Divine Inspiration: How to Release the Artist Within

[Excerpts from the Book, Sample Chapters]

INTRODUCTION

At the age of eight I decided to be an artist. I didn't really know what that meant until high school when I was looking for a focus in my life –– a focus that would always be with me, one I would be able to search out and grow with.

I knew I had to leave Michigan. It was east or west and I chose the West Coast. I settled in Oakland to pursue graduate studies in art with a scholarship at the California College of Arts, and a special arrangement with the University of California, Berkeley, with the same privileges as the Cal students. There was so much stimulation and I loved all of it.

I explored San Francisco restaurant by restaurant, went to two movies a week (reading Pauline Kale to help me choose), and went to one or two concerts at the University of California and jazz in San Francisco after my Monday night painting seminar. North Beach in San Francisco had wonderful places to hear the jazz greats such as Anita O' Day, John Coltrane, and Dizzy Gillespie. If anyone talked, he would stop playing.

There was studio time, of course. I studied painting but soon evolved into collage, assemblage, and montage. The University of California has extensive libraries where I would disappear for days. Here I was exposed to the Dada, Surrealism, and Vortex movements by studying from the original documents. And I had the time to do it.

Later, after school, in the 1960s, I began my first foray into combining multiple art forms. I would make a collage and then mount it in a "sculptural setting" such as a stool, a table, or on wires so it could be pulled across the ceiling. I also created pieces that combined motion and sound.

My explorations of photographic silkscreen began with an interest in daguerreotypes along with the mirrors and the photographs that I used in collages. I wanted to be able to work in larger formats and the silkscreen work eventually evolved to a bigger scale. Some of the works could be shown either in or out-of-doors. I received a commission in conjunction with the Photo Media Show from the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City. I created a façade piece that covered the front of the museum for four months.

In the early 70s my career changed. I wanted more excitement in my creative life so I started a newspaper called Mail Order Art, and with that came a flood of connections worldwide. I became the “Mail Queen.” My artist stamps, drawings, and collages all expressed these new ideas that began when I split up with my husband and began teaching at three universities, driving 300 miles a week. As if that wasn't enough, I was helping to organize women artists from California and the National Women's Caucus for Art, while teaching some of the first classes in the History of Women Artists.

I also began taking energy classes––it was my introduction to the metaphysical world. My new experiences translated into creativity workshops and private classes. Most of this expression came through my collages and some Mail Art. There was no name for this when I started.

I was a very busy and inspired woman artist. Just perfect for a Gemini rising... .
 A few years later it was as though my life hit a brick wall. Nothing worked. Then I got sick and for the first part of the 80s I had very little energy. But I was still making my art. It never stopped and in that regard I was lucky. Little by little I began painting again, and at one point I constructed a small house in the center of my studio where I could crawl inside to meditate and work on healing myself. Inside, I hung my smaller paintings, those under 30 inches. I created a space just like a kid would do it, by stacking the pictures next to and on top of each other.

During the late 80s I made tons of mono prints and tons of Mail Art. At school (the University of California Berkeley Extension San Francisco), there was a funky old press and one of my students discovered that by plugging it in with an extension cord, it worked! Thus began my career of creating and teaching etching mono printing. I loved it (and still do). The class was and continues to be a constant high as neither I nor my students can predict what the print will look like. All the students rush to see each new print and usually make a few "oo's and ah's."

In the 90s I began learning about electronic technology –– how to make art and video on the computer. My printing, painting, and collage works just jumped into the computer! As one of my students said, " Patricia, you are into your mono print layers again."

As an integral part of whatever I do, I try to put forth healing energy in my visual world using my knowledge as an artist, healer, and student of metaphysics. The world needs as much healing and love as we all can give.

The day I completed this book, I made my first blueberry pie and went to see the movie, “The Mona Lisa Smile.” I sometimes wonder how I ever created this life... but I'm surely glad I did. I have a feeling of enormous accomplishment and total living.