Painting is my refuge. When it’s just me and a canvas, my mind is finally quiet. I stop worrying about explaining my emotions and why I deserve to feel them; I stop trying to find a way to put it all into words while still saving face. In that silence, I am completely present.
April Artist of the Month at SRC. Before recovery, creativity always felt vulnerable, like I was doing something that wasn’t allowed. When I shot photos, I felt free and I thought I didn’t deserve it. I felt guilty. In recovery I have learned that creativity is essential to my well-being. When I shoot photos I…
I have been a lifelong artist, both drunk and sober. I feared sobriety would ruin my artistry but found that it enhances it. In turn, creating art enhances my recovery by providing meaningful focus for my life. Addiction is a dead end. Drunk, I left a pile of uneven, unfinished work. Recovery is openness to…
My sobriety and my art are indelibly entwined. As an abstract expressionist painter, sobriety has enriched the content of my work, making it so much more interesting, colorful and expressive, as it has made my life more interesting, colorful and expressive. Unearthing the buried treasures of my past and learning to tell the truth, my truth, has allowed…
How has my creativity impacted my recovery? My creativity informs my recovery. Given free rein, creativity can be a tool to process events of my life. It gives me joy. Allowing my creativity a voice creates my life, co-creates it and re-creates it. It frees me to walk my own unique path of recovery.
I started drinking at 13. Hiding in my room, I invented a world with a rapidograph pen and watercolors, then attended art school in New York city but drinking and drugs took precedence. I worshiped famous drunken artists that justified my lifestyle. Moving to Colorado, I began a career in commercial art but heavy drinking…
