KATE DARDINE

I was a child of nature, more comfortable by myself in the woods than in the social experiment called school. I spent long hours alone in the woods, listening to birds, watching squirrels and chipmunks, discovering salamanders and snakes. But more than anything, I loved horses: I studied them, drew them and wrote poetry about them. I felt a spiritual connection to horses that I didn't find in the rituals of religion. To me, they represented freedom, beauty, bravery and honesty. I was “that kid” in elementary school – the one who doodled on every surface and was asked to draw things for my classmates. And yet I was plagued by insecurity and so I decided that, even though I loved to draw, I was not “good enough” and concentrated on writing – and ended up taking creative writing and journalism classes in college. But on a whim I took an elective drawing class and my instructor saw something that I didn’t see in myself and with her encouragement I took more art classes. I ended up majoring in Illustration and graduating with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree. And yet all through my training, I felt something missing. I didn’t feel connected to what I was painting. I was painting for someone else, painting to please someone else. And then a few years ago, I had a breakthrough. Four things happened. 1.) My son-in-law committed suicide, an event that set off a period of darkness and fog for me, when I re-evaluated everything I thought I knew about life and 2.) I began working with a creativity coach who encouraged me to just paint – like I did when I was a child, before the censorship of my “critic” caused me to doubt my own vision. 3.) I was turned on to the writings of spiritualists such as Don Miguel Ruiz, Eckhart Tolle and Ted Andrews. 4.) I discovered the paintings of Lance Green; work that opened my mind and heart. It was this convergence of death and rebirth that set my creativity free and I spent the better part of a decade unlearning everything I had learned to believe about myself and my place in the world, and learning to trust in the truth I carry within me. This is my process: Colorful brush strokes and scribbles applied enthusiastically and intuitively to the surface of an un-toned canvas mark the beginning of the creation process for each of my paintings. The ensuing patterns can be dense and tangled, geometric or light and lacy. Calligraphic marks and words often appear and disappear in the layers. From this chaotic start, where nothing is censored, I then begin a subtractive process to find the form hidden within the tangle. I let the forms rise up uncensored from my subconscious mind, carried by dreams, visions, memories and emotions. It is often surprising and telling to see what shows up and reveals itself in the work.

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Owl Abstract

Breaking Through

Things That Go Bump in the Night

A Cow Named Seven

Northern Exposure

Run Like the Wind

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