Sep 9, 2022, Fri — For today’s blog, I’m going to share some of the biographic material I prepared for the Jewel Street bio questions today, 12 months late! Such is the life of a flaky artist. Here are their first two questions
How did your brand begin?
I was practically dragged into art and nobody was more surprised than I that a wealth of talent was waiting for me to pick up a brush. At that time, I was focused on my writing career and a writer friend kept bugging me to attend a creative process group at a local art studio. She finally suggested I might be able to paint the illustrations for the children’s book I had just written. I thought, hmm, maybe I could do some cool first-grader art.
What a surprise when I picked up a brush! I was transformed after the first session. I had a latent talent I had no idea about and knew my life would change right then. Another friend saw the paintings and she promptly rented me an art studio and surprised me with the keys two days later. From there, the rest is history. Twenty-seven years later, I continue to be self taught and just as surprised.
Where do you draw inspiration for your designs?
Nature literally saved my childhood. I don’t know how I would have survived without the safe havens I found in the woods where I experienced a calm loving super-reality. At age 14, I heard about the Gaia Hypothesis and dedicated myself from there on out to working for Gaia. To this end, my first career was in Geology. I was a hydrogeologist. When that proved rotten with politics, I focused on writing. When I discovered I could paint, there it was! Painting Gaia became my work. I am endlessly inspired by and grateful to nature and sometimes think of my paintings as love letters. It is my great honor to paint the wild places on our beautiful planet as I see them, emotionally alive, loving, vibrant, and healing.
More of the Jewel Street bio another night…
