Artist name:  Dawn NicDarrah

My journey as an artist:

My journey as an artist had nearly been beheaded before it’s prime … people were dismissive, unsupportive, downright cruel … but as a mother, creativity flowed, giving rich soil for my daughters to blossom in.

I painfully watched my eldest suffer similar criticism in her pursuit of art, but never backed away from supporting her to follow her passions (which paid off as she is a painter and working towards becoming an art teacher). My youngest took to writing and singing.

It was after a time of grave difficulty (my heart stopped due to a series of stress and health complications), during a time of recovery in which I decided to return to school, I took a ceramics class for creative outlet and for physical therapy to strengthen my hands. I have been engaging in various art classes (painting, drawing, printmaking, 3-D, ceramics, color and composition, photography – which has been with me since childhood – as well as Gallery Management) and I find that what I learn from one medium informs my work in each field and always I am learning more about myself.

From this series of discoveries, I have also found a new path. While photography is my constant companion, a friend on my walking meditations, like digging hands into soil, my soul flourishes with each artistic attempt with other mediums… and I want to share that with others. I have decided to continue my education in pursuit of a degree in Art Therapy.

Title of your artwork:

Ancestral Guardians (Memento for Sandi)

What was your inspiration behind your winning piece?

The theme was “Celebrating the Life of a Deceased Loved One”. Two people came to mind. My Grandfather, who I was very close to, but I was very young when he passed, and my Mother-in-law who I considered a soul sister. She influenced not only my life, but the lives of my daughters and we are all the better for it.

I am in the practice of creating vision boards to help pave new directions and aid focus. I have recently shifted from vision boards to ‘vision boxes’, working in 3-D.

I often search thrift stores for materials … I have collected boxes to experiment with. A friend had taken a small box and created a memento to her sister and it inspired me to create something in honour of the people who have lifted me in difficult times of my life. People who have been there for the good times and the difficult times. Our family keeps an Ancestors Altar at home, but we had recently packed everything to move … save for a few favourite things of my ‘soul sister’.

Sandi was creative and inspiring … a force of positivity… generous and loving. Keeping it simple, drawing together a few things she loved, Dragons, reading, loving spirit, protective … and a small pendant urn with her ashes … added to a small tin box and her portable altar came into being.

What’s your favourite medium and style of art?

I enjoy so many mediums, from spinning wool, needle arts, pyrography, beadwork, as well as writing and creating poetry, to more traditional forms of art such as painting, drawing, collage, ceramics and photography … but my deepest passions reside with writing, photography and ceramics.

In ceramics I primarily do hand building with coils and slab work (hands are still imbalanced in strength so throwing is difficult) and because I am tactile, I love to create work that can be touched and utilised such as birdbath sized hand labyrinths to smaller portable and personal sized labyrinths. Drawing upon some of my favorite gifts from nature, I create shakers. My favourite form to create is acorns. I also like to create ceramic cairn or stupa – stacked stones – as portable meditation altars, featuring a glass reflection “pool” in the base stone, an offering bowl with the second and a ‘shaker’ stone to top them off.

Finally, I have a deep passion for symbols and like to create, once again, tactile stones with symbols as focus tools. Every piece is created with a meditative focus that heals as I work and offers paths healing to others.

Courses I’m enroled in:

– Art Therapy for Self Healing

ANINDITA DWIVEDI

I am celebrating my hero my dad with these 3 paintings through the eyes of my inner child.

My dad was an amazing father with a cheerful persona. He was the person whom I could demand anything and he made sure he fulfilled them unconditionally. With him I learnt how to enjoy simple pleasures of life.

1) In the first painting I am asking dad that I want that bright thing on the sky. He never told me it was impossible to have the moon.

2) In the second painting I am going with him to catch the moon.. He used to take me for a walk on a mission to catch the moon and I used to come back sleeping on his shoulders ( according to mom).

3) In the third picture I am planting a tree with my dad. I loved gardening with him.

He was a combination of loving, caring, nurturing and a strong willed person. He still is my guiding light from heaven.

There are days when magical things happen and I look up and tell him “Dad I know it’s you😉”