From the moment I could hold a pencil I've been making art. I like to say that I could draw before I could walk. But despite that early start, I've never been particularly prolific. For every piece I complete there are about ten or more in my head that never see the light of day. It's a conundrum I've struggled with my entire life. Having gone to Catholic school through twelfth grade, I didn't have any formal art classes until high school, and even then, I wasn't obsessed with creating despite the fact that I won the art award in senior year and was accepted into the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
Once there, however, I was making art every single day and I was loving it. But something else was happening, too. Being away from home for the first time in my life with all this creativity pouring out of me, doors in my psyche were starting to creep open—doors I didn't even know existed. Doors that held dark secrets and forgotten memories. Doors that were nailed and chained shut lest the light of day shine in.
While I did graduate college, I didn't graduate from MICA. The reasons for that have been a major part of my creative process. They are what brought me to this place. They are part of the reason why, now, in my seventh decade of life, I am finally becoming what I always wanted to be: a real artist.
Through these words and pictures I hope to share my story in hopes that some little piece of it will help you, too. So, I begin with Sowelu, the image above. It's part of a series of drawings I created in 2007 - 2008 when I was going through my divorce while the global financial markets were bottoming out. Talk about upheaval! But Sowelu arrived as a sign to show me I would make it.
Ralph H. Blum writes in his The Book of Runes, Sowelu stands for "wholeness, that which our nature requires. It embodies the impulse toward self-realization and indicates the path you must follow, not from ulterior motives but from the core of your individuality... What you are striving to become in actuality is what, by nature, you already are... Sowelu marks a time for regeneration down to the cellular level... Sowelu counsels opening yourself up, letting the light into a part of your life that has been secret, shut away." (emphasis mine)
There are no coincidences. Signs of Life show up everywhere in my life—and yours too. Whether silly little daily horoscopes in the newspapers, weird synchronicity experiences, readings from the I Ching or runes, hearts found along the way, or so many other, seemingly strange happenings, the universe is continually reminding me that wherever I am is right where I should be. And it's all okay.
I hope you will travel along this journey with me. Maybe you'll start to recognize your own Signs of Life.
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