About Moi
Living with Creative Purpose
In 2012 I had been faced with a series of health anomalies that left me at one point to fight for my life. It took a lot of patience to churn through the bain of pain, medical misdiagnosis. Everyone defaulted to blaming my gall bladder and wanted to remove it. I refused the surgery and continued my search for the actual root cause. In the end, a naturopath helped solve the mystery. I had picked up a fluke during one of my many overseas escapades. The parasite (Eurytrema pancreaticum) had set up house in my pancreas. This little fellow subjected me to re-occurring bouts of pancreatitis and, at one point, thrust my body into multi-organ failure. Anyone who has experienced pancreatitis can attest to the all-consuming pain that emanates from this rather vital organ.
I vividly recall staring out the hospital window, wincing in pain while contemplating the staff’s news of my potentially untimely calling to dust. Drowning out the peripheral noise, I focussed on the clouds drifting by as I asked myself a question. “If I am to die, do I have any regrets?” Much to my surprise, the response was a resounding, “Yes.”
Images of myself as a child flashed before my eyes. Laying beside my horses in open fields, staring up at the skies to indulge in some recreational daydreaming, writing stories on my rusty old second-hand typewriter with an overused ribbon that created character to what I typed with its varying degrees of fade. I recalled the countless books filled with drawings, poems, and lyrics to songs. For much of my adult life, I had sacrificed the things I genuinely loved to do in place of taking the responsible path of working in exchange for money. It is not an unfamiliar choice for most of us. There was a distinct shift in my paradigm that day. I made myself a promise that if I survived this, I would ensure moving forward that I would live my truth.
Knowing that I had work to do, I unhooked myself from the drips, got dressed, and snuck out of the hospital. I detoured to a herbal shop on my way back to my place. Every single immunity supporting, parasite-killing herb or concoction was placed in my shopping cart. By the time I reached my house, the hospital was calling to track me down. Against their recommendation, I confirmed that I acknowledged the risks and was discharging myself. I knew I was playing a game of Russian roulette and would need to be careful of the combination and form in which I took the herbs. It was a punt I was willing to accept and indeed did.
I stayed true to my word during my recovery and began writing my first novel called Wantin. Smiling as the sound of my keys on my Apple MAC clacked, I was grateful for rediscovering the simplistic joy of creativity. I was finally on my path of no regrets and have stayed true to it ever since.
LiFes WiSDoM
BAN Overthinking
Don't allow your inner squelcher to stop you before you get started. Begin your project and keep going until it looks right and feels great. Give yourself permission to work outside of the 'rules.' That is where most of the great things happen. No-one can create what you will. This is true for all of us. We are uniquely suited to do what we do, the way we do it.
Be Fluid like Water
The more you try to fit something into place, the less creative it becomes. When I begin any art project I have an idea of what I want to do. More often than not the project finds its own life force and uses me as the channel to transform it into reality. Water never resists. It finds the best path to flow and be free. Allow your creativity to be like water.
Leveraging Skills
I always seem to find a way to repurpose skills I have acquired. Everything that has been learnt can be leveraged in a multitude of ways. A clear example of this for me was learning the art of film making increased my visualisation abilities, which in turn has made me a better writer. Now when I write a script or novel I am playing it out as a scene.
The Creative Parts of Me
The Writer & Poet
Novels, scripts, lyrics and poems. You name it and I have dabbled in it. My love of the written word is a romance that I have been courting since I was a child. Journaling is another outlet that I enjoy doing when I am not in the middle of writing. At the risk of exposing my inner nerd I used to read the dictionary for fun.
The Painter & Sculpture
These are the mediums I like to play within. It provides me a break from the introverted indulgence of writing. My go to are watercolors and acrylics. I sometimes use pastels but truly if you placed anything in front of me I'd eagerly give it a go. Learning to sculpt using clay and wax and casting in bronze is a pure delight.
The Photographer & Film Maker
I've been into photography since my teens and drop tools to go into a darkroom as often as possible. Only recently I started creating scripts for short films that I have directed, produced and edited. This experience changed me as an artist for the better. Filming took my story telling to another level.