Truth is Stranger than Fiction!

There is a strange story to be told about the early drawings of my youth and I swear it is entirely true!!

Those artworks of my teenage years were very close to my heart.  They spanned an important part of my life and I believe they very much reflect the girl that I was back then.  I did have hopes and aspirations to continue with my artwork and perhaps pursue a University course and/or a career as an artist but as most young girls did back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I married very young at 19 and started a family immediately.  There was simply no time, energy, money, desire or motivation to fulfill my dreams and so for the next 23 years I was focused on being a wife and mother.

When I was pregnant with my first child, there was a defining moment of realization that my art dreams would not come to Light so I remember as if it were yesterday, packing my drawings and art materials in a box, sealing it, and saying to myself, after calculating what age I would be when I would be free to pick up the threads of this part of me, ”when I am 40 I will open this box again and continue the dream”.

Well, they say that we must be very careful what we ask for because it might just come true!  I did indeed receive an almighty Spiritual wake up call at 40 and yes, the box was re-opened and I began working within a few months of my 40^th birthday as a Psychic Artist painting portraits of the Spirit Guides who I saw around my clients.  Here is one of the first Spirit Guides I drew at that time.  He was one of my own, a Native American who brought many life changing messages of deep wisdom……

A couple of years later, I went through my box of old drawings and found this quick sketch of a man “from my imagination”.  I realized that it was one and the same Spirit Guide I had recently drawn.  At that moment, I realized that I was drawing Spirit Guides at that very tender age without any conscious understanding of what I was actually doing……..

Sadly, because I had become a completely different woman from the one that my husband married 23 years earlier, my marriage ended and I moved into a small and very quirky furnished cottage.  In the bedroom was a lovely, 40’s style free standing wardrobe…..the type with a fancy carved border across the top.  It was a great, safe place to store my box of drawings along with various other objects and boxes, as there was very little storage space in the house.  Eventually, I moved on from this place and lived in Victoria for several years with my new partner.

A little time had passed after I made this move and I suddenly realized I did not have my drawings with me!!  I was devastated!!  I had no idea what had happened to them and concluded that I must have accidentally been taken to the dump or to the charity shop with other unwanted items.  It took a long time to forgive myself and find a place of Peace given that they were no longer in my life.  This event  hit very hard as they represented a beautiful and happy time in my life…..a beautiful reminder of a young girl full of hope.

Unfortunately, my second relationship also ended and I found myself back on Bribie Island just as my first born was having her first child.  I was feeling quite lost at that time and hoped that finding a place of my own again would give me the space to rediscover myself so I could find the momentum to move forward again.

I was staying with my daughter initially till I could find a suitable home and actually had to walk past my old quirky cottage to get to the beach.  I noticed that all the windows were shut and the curtains drawn each day as I passed.  One day I stopped in front of the house and said out loud. feeling a little stupid, “you’re empty!”    The next day I went to the real estate agent and asked about it.  The agent said “Oh yes, it has been empty for a month while the owners have done renovations.  I hope you are looking for a place to live because the owners would be thrilled to have you back!”.  Needless to say, I signed a lease then and there and moved in within a week.

On moving day, I went to put a suitcase on top of the beautiful old wardrobe which was still in the bedroom and as I placed it up there, I put my hand on some papers.  I picked one up, and there inside a squashed cardboard box were my precious drawings, very dusty but still intact!  I cried for a long time…..then started my life over.