I grew up a “sensitive’ and angry child.  I was the stereotypical outsider and was lonely.  As I grew older I taught myself to conform and was lonelier still. As I learned to look at those around me I saw hollow people everywhere.  I came to understand, after experiencing a terrible bereavement that my loneliness, and perhaps that of others, came from a lack of connection with who I was. 

I am human.  I feel sad and I feel angry at times. Both are incredibly hard to accept and to stare at head-on.  But they are part of being human. Happiness cannot exist without pain.  Media messages suggest a life of feeling good without ever feeling low is possible – if we just buy this product.  Without the lows there are no highs.  We cannot anaesthetise ourselves from hurt and still experience joy.  That kind of life is the sterile, bland life inside the machine.

Being able to embrace the negative allows me to be receptive to the positive. It is as though a caul has been removed from me and I see things with fresh, child-like eyes.  The power for joy that comes from that is incredible.  Beauty has the power to make us happy.

I see beauty and darkness, and I present them both here for you to experience.
           

“If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also, you will have betrayed your community in failing to make your contribution.” Rollo May, The Courage to Create, 1975