From Pain And Change Came Color And Healing

Always being a fan of art, but never considering myself an artist. To me, artists had training, hours of refining skills, shading, perspective and the like. I lacked patience... I wanted to go from zero to MC Escher straight away.

When my son was 6, I became a single dad. I had a design client, a renowned artist who devised a method of teaching traditional art techniques to children (and adults), and her books led to a string of art schools. Her name, Mona Brookes, and the schools were called Monart. Anyway, she gave me a stack of canvas' ranging in size, and a bunch of acrylic paint. She told me to ignore insecure feelings of not knowing enough technique, and just let the paint flow. I did just that, and instead of going into a dark hole with the pain and hardship of divorce and the aftermath, I painted. I crammed all that energy into the brushes and nearly tore each canvas in half.

It was a prolific burst which actually landed me in many art shows and even some art/craft fairs where I sold my creations for some time. Heck, I even landed on the cover of the LA Times Weekend at some point.

More info: timmfreeman.com