I create art to survive and to thrive!

I admit it!  I create art to survive and to thrive.   Without art in my life, I am not sure how I would have made it through all of the many challenging times in my life.  It is such a blessing to always have art to turn to whenever I am feeling out of sorts or depressed or going through a major life challenge.  There are times when I believe that creating art has literally kept me alive.  I especially noticed this while going through my first divorce which took a long time to recover from.   There were moments when I felt so depressed and down inside with hardly any life force or will to live.  Creating art literally brought me back to life.  When I could express what I was feeling inside on the canvas, then I could somehow see it and heal it, piece by piece.

Recently I was telling a young woman how I am now calling my art survival art because it helps me to survive.  She corrected me and said that it is more than that, that it is "surthival" art ...it represents surviving and thriving!  I really resonated with that and now call my art "surthrival" art because not only do I survive but I thrive as well!  I especially thrive since I have discovered that my monsters are really my angels in disguise!  But that's a subject for my next blog entry.