My Career Interrupted

In 1984, after 6 and a half years of art school, I received my MFA degree in Art. And I stopped painting.


So why did I stop?

After graduating, I took slides of my paintings around to galleries, and did everything I could to get into shows, with little success. Moreover, I looked at the work in the galleries and saw nothing that looked like my work – it seemed no surprise that I received little acceptance. And meanwhile, finishing school had left me with the dilemma of needing to find work, and an art degree provided little help. People would say “Why don’t you TEACH art?” But teaching positions, especially in NYC, are very scarce, and the positions that were available usually went to artists with reputations in the art world.

So I got a job and stopped painting.

Much of the twenty year interim between when I stopped painting till now was spent on a spiritual odyssey that is to be greatly reflected in the painting I am creating now. It was early in my art training that I first felt a deep kinship with “Mother Nature.” The same passion I had for painting led me to become deeply curious about Goddess spirituality and paganism. Eventually I also found myself engrossed in Buddhist thought and practice. These involvements have led me to a sort of transformational shamanistic spirituality I embrace today.


Why am I painting now?

I think in my mind, I never really stopped painting — the creative process has always continued.

In the last few years I have been putting a lot of thought into what work I was put here on Earth to do. My reflections on this are complicated, but I have come to feel that I DO have a gift for painting, and I SHOULD be using it. What’s more, my spiritual path has helped me to feel that I can paint about things that I wasn’t able to before.

My father loved my artwork, and I think he was very disappointed when I stopped painting. He would always encourage me to paint. Ironically, I started to paint again after he was severely impaired by a stroke. Deepvisioning.com was inaugurated on the first anniversary of his death, July 9, 2007.