I stopped painting. I thought I could just walk away. I don't know what I thought I would do or who I would be. I never dreamed I would be invisible.

By 1995 effects of the assault coupled with my mother's four-year battle with cancer, her death, and my divorce to leave me desperate. I cleared the studio and gave all my paintings away and locked the door on being an artist.

Literally ~ at a party no one saw me come and go. Invisible wasn't fun. My dreams became lucid and they weren't fun either. They were downright terrifying!

A close friend guided me to use a journal. I wrote my dreams, and what I thought they meant. I began writing about the paintings I'd done before the assault. In them

 I discovered symbols I'd seen the dreams, and the story I'd been living on rerun. How could I have painted images filled with symbols without awareness? This took me aback. Had my whole life been Divinely guided from the get go?

Things I wrote in my journal were concrete. They were me. And gradually I began separating myself from the story and living my dreams instead. 

Painting something new was difficult. So much emotion was pent up inside me, it all tried to come out at once. This made a terrible mess on many canvases. I painted them over, and over, and over again.

By 2012 I was exhausted. I knew it was time to find new direction for my art, but had no idea where to look. That's when the opportunity to travel to France on an artist residency came to me. Follow my art journey and look over my shoulder as I learn to paint newly. See how this tiny Cascading Dreams watercolor postcard triggered an avalanche of Creativity I didn't know I had.

Click on Cascading Dreams first, then use the next >arrows to follow my art story as it appears in my book, Embrace the Mountain.