Painting and I have a strange relationship.

Come to think of it, that’s true of visual art, in general.

I was trained in music and the written word. But as many in the arts will attest, there is a certain… something in all of them that will call to creatives at some point or another.

So I was minding my own business, doodling on my wall because it was far too white and color makes me happy.

It wasn’t a very well-thought out endeavor. I just grabbed some pens and markers and went at it.

There are scenes, symbols, animals, patterns, flowers, just a whole mish mash of whatever happened to be on my mind at the time.

Right now it’s maaaaybe a fifth of the way done. I work on it in fits and bursts with large stretches of time where I don’t even think about it at all.

In truth, I may never finish it. But finishing it was never the point.

Still, that’s not painting, is it? It’s drawing.

That drawing is in the background of my Zoom calls when I do sessions, and it was behind me in Twitch streams back when I offered free readings there.

And THAT is where the paintings come in.

I was on a Zoom call having a chat with a lovely spirit medium based in the US. Even though this was only a year or two ago at most, I can’t remember if we did a mediumship exchange or were just having a friendly chat. When two developing mediums get together, the line between those two things can admittedly get a little blurred.

At any rate, we were talking about something and seemingly out of nowhere she mentions the drawings behind me. And then she gets very serious and tells me that I need to put them on canvas and submit them to a gallery.

And this, my friends, is the crux of my weird relationship with art: when I have art ready to sell, no one is buying. When I having nothing to sell, people suddenly find my work interesting. It has been the uncanniest thing. Designs will literally only ever sell once enough years have passed for me to completely forget that I ever posted them to Redbubble or Spreadshirt or wherever the heck else I’ve squirreled away art over the years.

Anyway, here I was in front of this medium who was very clearly channeling a specific spirit guide of mine who is a FORCE OF NATURE. I tried to laugh it off, but this guide knows me too well and urged the medium to press the point. And it turned out this medium was a retired artist AND used to work at an art gallery.

So I made a mental note of it and moved on with my life, basically bookmarking the whole concept until I had time and materials.

A year and a half later, I finally was able to produce work to present to a gallery.

The problem? I live in a major urban center with a glut of academically trained artistic talent and a dearth of galleries that are actively seeking submissions.

So I will likely continue to pick at the problem in the background– one of many– slowly reaching out to galleries further and further afield from me until one finally bites.

But I’ve already packed all the paintings away. I didn’t have the heart to continue watching them stare at me from shelves and tables everyday, reminding me that they had still not yet found their forever homes.

That is a problem– one of many– for another day.

If you’d like to see the paintings that are currently available for adoption, you can do so here: