Welcome to my website. Let me introduce myself. My name is Kitty and I am an Artist, although my artistic ability did not come from years of experience or an education in art. In fact, I didn’t even draw as a hobby. Quite honestly, I’m a bit perplexed at how I just seem to ‘know’ how to draw. So how did it happen? Let me take you on a little tour "Behind the Pencil", my story of how illness and trauma spontaneously brought forth this unexpected gift .

Only a few short years ago, trauma completely tore me to my core, robbing me of everything and almost ended my life. But it also gifted me with an abrupt onset of artistic ability. I was barely functioning and in survival mode when I picked up a pencil and suddenly began drawing. I honestly had no idea I was about to draw something and I most certainly couldn’t tell you where I acquired the skills to do so. I still can’t.

I was a married mother of 3, working as a Sign Language Interpreter for the Deaf, while tending to the busy schedules that go along with being a Dance Mom. Outsiders would say I seemed to have everything - a beautiful family, a nice home, a decent career, a fancy car, diamond rings, frequent trips to the Caribbean, Switzerland and even South Africa. Sounds like a dream life, right? Little did anyone know that this outside view did not reflect what was really happening behind closed doors. In fact my life was about to take a nose dive, causing me to lose just about everything, including almost losing my life.

It was around 2013 when my health started to noticeably deteriorate, but answers were hard to come by. It started with stroke-like episodes that would land me in the ER of the local hospital. My ability to communicate became compromised as extreme stuttering set in. My face would twitch and contort uncontrollably. It was like there was a short circuit happening in my brain, interrupting the flow of information that is supposed to happen when a thought should seamlessly turn into a spoken word. I even struggled to remember simple words in the English language. At times, my words would be scrambled or I would use words that didn’t even make sense in the sentence, making communication and the processing of language in general that much more difficult. These recurring attacks left me frustrated, confused and quite honestly, terrified. Being someone that had a career interpreting between languages, this was all the more devastating.

 

 

These episodes began to escalate into full body convulsions that seemed to mimic seizures. My weight plummeted to a frightening 82 lbs as my body began to reject everything it once knew to be safe. My hair started falling out, my insides burned as though my organs were doused in acid, my eyelids would randomly droop and my eyes lost their sparkle. I was suffering frequent rashes, skin discolourations, intestinal problems, joint pain, heart problems, breathing issues, major dehydration that required hospitalization…what didn’t I experience? My body felt toxic, like I was slowly being poisoned to death.

Unfortunately, the emotional, psychological and financial abuse that I was enduring at this same time seemed far more poisonous than the physical manifestations of this mystery illness that was waging war on my body. The coercive control was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in my life and kept me in a constant state of fight or flight. My boundaries were being obliterated and I found myself begging for basic human decency as I was slowly and methodically being erased from my own family. I didn’t see it coming until suddenly I was alone and codependent. How could this happen? I went from being a strong, independent woman to becoming a shell of my former self, while simultaneously having to fight for my life. The gaslighting I experienced was so bad that I literally had to relearn even the most basic things of my daily life. I lost my voice, I lost my identity, I lost my ability to work, I lost my support system and I lost all independence, even losing my driver’s license while the doctors investigated for seizures. I couldn’t leave and I couldn’t stay. I was trapped in a toxic living environment and in a toxic body that was shutting down. It’s like my soul had been murdered and I was just waiting for my body to catch up and climb in the grave alongside it.

And then it happened. Unexpectedly and spontaneously, art entered my life in a moment of desperation when I felt so hopeless, scared and silenced. Not knowing why, I picked up a pencil, grabbed a piece of paper from the printer and with tears streaming down my cheeks, I sat down and started feverishly drawing as though my life depended on it. It felt like all my emotions, fears and pain flowed through that pencil with a sudden surge of expression. Oddly enough, I don’t recall the drawing process at all. In fact, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I stopped and looked at the paper in front of me. Did I draw this? But how? Where was this coming from? So many questions remain unanswered about how I was suddenly able to begin creating art as though I’ve been drawing for years. But what I do know is that art has given me a safe place to visually express my truth without fear of being silenced and it allows me to be able to process the trauma so I can let it go. Art has accompanied me through my ongoing journey of healing from Breast Implant Illness while simultaneously carrying me through a high conflict divorce. It has given me back my voice and now as I pick up the pieces and start over, I get to decide how I arrange them.

Some of my art pieces are metaphorical representations of what happened to me, whereas other drawings are depictions of real life photographs, showing every bit of detail that my eye is able to see and that my skills are able to produce. As a new artist without formal training, I find myself relying on my intuition to guide me through each piece of work.  I'm grateful for this second chance at life and for this artistic ability that surfaced unexpectedly and carried me through some of the most challenging times in my life. I look forward to seeing where this new journey as an artist takes me.

Creatively Yours,