Do you believe in magic?
I do
I choose to believe in magic
I seek it out
I look for it in the many places it hides and I find evidence of it daily
and when I don’t find it I make it
Art is magic
It allows me to both make magic and collect evidence of it
It’s alchemical
It’s transformational
Art making is magic making
As artists we take things, raw materials, an idea, a hope, a dream and we transform them into something new.
Clay from the earth becomes a vessel to hold someone’s prayers,
a canvas becomes a roadmap for somebody’s journey,
a piece of metal becomes a talisman for someone’s deepest dreams,
some digital pixels become someone's most precious and fleeting memories, a few marks on a page become a love letter to the beauty of this world.
Roald Dahl said “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
Being an artist ensures I find it again and again for those unlikely places are the pieces of our daily lives and the moments that make it up, the absolute and complete beauty of life.
Art allows me to be in GreatFullness for it

David Whyte says that “beauty is an achieved state of both deep attention and self forgetting” and the poetry of art reminds me of this through the contemplation and consideration of life and I experience the world with deep listening enabling me to step beyond myself and at the same time
returning me home to myself.
Being an artist means I am a magician, an explorer, a pilgrim, a storyteller, an archetype archaeologist, an alchemist, a cartographer of possibilities, a shadow gardener of the psyche, a dreamer for the planet, a poet.
Being an artist reminds me to always look with glittering eyes of wonder
and being an artist allows me to engage with the intersection between the imagination and the world
William Blake said “Imagination is not a state, it is human existence itself”
Being an artist allows me to fully embody, fully live this human existence and dance with the brilliance of my imagination
I believe being an artist is our birthright as humans on this planet
It has allowed us to dream up and then manifest all the glorious things we have created.
It allows us to really pause and appreciate the beauty and perfection of nature, of the world around us, of the moment. It allows us to find our way.

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”  Mary Oliver
Being an artist brings me home to myself and allows me to sink into my experiences, a life worth living, a considered life, a life of deep meaning, an artful life full of daily magic both simple and grand. “Through the imagination we tap into our highest human potential and encounter that which is more human in us, that which is divine.”? Sally Kempton
Being an artist allows me to tap into that divinity within and beyond and it reminds me of my place in the family of things, my connection to all. I am a unique and multifaceted snowflake and I am you.
As maestro Picasso said “ Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” and we all need a bit of that in our lives to remind us of the beauty and sacredness of life.
Art making is a playground for possibilities, it is an exploration, an invitation, a dialogue with oneself, with the muses, with spirit, with those who have been before, with the ideas floating around in the ethers, with possibilities.
That we dream, that we love that we desire that we strive, that we wonder, that we wish, that we are human makes us artists.
I will leave you with these words from Clarrisa Pinkola Estes, “An artist is an artist before they have ever produced a single thing. The production of something is not what makes a body an artist. It is the soul that makes an artist, the core of the psyche that fills the person, the creative fire inside a person that make them an artistAnd if that person has the soul of an artist, that is they have the burning as each and every individual does, then they are an artist, they are entitled to the title artist, we are all entitled to the title artist before we have produced one single thing."