Hello, I live in Tredegar, South Wales, I’m 60 years old and since 1987 I’ve been seeking answers to the big questions, you know the ones, who am I etc? This has been and continues to be an extraordinary journey and I feel increasingly blessed to be alive on this planet at this time and opening day by day to my own spirituality and witnessing this in many others as I go along.

This could be a book  but for now I’ll stick to talking about my art and poetry.

 

My art is my song, the poems reach out to those who respond to words rather than images, put the two together and I hope it pleases and helps. To some it’s all too mysterious but that’s to do with timing, for others it’s just right.
 

What does my art mean to me?

People ask what my art means to me. Increasingly the answer is everything, not  just painting but living my life as an art, finding a creative way to do things. I have always arranged things, always made gardens. I made them in metal biscuit tins with moss and small stones when I was  very small and was sad the next day to see that they were all dried up and not green anymore.

 

I’ve always been aware of beauty and been moved by it, for a long time without any understanding of the energy that moved me. This Planet is staggeringly creative and beautiful and we are fools to try to bring all the richness and variety down to a few strangled manmade ideals of expression that we are comfortable with.

 

Specifically my art is my soul song, my expression of my love of the Earth and the Great Mother Goddess who gave me life and sustains and lovingly nurtures me and always will do. It is a vehicle to share these things with others but if no one sees another thing I paint or reads another thing I write I will still paint and still write. Now
I’ve found my tools I know I won’t stop until I can no longer do it or the Divine Mother Goddess says enough.

How did you begin to Paint?

Another question I’m asked is, how do you decide what to paint? I don’t consciously do that. Whenever I’ve tried to work something out, to do sketches of an idea it is always a mess. The image  “arrives” spontaneously on the surface, sometimes after an agonizing gestation period. Let’s back track here.

 

I started painting as a project given as part of a healing course. We were asked to “express in some creative way your Sacral Chakra.” Eight words that threw me into complete chaos. This was the start of an even bigger challenge to unblock my shut down desire to be an artist and heal my relationship with my father.

 

I became a Healer in order to heal myself  but didn’t think so at the time. I got into journeying to find my spirituality, which I didn’t know I’d lost, and to make sense of all the crazy psychic phenomena that were making me come unglued. My teachers (in the Spiritualist Church, in the NFSH and a Native American Shaman) gave me a framework and protocols to deal with this and to understand the wake up call my Soul was issuing.

 

It all sounds so simple when I say it like this, it wasn’t and I don’t think it ever is. As I was reared in the school of anything worthwhile requires some sacrifice I think it could be we aren’t geared up to allowing it to be easy or to appreciating anything unless there is some personal cost. That really needs some attention. A voice is saying  “Receive the Blessings as they arrive from your Soul for they have already been earned.”

 

One of the psychic gifts was mediumship and that led to me doing Spirit Guide portraits. I still do these occasionally but do not do healing any longer in any formal way.

Which Medium?

The portraits led to a love of pastels and a lot of my work is in this medium that I adore for its vibrancy of colour and the hands on technique. I have tried all media except oils, as I’m not comfortable with turps etc. Working on a trial and error basis with all of these I’ve learnt how to get what I wanted and develop a style of my own. Actually I seem to have several bits of my personality working with my art and expressing various views around a main theme. The pencil work satisfies a very structured and precise part of me whilst the pastels are spontaneous and passionate and used at speed and with intensity. They are definitely preferred by Spirit for the Shamanic artworks. Watercolour, Gouache and lately Acrylics are used (sometimes in combination) for the more surreal and finely detailed work.

The Soul at play.

All the work has a spiritual bias with some of it arising from my Dreaming (a Shamanic practice) and some images coming from healing or meditations for Peace.

 

I am not the least interested in art used as catharsis as I believe there is enough ugliness and artists emotional baggage in the world and other “stuff” that brings out the worst in human nature.

 

The Earth Mother has asked me to bring forth images that speak of Beauty, to live in a Beauty way. I try to give hope and inspiration to those whose eyes have shut because of pain and suffering and to provide words and images that can hopefully reach in another way to their Soul. For those already consciously on the path some confirmation that weird things really do happen, magic is alive and well and by another name is called a miracle and it’s OK to have doubts and be human. Above all be human but try to embrace the best aspects you possibly can.

 

These pieces of work/play are my soul communicating with me. It is trying to show me what goes on in my other worlds, within the landscapes that I journey through. To help me learn from the part of my consciousness that wears other masks but most importantly from the part that stands clear and shining and unmasked, with an open heart and without fear in a world that’s full of fear.

Is the Art enough?

Hopefully just being and doing my art is enough. I recently held an Open Studio exhibition at home and used the ground floor as a Gallery. It was very moving to have praise from those who came, some friends, some new to my work but what gave me real joy were the three young boys in their teens that took at least half an hour to pluck up the courage to come through the open door and have a look. I’m certain they’d not seen anything like it or the Drum and Dreamcatchers by my altar. They spent time having a shy but respectful look at everything and then took their leave. I would hope that if nothing else it showed them art can be anywhere and if your home is the only place you can do a show then do it there. (Proofreading this I add, your own home,
your backyard is the prime place to do it all.)

 

As I enter the Grandmother stage of my life it is more and more important for me to have my work seen. Each piece will mean something to someone. The paintings carry energy that is alive, they speak, some people find this very disturbing and back away while some burst into tears. At first I found this hard to take but I realise we all go at our own pace and the triggers that affect us are all over the place and not choreographed by anyone but ourselves.

 

This is an ongoing process for all of us, we are work in progress and whilst we have

breath thus it will be.

 

I thank you for reading this and hope it was helpful as an addition to the paintings.

 

Walk in Beauty with the Earth and remember to smile.

              Kay Leverton/Lightning Dreamer 2008