As most people know, I have not led a creative life.  I have led a productive, hard-working, technically (technologically) challenging, and beautiful life, but I have not been known to be an artist in the least.  Accepting this new role in life, at this stage in life, is kind of funny, kind of embarrassing, and kind of weird, I suppose.  We have decided to call it my Renaissance Period!
So, it is with a weird sense of self-deprecating humor that I had to announce that it is my debut as the “Featured Artist” at the Whatcom Art Market this coming week.  I have not embraced the term, “I am an artist”, yet I am thankful for the encouragement of my family and fellow art guild members who acknowledge that I am, indeed, somehow an artist.  My father-in-law and I agree when he says, “You mean people buy this stuff?”  It cracks me up that he says that like my inside voice came out of his mouth.  This “stuff” is Refind Creations, which I invented just over a year ago when I was getting this sudden urge to be creative with things that I found.  Sometimes they were in a junk store (aka Treasure Store!).  Sometimes they were just random objects I found or had laying around that suddenly seemed as if they could totally function as something entirely different than what they had originally been created to be.  Like me!  I was, I thought, just created to do really technical things in the medical field, while of course being compassionate and caring with my patients.  It takes little creativity to use a computer to do diagnostic imaging, though some people think there is an art to the science.  It is more rigid than that.
Anyway, about a year ago I decided to join the Whatcom Art Guild.  I remember that first meeting when I had to stand up and introduce myself and announce to the other members what kind of art I did.  And I fumbled that because I said I had no idea what kind of art I did, but that I was wanting to explore the possibility of being creative.  To that point I had taken a pile of old insulators and turned them into candles.  That was about as creative as I had been besides finger painting with my children when they were little and admiring their true artistic talents that fill my home even now with their beauty.
And now my Renaissance is in full swing.  I have two canvases for sale at Hair Art Studio in Bellingham.  And … Over the past several months I have created many things from found objects, I have scanned into the computer, dried, pressed, and preserved about a ton of flowers that now inspire me to “paint with petals”, and it seems a bit surreal that I am now going to be “Featured Artist”, where I am not only selling my creations in the Whatcom Art Market, but indeed I am going to demonstrate this technique I invented and let others try their hand at being creative, too!  It just might surprise them to know that they, too, are artists!
I have added many of my creations, most of which are scanned flowers, petals, and many items found in nature, to my “storefront” on Society6, a website that let’s artists like me make their creations available in home décor and many other useful items.  Enjoy!  I hope you can come out to the Whatcom Art Market next Saturday, November 17, from 11am-2pm and see if you, too, are feeling creative!
https://society6.com/Refindcreations