From out of the ashes, new life rises.

Life is shit. Five friends dead from suicide in five years shit. Straight from honeymoon into visiting your spouse in the psych ward shit. All kinds of shit. At least, that's been my experience of life. Maybe you haven't seen the same kind of shit, or maybe it's been different levels of shit, but if there's one thing I've learned it's this - the shit finds us all sooner or later. And yet life is still beautiful.

For a long time I thought I had life figured out. I grew up with privilege that a lot of people don't have - being white, middle-class, and from a family that seems to have its shit together gives you an easy way through life that most people don't get. On top of that, I figured out from an early age who I thought I was and what I thought I believed. And from all of that I got a lot of certainty and stability, and things that made it seem like I actually had a lot of control over my life. But then the shit hit the fan, and as my life spiraled out of control I began to realize I needed a new way of being.

My experiences in life forced me to realize that the more we think we know, the more closed off we tend to become. And the more closed off we are, the less we are truly a part of life, and all of the beautiful things mixed in with the ugly. We become brittle, and anything that threatens what we're so certain of (and it will be threatened sooner or later) becomes something we have to fight off to keep ourselves safe.

I will admit that I did my fair share of fighting things off, but luckily I already had the key I needed to grow beyond this.

As an artist, I've always looked for - and been able to find - beauty in places no one else would have expected. It's how I was able to fall so in love with the culture of aboriginal Canadians - a people group who have been chewed up and spat back out by the majority, and are now often scorned and cast out, but a lot of whom have more strength, courage, and wisdom than the sea of white that surrounds them. And through them I realized that there is so much more to our world, our universe, and our existence than control and certainty and knowing things.

Beauty rises from the ashes of certainty, as it gives way to openness, acceptance, and compassion.

Throughout this all I learned. And I grieved. And I grew. And I opened my eyes and my heart and my mind. At least, I'm working on it. I'll probably always be working on it. But with each passing day this openness and connectedness with the world around me shows me how to become just a little bit more than the day before.

My art is the visual diary of this journey of transformation that I'm on. It's a window into my soul. I'm sharing this deeply personal, deeply intimate journey with you not because of what I can gain from it, but because of what I can give through it. I've seen what we become when we turn in on ourselves and fester. And I've seen what people can become when given freedom, hope, and room to grow.

Maybe you're already bright and full of life. Maybe you're in that dark and festering place. It doesn't matter where you are now - what matters is where we're going. And the best place to be headed is one step ahead of where you were. So let's shake off the ashes of what once was, and take a step toward the life that's rising from it.