About

Awakening the Artist Within:

It started with St. Scholastica at St. Gertrude's Monastery in Cottonwood, Idaho and a week-long Iconography Retreat with Father Damian Higgins. There, I wrote my first icon and I received permission to pursue the artistic side of me.  For decades, I had been listening to tapes in my head that said, “You can’t make money doing Art, so study Biology.” 

A year later, I felt an urgency to pursue Art in an educational setting. So, I reduced my work hours to 3 days a week and began as a full time student at Shoreline Community College in the Visual Communications Technology Program updating my computer skills and learning about digital art, website design and computer games. These were all foreign languages to me.

I am so grateful to be able to study Art at this time.  The advances in technology make discovery possible in creative endeavors as well as in other fields. Realizing that the timing is perfect allows me to let go of the past and seek a brighter future or just a more creative one. 

A movie that has helped me

Loving Vincent– here was an artist, who painted 800 paintings in the last eight years of his life. Only one painting sold in his lifetime - I learned that the process of doing is the most important thing, no matter what others do or say - keep learning, keep creating, keep expressing the light

Books that I have found helpful for this endeavor

The Artist's Way and The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron – the writer teaches you to be creative, taking one step at a time

Other things:

I have two grown children, Erin Vance and Jon Vance, who have taught me how to love more than I ever knew and who probably saved me from a life of bad choices. Currently, they are now teaching me what it is to love unconditionally when you have no control and they have free will.  It is difficult for me to let go of control, but necessary. From this, I understand God’s unconditional love for me a little more each day.

I work with special needs students as a Substitute Instructional Assistant for Seattle Public Schools.  I help kids with autism, behavior disorders, those who are blind, deaf, or have down syndrome, or they could be hard of hearing, or medically fragile, or have some other condition that I may not be aware of. I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn from these children – to learn things that are truly important – to see unconditional love from parents, siblings and teachers,  to see encouragement for the slightest attempt, to see the yield of character in the parents and siblings, to identify with the lack of perfection in me, and to truly understand the value of every human life. I work with them from the time they are 3 years old in pre-school, I see them graduate high school, and  I help them in the transition program as they learn to function in the work setting until they are 21 years old. I love my work.