"I think I'm going to paint," was a statement I made while in my forties after moving to the United States from Toronto, Canada. Never taking an art class, apart from elementary school, and being a classically trained musician with the Royal Conservatory of Music, as well as receiving a Master of Science Degree in Maryland later on in life, made this declaration even more absurd to those who knew me.
I'm still in awe of how what was once dormant and undiscovered, for several decades, within me is now a focal part of my life. Learning to stop asking how or where this gift came from, and accepting that something bigger is working through me, has given me the confidence to vulnerably put my soul on display through my works. As much as I love being a musician, my art is gone the moment I finish playing a piece of music; it becomes a memory. Now, because of my paintings, I have something tangible at the end of my process; my art stays alive and in the present.
I could go on like several artists and describe how I see the beauty in things around me, etc., but being a small child in the 1960s, I relate to the fantasy of "Mary Poppins" and paint pictures into which, I wish, I could jump.