’s de Young Museum, Oakland Museum and art exhibit on the theme of Fatima in Portugal) and read life stories of famous artists such as Van Gough, Cézanne and Frida Kahlo. I decided to discover my own original and distinctive artistic spark as these artists did.
II. Journey Continued, Occurrences with Symbols, Metaphors and Arcytypes
I started my art studies at John F. Kennedy University in the winter quarter of 2007 in the School of Holistic Studies’ Department of Arts and Consciousness. My studies at JFK helped me realize that I could transform myself into a different meditative mode as I would paint or create other forms of art. When I focus on my art I feel free of all cares and I am able to separate myself from the ordinary worries and stresses of everyday life. I create art to heal my whole self and concluded that I must continue to feed my artistic talent with education and healing to evolve to the point in which I can share my experiences and artistic capacity by exhibiting and teaching art. I have discovered important gauges or criteria to measure my ongoing nature of self-discovery, creative self-affirmation of spirit and a deeper dimension of my own identity. I believe my newfound discoveries will help me transform my abilities into art for self-healing. This journey has brought me closer to understanding the potential of my career as an artist.
Even while attending JFKU, my artistic journeys continued to pull me to Portugal. In the fall of 2008 I lived in the small village of Sao Martinho do Porto while continuing my studies in the BFA program through an online mentorship. In the course Art, Archetypes and Creative Process, I was able to be in a deep creative and spiritual mode because I was living in a different culture. I let loose of my creative process during my journaling, note taking and reading assignments. The more I absorbed the culture of Portugal, and its sounds, smells and images the more intensely I became motivated to create art and write about it. My creative juices started to work in a profound way. Each day I awoke to the sounds of the whipping and roaring waves of the Atlantic Ocean just outside my bedroom veranda. My walks on the beach front, visits with friends at cafes, and family reunion lunches and dinners became the means for this newly found artistic self growth. My new artistic mood was reflected in a piece I created, “The Faces” (i.e. Fig. 3), a collage on paper of fragmented faces, eyes and mouth expressions. I feel each day I rise I am bombarded with images and expressions all around and all of the time articulating different degrees of this culture. A paragraph from my personal blog during that period captures the essence of my experience:
“I feel that my Americanism is peeling off and I am growing a new skin. Slowly, I feel my awareness to different symbols and motifs (or archetypes) tranquilizing my senses and psychic. Therefore, my creative mood and self (or unconsciousness) is combating my old self and creating a new perception of who I am as spirit. Finally, I see now that my first interpretation of art was reflecting on my Americanism because I had not absorbed this different culture and space that I was entering and creating”.
Reading The Secret Language of Symbols helped me reinforce the mandala concept into my art. As I began to discover and play with symbols and archetypes, I realized that the mandala concept resonated for me, so I created my creative flow mandala, “The Sea Mistress” (i.e. Fig. 4). Again, the combination of reading, writing in my journal, meditating and living in a different culture inspired my creative flow and influenced my mandala. The mandala construes five images from my “Now” life. It includes a poem from my late husband, a poem I wrote after he passed away, my wedding ring, a photo of the burial site and finally my son’s diabetes-testing strip. As I meditated on these objects, I realized that they represented symbols from my past and present life, especially the poem from my husband. A very unusual incident occurred in which I realized that I had been receiving messages as symbols from my deceased husband during the past 23 months after his passing. My husband gave me a plaque in the shape of a scroll with a poem written on it. I had come across it about four years ago among unpacked boxes from the 1990s in my Portugal house. I placed it on my dresser bureau and forgot about it. But, three days earlier, while reading and meditating I heard a loud crashing sound coming from my dresser. When I walked towards the dresser, I discovered that plaque had fallen to the side. I picked it up and began to read it. At that moment I realized that I was receiving a message from my deceased husband. These five images became symbols of my past and present life path and I was inspired to create my mandala. I sketched diagonal and horizontal lines followed by large circles within the main circle. Then an image of a mistress or goddess began emerging from the sea, followed by smaller circles outside and inside the large circle. The small circles at each corner have symbols of two fish, moon, stars, sun, tree and sea snail. The larger circles represent a poem of archetypes. These elements and symbols surmise and represent issues and archetypes describing my inner spirit and life experiences that I created with art as my mandala.
Like “The Sea Mistress”, my next piece of artwork contained fascinating symbolism and messages and developed from my dreams. I dreamed of a great “White Bear”, (i.e. Fig. 5) which stirred many emotions in my inner self. This reminded me of when I had Native American spirit healers come to visit me. Years ago I contracted walking pneumonia and suffered acute back pain. It felt like my back was peeling apart. My doctor gave me the usual antibiotics and painkillers but the pain took a long time to go away. My husband and I were invited to visit with friends who had a log cabin in a deep-forested area located in Calaveras County close to the vicinity of Oakley, California. I sat on the ground on the edge of the lake, which was surrounded by huge red woods and pine trees and shut my eyes to meditate and began calling on spiritual psychic healers from the universe to help heal my back pain. Suddenly, in my third eye I saw a great Native American chief wearing his feather head gear, pounding slowly on a drum. I began feeling the healing heat of the sun as it shone directly on me. While I meditated, I asked who he was and why he was there. He told me his name was Chief Eagle Head and that he came to heal my pain. When I left the forest and joined our friends, my pain had faded and I was completely healed in next few days. From then on whenever I have pain I call on Chief Eagle Head to help me heal myself. In a later vision, he introduced me to his daughter, Blue Feather, and both perform healings on me whenever I call on them. Unknowingly, I had created a healing alter that included my Turin Christ painting, husband’s poem and some other art and artifacts/statue like objects. This is where I saw the great White Bear in my semi/dream state. I believe that it is the Great Bear that Native Americans use in their healing ceremonies which has come to aid me in my healing projects. Through the process of creating White Bear, I remembered the powers I held to heal myself and also realized I had the power to heal. White Bear made me aware of my sacred space and the strong energies radiating in this holy space. This space and each piece has contributed to my dreams, imagery and healing. I noticed that after I placed my Christ image on this dresser in this space, I began to hear sounds and experience images while in a semi-dreamy and awake state. This spot is where I saw White Bear twice in the beast-like form. Also, this is where my deceased husband’s essence lured me to his poem. I truly believe I have created a very special space to heal and bring messages, which help me in my life and art career as a healer. My future art projects continue on the path to healing. I have created collages from fragments and objects that I encounter at home that remind me of my deceased husband. This collection, which I call “Ode to Carlitos”, has helped me grow as an artist and finally recognize my personal inner artist’s spark that gives me the confidence in myself that I will succeed as a thriving artist in my true right.
I began my artistic flight of passage with my first art video “Clutter, Chaos, Confusion” inspired by a visit to Berkeley Art Museum in 2008 exhibiting various art videos by several artists. My work that followed engaged me to go past my life affinity through personal exploration and art. Clutter in my garage engaged me to create book art with; “Ode to Carlitos IV” continued my profound inner psychological and spiritual growth and closer to my desire to find art from my heart. Evolving and reinventing myself brought me to my next explosion of artwork cumulating in “Ode to Carlitos” I and II. At the exact moment I was resolving my external life conflicts, I was gathering found materials in my garage and basement and creating my most profound collages from my soul and heart. My breakthrough resulted with me knowing that I had reached my professionalism as a bona fide artist.
My journey continues onward and forward with more art work reflecting my certainty as a professional. This summer´s JFK mentorship classes continue my infatuation and fascination with Portugal (especially Sao Martinho village) and to build my artist career here. The village is a hot bed for exhibits of all art forms and mediums in the summer months (June through August). There are exhibits in the park; culture center and tourism building. I am part of this wonderland of sun, sand and beach to enjoy nature and culture as well as teach and create art.
My present art includes a sculpture “The Skeletons” (found items) and paintings of glass art including “The Beach Cabanas” and abstract of “Mother and Child”. Next year I will participate in the Sao Martinho art exhibit that is themed Sao Martinho, Desires and Sentiments. My art work will reflect on historical and common sites of the village. My education has made me competent and professional as an artist and I know I will succeed in my art career.
III. Journey Onward and Forward
I feel I have discovered my life purpose through my genuine life-long accomplishments. In my life I possessed creative skills, variety of talents, and psychic abilities that enabled me to survive life while it consistently threw obstacles my way, resembling a football game. In doing so, I have not allowed anybody or life situations to take me down without a headstrong fight and run. I have always picked myself up, scraped off the mud and ran with speed forward in all of my life’s directions wherever it took me.
I was conceived in Portugal just before my parents immigrated to American. My mother barfed on the entire airplane trip in early February (the year is not important). Precisely nine months later, I was born. My parents were trucked off to my uncle’s (very wealthy) dairy farm. My father got up every morning at 3 o’clock (in the cold) to milk cows while my mother tried to setup a cozy home life in the shabby rundown shack that my uncle provided and which, through the gapes in the walls the sun and moon shined through.
In this period, I personally suffered two life threatening incidents. The first, while in the womb, happened when my father decides one day to put my mother on top of a wild white horse with only a rope for the bridle and no saddle. Of course the horse stampeded with my mother holding on to dear life. This is when I believe my angels decided to become very active in my survival. My second life-threatening episode occurred at about age two. Unfortunately, the shed that we lived in had no bathroom and baths were taken in a huge aluminum tub. I decided to play in the tub after my mother took a bath and nearly drowned. As a result I have never been able to learn to swim because of this very damaging psychological drama.
My life continued on a path of tremendous struggle. One day I was dropped off at kindergarten without knowing one word of English. Regretfully, my entire school life was confusing and stifling. My “white” teachers did not have a clue who or what I was therefore, I was ignored or not taken seriously. I was the poor creature that could not speak English and did not have any social skills. Surprisingly, I finished high school with a “B” average grade and later achieved two bachelors in liberal arts and fine arts and a minor in human development.
Consequently, I lived my life in a dream-like way of being. I spent most of my time day dreaming which caused my teachers to believe that I had hearing and sight problems and demanded that my parents take me to doctors for evaluation. Of course, the doctors did not find anything medically wrong with me.
My life journey and purpose has acted as a tool for the continuation of self-discovery, creative self-affirmation of spirit and a deeper aspect of my own identity as an artist and healer. I believe my newfound discoveries at JFK have transformed and reinvented me as a career artist. My journey has helped me to understand my professional path as a healing artist and a teacher of contemporary art.
I foresee in the following 20 years my artist’s path will be to continue my education (Master’s in Art), work my way into the artist community in Portugal and Europe, teach art at the high school level or college level, continue producing art and exhibiting my work all through Portugal and Europe and hopefully sell my art.
My personal goal at this moment is to research MFA art schools in Portugal that I might attend after I complete my BFA degree at JFK University in December 2009. My support includes retirement and investments that I need to spend time managing. My heart’s desire is to finish the summer quarter in Portugal working on two mentorships and finding the art school to achieve my Master’s in art and a solid career in art.
The images I receive to create this reality start with my driving through Caldas de Rainha, Portugal with a friend, (Isabel,Portuguese/English teacher) and arriving at a very specialized art university. My friend and I will go through the process to enroll at the school. I have my artist’s resume and portfolio with my artwork including a CD and I will have enrolled in the school successfully with within two years from today. Finally, I go over these images each night before going to sleep. I jot down any after thoughts and dreams the next morning that will help me achieve my goals.
IV. Conclusion
My artistic journey and career has unfolded and continues to this day. The art, psychology and spiritualism taught me to be an authentic artist from within whom I have become skilled in expressing, healing and teaching. I have discovered my own original and distinctive artistic spark as an artist.
References
Fontana, David. The Secret Language of Symbols (London: Castle House, 1994)
paperback edition.
Personal Blog, 2008. Retrieved September 9, 2009 from the internet: http://artishta.blogspot.com
Virtue, Doreen, PH.D., Healing with the Angels (California: Hay House, Inc, 2006) 27.
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