BIOGRAPHY:  I am essentially self-taught and am not certified by any institution or government. The validation of my work is in the experience of those who have done a session. It is the direct and personal form of my art. I feel called to do it and the work is a gift.

 

I was born in 1953 and have always been an artist. In two-dimensions I work with paper, canvas, handmade books, fiber arts and wall murals. In multiple dimensions I work with people, creating art as an exploration in Praesepean Session Work.

The parallel interests of working with people and in the formal arts have developed through many years and have had some interesting conjunctions:

In the 1960’s I assisted in teaching art to emotionally disturbed teenagers. In the 1970’s I did a series of community mural projects with children, townspeople, and elders; more murals executed with the patients at a mental health center; taught art at a prison.

(During the 1970’s I also had the opportunity to begin the study of Asian martial arts, following an extreme health crisis. While I had understood much earlier the arbitrary nature of one’s chosen medium (the focus being the same in painting, music, theater, etc.), this was the first time I was conscious of the similarity between art and sport and healing. I felt the same focus and uniting spiritual element.)

In the 1980’s there was a time of personal healing, catharsis and exploration. Some of the tools I studied (extensively or not) are:  subtle-body energy work, Chi Kung (Qi Gong) healing, Kahuna healing, light-work, laying-on-of-hands, NLP, direct bodywork techniques (e.g. shiatsu or acupressure), gestalt, foot reflexology, herbal and nutritional therapies, aromatherapy, Native American spiritual tools, psychic healing, farming, and various ancient techniques.

By the middle of that decade I had begun to acknowledge the way that I work one-on-one with people. This involved a long process of off-loading shyness and doubt. I function most clearly through informed intuition, not dogma. There was no systemic certification. I worked with people because they asked... and then went back to my other businesses (25 years in the garment trade and ongoing work in painting, writing, theater, music). During the 80’s more people asked, and I had to take it more seriously. (I also moved to the Florida Keys, which helped me see the kindness and mercy of the universe... and by extension to believe that I could earn a living doing what I love, with all of me. Art itself could expand!)

The 1990’s allowed me to devote myself fully to artistic work and to travel to do it. The main focus has been development of the Praesepean Session Work. I’ve been able to do this co-creative work with people in Florida, New York, New England, Germany, France, Holland and the Bahamas. With the new millennium the visual arts are re-integrating to take their rightful place as balance and foil to the Praesepean Session Work. The yin and yang of my art work inform and complete each other.

My early training in drawing and painting developed my skills of observation and the courage and willingness to act on or express those insights. Training in music helped me listen to the rhythms of a moment, the song of a person, the sacred geometry of relationship. Training in theater and writing have taught me the delicate power of words and how to be Present. Life on the Earth with people has taught me humility, gratefulness and joy.

 

My painting is the same exploration and transcription of the moment, the process as artist/witness expressed in a different form. Paintings are more public. The model has agreed to share that moment with the rest of us. He or she becomes archetypal and others can share in the illumination. The healing becomes a group process.