About Me
The Journey That Took Me Home
“Coming home to yourself is the lifelong practice of committing to the voice of your heart—always.”
Ghislaine Mahler
The Path That Brought Me Here
My journey home began when I was very far from loving myself.
By the time I reached adulthood, I was deeply insecure. I didn’t simply dislike myself—I hated myself.
Deep inside, I believed I was a mistake. That there was something fundamentally wrong with me. That somehow, I didn’t even have the right to be here.
I had always been sensitive, intuitive and spiritual. I had always lived very much from my heart.
But my heart was deeply wounded, and I didn’t have the tools to understand or care for the pain I carried.
Eventually, that pain became too much, I became self-destructive, I turned to alcohol and drugs.
Strange as it may sound, today I am deeply
grateful that my path took me there.My addiction made the pain impossible to ignore. I could no longer keep it tucked away while continuing with my life.
Eventually, I was brought to my knees.
And that became a blessing.
I surrendered.
I finally saw the truth of how I was living and knew I had to make a different choice.
I was thirty-three, and I asked for help.
I put down the drugs and alcohol and never touched them again.
That was the beginning of a completely different life.
I had stopped destroying myself. Now I had to build myself.
I had to learn how to respect myself, care for myself, listen to myself—and, most of all, how to love myself.
That became the real journey.
The more I learned to love myself, the less willing I became to live a life that wasn’t an authentic expression of who I was.
And eventually, the need to be fully myself became greater than the fear of what might happen when I was.
Along the way, I discovered something else.
Once you have known what it feels like not to love yourself, you recognize it in others.
I began seeing it everywhere—in the way people spoke to themselves, the choices they made, what they tolerated, and how easily they dismissed their own needs, feelings and inner knowing.
I knew that place intimately.
And helping people discover a different relationship with themselves became one of the deepest purposes of my life.
Through the years, that purpose has taken many forms. I have been an artist, an Artisan of the Soul, a teacher, a coach, a mentor and an author.
The forms have changed, but the intention underneath them has remained remarkably constant:
to help people come to love themselves.
Today, I understand coming home to myself not as a destination I have reached, but as a lifelong practice.
I wander.
I notice.
And I return.
Back to myself.
Back to my heart.
Back to love.
Creating From the Heart
Creativity has always been a natural part of who I am.
When I create, I don’t usually begin with a clear idea of what the finished piece should look like. I begin by listening.
I work from my heart, not my head.
I follow my intuition, trust what comes, and try not to question it too much. Most importantly, I let go of the result.
In other words, I get out of the way.
When the Art Knows Before I Do
I learned to trust this way of creating many years ago, when I was a maskmaker.
At one point, I was creating a series of Spiritual Warrior masks. I would begin with a piece of clay and simply let my hands work, without thinking too much about what they were doing.
One day, I had almost finished sculpting the clay face of one of the warriors when I heard something very clearly inside me:
“Cut my lip. Cut my lip!”
I didn’t question it.
I cut his lip.
As I continued working, I understood that he was a wounded warrior. Not a warrior who hurt others, but one who had fought hard and carried his own wounds—a little like so many of us who go through life carrying wounds within us while finding our way toward healing.
Later, when it was time to paint the finished mask, another very clear message came:
“Make my eyes blue.”
So I did.
I didn’t know why.
About a year later, I was assisting at a personal-development workshop and was asked to bring some of my masks.
A workshop participant, in his thirties, approached me with the Wounded Warrior mask in his hands and said, “I have to have this mask. I want to buy it!”
I looked up at him and saw his bright blue eyes.
The same extraordinary bright blue eyes I had been guided to give the Wounded Warrior.
I still get chills when I think about it.
* This photo is not one of the Wounded Warrior mask – it’s another mask. For some odd reason, I created many masks that I never photographed. What was I thinking?
When the Art Finds Its Person
Experiences like this have happened throughout my creative life. They have taught me not to try to control where a piece is going, or even to assume that I understand why I am creating it.
Sometimes I know I was meant to create a piece for the person standing in front of me—even when I created it months earlier!
Perhaps that is why I don’t need everyone to connect with my art.
Many people don’t.
But more often than not, someone stops in front of one of my pieces and something happens. They become very quiet. They keep looking. Sometimes they tell me they don’t know why, but they feel deeply connected to it.
I don’t need to know why either.
Perhaps something that came through my heart has simply recognized something in theirs.
And sometimes, the connection takes an entirely unexpected turn.
The young woman in this photograph stopped at my table in Forsyth Park and fell in love with one of my prints. As we talked, she mentioned that she was from Costa Rica. I told her that one of my closest friends lived there.
At some point, I mentioned my friend’s name.
“Margi.”
She stopped.
“Did you say Margi?”
“Yes!”
“She is my neighbor!”
There we were, two strangers meeting at an art market in Savannah, only to discover that one of my closest friends in Costa Rica was her neighbor.
What are the chances?
The photograph captured the hug that followed.
Moments like these happen in my life more often than I can explain. I don’t try very hard to explain them anymore.
I simply delight in them.
And perhaps they remind me of something I already know: when I create from my heart, let go of the outcome, and put what I create into the world, I never really know where the connection will lead.
That possibility gives me great joy.
How I Create my Artwork
Over the years, my tools have changed. The way I create has not.
Today, instead of clay, paint and brushes, much of my work is created digitally. I use drawing, digital painting, and different kinds of software—including software that incorporates artificial intelligence—as tools in my creative process.
I usually begin with an energy within me that wants to take form. I don’t necessarily know what it will become. Sometimes I sketch. Sometimes I begin directly on my tablet and allow it to reveal itself as I work.
From there, I experiment.
I add, remove, reshape, combine, paint, adjust colors and light, change details, and continue working until something inside me says, “Yes. That’s it.”
Some pieces come together quickly. Others go through many versions before they feel complete. I rarely know exactly where I am going when I begin.
The technology gives me extraordinary tools to work with, but the creative process remains deeply personal.
The tools have changed. The artist has not.
I still create the way I did when my hands were shaping clay.
I listen to my intuition. I follow what feels right. I allow myself to be surprised.
And somewhere along the way, what began as an energy becomes something I could never have planned completely in advance.
For Me, Creativity Is an Act of Love
I create from my heart and release what I create into the world, without knowing where it will go, whom it will touch, or what it may awaken.
The same is true of the way I try to live. My intention is simple: to put more love into the world wherever I can—and then let go of the result.
I don’t always do it perfectly. I am human.
I simply keep returning.
Back to my heart.
Back to love.