Why do it?

I often get asked why do I make these creations? The simple answer is because they are fun. The next equally important reason is because it brings people joy. 

     I'll admit, it is a challenge to earn a living at this financially speaking. But money is not what fuels my creative engine (clearly!), it is something deeper. It is the desire to bring a sense of wonder and magic to you, even if it is for just a few moments in the day for we are all need to feel joy in our lives. 

   The media is filled with all sorts of terrible news and the cycles of chaos and despair seem never-ending sometimes. I know personally the sensation of feeling so weighted down with the problems on this planet that I feel as if I have been entombed under a pile of boulders, each one representing a serious issue we humans have created. I am deeply and passionately concerned for this beautiful world and how humans are now destroying the diversity and eco-systems because we value toys and money more than we value living things and the precious Beauty of this planet. The more you learn the more depressing it seems. What to DO about it is the question we must ask of ourselves.

    Thankfully, there are a million small choices each of us can make that could add up to significant change. Recycling. Careful shopping. Driving less, walking more. Use less plastic! The list is really endless. But no one is going to take any of these steps unless they first can FEEL something - about the Earth, about Beauty, about wanting to protect Nature. But that is hard to do given our wired world where everyone now stares into screens of various sizes, like the very one you are looking at right now, with the desire to feel something. What is it we want to feel I ask myself?

     Certainly people want to feel "connected", advertisers tell us this all the time. But connected to what? This is where, as silly as it may sound, I feel I can add something positive to the collective soup we all call "Modern Life". I want to bring a moment of surprise and delight to those who view the work. I want to help the viewer return to that deep place inside us that remembers... when we all were intimately connected to Nature and lived in Nature and felt alive with wonder because Nature was all around us and life was truly magical. The sensation of "Home" is deeply embedded in our physical bodies. All kinds of research has been done on this. Deep in our brains and in our memories as a species we all feel attracted to similar things when we think of what "home" feels like. We all resonate with green, with sunshine, with fresh water and the moon. These things have mattered to human beings for millennia and it is only in the past few generations that we have lost our daily connection with these essential elements of well-being. So I feel it is my calling, as an artist to help people remember and doing it through representations of "home" - the kinds of homes we all would like to call our own, is part of the reason why I do this work.

    Who wouldn't want to walk along a path in the forest and find this waiting for them in a pool of sunshine? 

      So that is part of why I do this work. There are other reasons too but this is a big part of it. If this work can in any way bring happiness and a smile to someone somewhere, then that makes it worthwhile. If people can be reminded that the Earth is a place of Beauty and wonder and we all can make choices to help protect it, then even better. This is why I am so thrilled to be working with Amber Lotus now as publishers of my work. They GET it. and even more importantly, from what I've seen, they live the values of conscious living and Earth Stewardship even while they have a business to run. So it is an honour for me to be associated with them and these past few months I have been working very hard to make more creations to fill the pages of next year's calendar! I'll share a few of those creations with you in the next weeks and some little stories so you can come behind the scenes a wee bit to learn a little more about how they came into being.

     Thank you for reading this far and for supporting my work in whatever way(s) that you can. It may seem a silly thing to some, but this is my calling and I want to give it my best effort. It is important to be a force for good, no matter how small, in this world today.

May your days be filled with Sunshine and magic!