THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Kristine Schomaker

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Looked for artist studio in NOHO Arts District 

MEDIUMS: acrylic on canvas, new media, sculptural

WEBSITE: www.kristineschomaker.net

One of the most curious aspects about Kristine Schomaker’s real life is her second life––literally. Known as Gracie Kendal, an avatar she created to represent herself in a virtual world called Second Life, Kristine has been able to blur the line between virtuality and reality. Before we get to that though, we have to start with Kristine’s beginnings and her inherent love for art and community.

As a young girl Kristine was exposed to her uncle’s art collection where her initial love affair began with the arts. But Kristine didn’t want to end up a “starving artist” (which by my own estimations sometimes means going “at it” solo), so she schooled for a MA in Art History. You can’t stop a true artist from emerging though. After viewing the spontaneous and gestic dripping artwork of Sam Francis, she became inspired to paint and was quickly drawn into art “community” instead. Fresh out of CSUN, she and her artist peers fashioned a critique group where they painted and supported each other on a monthly basis and soon after she moved into one the most humming art communities of all in LA’s downtown Brewery where she is now the President of the Brewery Artwalk Association.

But what of Gracie Kendal a.k.a. Kristine Schomaker? Well, with the help of Second Life’s various tools, Kristine was able to create colorful abstract “skins” for her avatar, much like the paintings she did in her real life, and the Second Life community ate them up. Soon Kristine found herself selling digital copies of those skins to real people for real money and not just for virtual currency from their avatars. Yet, Kristine’s success story isn’t as quite as simple as that. There’s always a story beneath the story, you know.

If you’ve ever glanced at the fantasy world of Second Life, you realize instantly that it allows you to create the dream version of yourself––that ultra magazine-styled mannequin-like avatar with perfect body measurements, hair, and clothes. Like most of us, guys and gals alike, Kristine is a just regular kinda person who bumps and grinds through life. But when asked by a teacher to delve deep inside herself to explain why she lived such a colorful second life, Kristine discovered she had an issue with her own self-acceptance and an eating disorder to boot. That’s when her colorful digitally painted Gracie Kendal crossed over into reality and became a series of 3D mannequins. They’ve become a large part of Kristine’s life and have been photographed all over LA––their “skins,” a sculptural representation of her painterly work. And the process is ongoing. Soon her slim-lined mannequins will be a more realistic plus-sized version and an additional credit to her own self-respect and acceptance.

I’d like go back and mention again Kristine’s involvement in community––especially that of the arts. She helps other visual artists become a presence in the art world with her firm, Shoebox PR. Born in the throws of social media, Kristine figured out a way to benefit other artists by mapping out marketing strategies for them, further feeding her passion for "making it happen" and adding balance to her own life. She is also the social media coordinator for the Southern California Women’s Caucus of Art. It's been a pleasure to know Kristine. It just goes to show that what appears to be colorful on the outside, like that of the skins of Gracie Kendal, is most likely vibrantly interesting and colorful on the inside––like positively-driven Kristine Schomaker.  

You may follow Kristine on Facebook and Twitter. 

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Andrea Monroe

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Writes "The Hidden Artist" for the NOHO Arts District website

MEDIUMS: acrylic and mixed media on canvas

WEBSITE: http://andreamonroe.com/

I’ve often wondered how I’d respond if I were interviewed by someone like me for a blog such as this. I have to admit, when I agreed to contribute a visual arts article to the NOHO Arts District website, I didn’t know the first thing about peeling away the layers of a complete stranger to find a story. So I Googled “an idiot’s guide to artist interviews” or something to that affect and printed a wallet-sized guide to help me along. I’ve never referred to it once––not with my first interviewed artist, Nicole Palmquist (aka Booleep) all the way to my most recent, Jennifer Gunlock, thus creating the “wing it” approach, which has basically been narrowed down to this: GOD, HELP ME WRITE THIS F**KING ARTICLE!! And here I am again in the same conundrum, only a trifle more difficult because I’ve decided to interview the most hidden artist I know––me, Andrea Monroe.

When I first met Andrea, she was a shy and insecure child who often spent time by

My Bumble Bee with sisters, Susan (far left), Frances (middle),
and me (far right)

herself contemplating the creation of life. With this curiosity, she investigated all forms of plants and animals; purchasing snails and newts from the Ben Franklin store or observing the delicate wingspan of katydids and cicadas in the springtime. By third grade, she wrote a short story about an imagined princess among fanciful creatures in the forest (inspired by a classical piece of music she’d never heard before; Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major) and was published in the local newspaper. And she 

drew. A lot. So much so that at age nine, her mother scraped up enough money to send her to the Art Institute of Chicago for one semester. Andrea has always joked about the polka-dot Bumble Bee she’d made with those greasy oil pastels and the fact that it won an honorable mention from the school and toured the world––while she never had.

Flash forward through Andrea’s life. She graduates from high school (but bypasses college) to work hard, quit, or get fired from positions in the commodities field, advertising, photography, modeling, and retail fashion. Her motto is “experience everything through living life” so she plays hard too and while doing so, she creates things; clothing, jewelry, poetry, a beautiful home, and art, always hearing the distant echo of her family telling her  how “talented” she is (while she secretly wishes someone, ANYBODY, would tell her what she’s really talented at). Then she meets her future husband, moves to LA, has a son, and is eventually inducted into the film industry as a costumer which spans into a twenty year career (and counting) and with a pension to boot (the kind her father always advised her to work for, but she defied). FINALLY, in 2003, she begins to paint, showing an innate ability to exercise her creative right side of the brain while continuing to support her family with the logical left, all the while listening to another conflicting echo. Like a bad seed planted in her mind, she remembers the words of the only psychic she ever visited back in 1990 who told her, “the artist in you struggles to get out and be recognized.” And so it was for half of her life and still is. 

"Jesus" from the "Byzantine Pop Art" series by Andrea Monroe

The title for my blog, The Hidden Artist, literally came from the fact that my own work hides in two closets and on several walls of my house. Back in 2003, when I began to paint on canvas for the first time in my life, I did a series called “Byzantine Pop Art,” inspired by my religious belief that I (we) are all an expression(s) of a higher being and I (we) have the capability of expressing it in my (our) own unique way. In these paintings of Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Elvis Presley, and my rendition of the Last Supper, I crossed religious figures from my Catholic upbringing with a modernistic touch by replacing natural skin tones with unexpected colors and depicting facial shadows as shapes. One gallery looked at this body of work and referred to it as “paint by number” technique, and although they liked it, they did not represent me. About a year later, another gallery actually sold one of these paintings to an actor from Desperate Housewives for way less than I should’ve priced it with a discount on top of that, teaching me a big lesson about time and worth. This ultimately sent that first series into the depths of my closets for an unlimited sentence (although giclee copies of them can be viewed at the North Hollywood Church of Religious Science). Point blank, if I did not know my artwork’s worth, it was either priceless––or worthless––or somewhere in-between. Purgatory.

 

"Sirf and Turf" from the "Raw" series by Andrea Monroe

Luckily, that experience taught me a huge lesson and was the beginning of my introspection of my own self-worth. It was only later, after I painted whenever I could (in between film jobs and raising my son), the mourning of my parents’ deaths, and the realization that my marriage had increasingly become an unhappy place to be that I began to write. For one and a half years I wrote a memoir by which became the exercise and means to write a novel––a pretty funny chick lit novel called the Devil and Me that lives in a different type of closet on my computer desktop (more about that when I write a new blog called The Hidden Writer, ha ha). Later still, I finally got divorced. I’m a rare bird. I’ve used conflict all my life to create things in my life, whether it was a new job, a new living situation, or a means in which to express myself, and my divorce was no different. This is when I painted the series I call “Raw,” a symbolic almost Aboriginal-style of intense pattern and color that represented my emotional state at the time.  And just as intense are the poems I wrote to “illustrate” these paintings. And where are they, you ask? You guessed it. In the closet…and on the desktop.

"Will Rogers: I Never Met a Woman I Didn't Like" from
"The LA Series" by Andrea Monroe

That brings me to my present day endeavor that I’m just in the midst of painting. I call it “The LA Series.” Inspired by a “call to artists” to paint something about Northridge. It was then I came across a style that incorporated so much of what I love; pattern, color, history, portrait, textile, and my unique tongue in cheek expression. So far, I’ve completed biographical paintings of Doheny, Wilshire, Mulholland, Pico, and Will Rogers who all happily reside––where else? In my closet (except for "The Halversons Were Here,” the Northridge piece, because it currently hangs in The Museum of San Fernando Valley in Northridge).

In the end, you might wonder, what is she waiting for? Why doesn’t she just get it out there? Well, like the paintings were created in the first place, it was the right time for them to happen. And I guess there will be a right time for them to be seen too. My dream is for them to be viewed together because in my experience of seeing how artists display a painting here or there just doesn’t cut the cake unless its a well curated show. That type of limited exposure never seems to represent the work properly or have the public or exhibitor take the artist seriously. I also think that kind of representation gives some viewers a chance to devalue your art. My day will come. In the meantime, I write a blog about those hidden artists who might be in a similar boat as me. I feel your pain and you deserve the recognition. More than that, you need to be respected and paid what you are worth. In my case, I might have to become a “dead artist” and my work discovered and deemed a treasure trove when it's found in my closet, but in my heart, I already know how valuable it is.

Andrea Monroe has been a member of the San Fernando Arts Council, the Public Art Initiative (through the Museum of the San Fernando Valley), and has showed at several 11:11 A Creative Collection themed shows in Tarzana. And if you you look hard enough, her custom painted clogs will be seen on Lily Tomlin's feet on Netflix's new show Grace and Frankie airing sometime in 2015.  You can follow Andrea Monroe ART on Facebook.  

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Jennifer Gunlock

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Lives and breaths and "trees" there

MEDIUMS: mixed-media, photography

WEBSITE: http://www.jennifergunlock.com/

I’ve always been enamored by trees.  As a child, I collected leave specimens into my tree album from my Chicago neighborhood, and I still have it to this day. Trees have also been focal points in my own artwork, but no tree that any artist or I have ever depicted quite stands out like Jennifer Gunlock’s.   

My interview with Jennifer was at her one room apartment, which also served as her art studio. I entered through a piece of pastel-colored tulle she’d cleverly hung to keep the bugs out from the small, sparsely furnished guesthouse she lived in. I immediately noticed half of the room provided her with her basic needs; a bed, a computer, bathroom, and kitchenette, while the other half was clearly dedicated to her work. For along one wall, only a few feet away from where she slept, hung six large pieces of art paper placed side by side to make one huge canvas and on it were the beginnings of a mixed-media project that would represent perhaps only one-fifth of what was to be an over 20 foot mural for the “Fires of Change” exhibition (a collaboration between the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, the Landscape Conservation Initiative, and the Flagstaff Arts Council) in Flagstaff, AZ next September 2015.

"Smoke Signal" Jennifer Gunlock

Its no wonder Jennifer was chosen for the exhibition given these perennial wood plants have been a central theme to her work for a few years now. At first glance, that’s exactly what you see; images of tall conifer-like specimens contrasted against a sparse background. But a closer look reveals Jennifer’s trees have taken on an urban quality; shaped and textured by none other than her own photographs of often overlooked designs and all found within our own natural and city environments. For the “Fires of Change” project she used such images, overlapping them to become the trunk and branches of her trees; sunlit reflections of a skyscraper’s windows, blown-up details of a fire engine grill, or the charred remains of an ancestor tree lost in the Kaibab National Forest.

"Mothership" (sequoia) Jennifer Gunlock

Jennifer’s trees are hybrid transmitters. They still own their natural state, but then you'll notice an antennae or a resemblance to a cell phone tower. There’s something timeless about them; nostalgia crossing over to futurism, all of which gives the viewer a unique opportunity to delve deeper into her urban forest and wonder if they are trying to communicate something to us. And that they will, when her “Fires of Change” mural is complete and on exhibit at the Coconino Center of the Arts in Flagstaff next September.

In the meantime though, Jennifer Gunlock’s work is on display from November 23 to December 19 (artist reception December 6) at the LADCA/Canoga Park Youth Center. Come see her forest for the trees. 

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Alma Magaña

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Makeup Artist at the 800 Gallery for "Elements of Art and Fashion Show" 

MEDIUM: Cosmetic makeup and face & body paints

WEBSITE: www.RockStarFaceArt.com

We’ve all seen it at birthday parties, festivals, and school events––eccentric butterflies, cuddly kitty cats, and treacherous pirates­­––children’s faces metamorphosed by the wonderful art of face painting. It should actually be called the art of making joy because nobody does it more joyfully than Alma Magaña.

Alma’s that rare occurrence where everything about her and around her is somehow touched by creative energy. You’ll agree once you’ve read her resume and found she's held two fashion degrees, has designed anything from menswear to lingerie, studied cinema makeup, and patented cosmetic tools. But her real love––what feeds her soul––is the art of body painting.

Face and body painting has been a part of our history for a long time. Once used primarily in the theatre, it became more popular during the 1960s hippie movement when people painted themselves with symbols that showed allegiance to the movement and a protest against the war. It wasn’t until the 80s that face painting really took hold and became a way for kids to enjoy themselves––or for Alma to enjoy herself today.

I met Alma during my day job, which turned out to be her day job too as a film costumer. We did the usual––you know, the "I do this/you do that" chitchat. And then she blew me away with a photograph of her most recent face painting session. That’s when I found, to my utter amazement, that while this petite woman endures the demands of TV production––the long hours, multiple clothing changes, continuity, and actors’ insistent comfort requests––she simultaneously creates and plans her other life as face and body artist. And it all began, she said, with her interaction with kids and the reward she felt as she watched their expressions and little eyes grow big with the pure excitement of being transformed into a fantasy character. But the joy doesn’t stop there––not after you’ve seen what Alma’s art does for us big kids.

With Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) upon us on November 2, Alma has been creating face art that touches not only the recipients of her fine hand, but her soul as well. By transforming bodies and faces into whimsically painted skeletons, she memorializes the death of her own mother who lost her life way too early for both of them. Based in this wonderful Mexican tradition, death is a positive step forward into a higher level of consciousness. Painting one’s face and body into a skeleton is a chance to overcome the fear of death and to embrace the souls of the deceased. Alma only wishes that her mother were here today to see the beautiful work she does.

Courtesy of

 phatpuppyart.com

When asked how it makes her feel to do her art, Alma told me she's stimulated by the creative collaboration between the subject, the photographer, and herself. It never feels like work to her, but a creative outlet. She said "it's my element, my zone" and expresses all her art values while bringing happiness to all involved at the same time.  

As the world turns out negative events and challenges us daily, I'd say we could all use a little more happiness. Alma Magaña will be painting joy onto the faces of young and old at The 14^th Annual Día de los Muertos Festival in Canoga Park on Sunday, November 2 from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Whether you're embracing a personal loss or just wanting to say "boo!" to it all, let Alma lovingly transform you! 

Follow Alma on Facebook or on Instagram @RockStarFaceArt.

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Erin Stone

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Her former "office" was at Republic of Pie and she has facilitated the creation of murals in and around NOHO 

MEDIUM: Photography 

WEBSITE: http://www.erin-stone.com/

That “place on the other side of the hill,” otherwise known as the San Fernando Valley, has always held a stigma of being uncool or, at worse, the land where porn was born. Thanks to Erin Stone and the rest of her comrades at 11:11, 818 might very well become the new 213 when it comes to the Los Angeles art scene.

So, who is Erin Stone? Her person is often times synonymous with 11:11, a grassroots nonprofit organization she co-founded to focus on San Fernando Valley’s creative community. Even I had trouble pulling her out of that mix so I could explain what makes her tick. Erin is a photographer and a great one at that. Her portfolio runs the gamut; commercial work, family portraits, events, headshots, and album covers, but personally, I think her conceptual art is her core. That’s because Erin is a true artist and visionary––someone who dreams. But compared to ordinary people, her dreams come to life, whether it’s a 2-D photograph or a 3-D organization that's gonna change the Valley’s reputation forever.

At the time of our interview, we talked at length about her thought-provoking piece called “Teeth: A Reoccurring Dream” which hung at 11:11’s semi-permanent pop-up gallery on the corner of Yolanda and Ventura. I hadn’t known, until Erin filled me in, that dreams of losing one’s teeth are quite common, and Erin had been having that same dream for a long time. Anybody can Google “dreams of losing teeth,” which I did, but somebody like Erin decided to make a photographic story of her experience instead. I guess you can say she sorta faced her demons by doing so and made an effort to understand why she kept having that dream. My Google search told me why or at least it gave a general answer. Losing teeth in a dream is a common symbol of anxiety. Teeth represent power and losing them, according to what I found, is attune to having a sense of powerlessness. I can’t say what goes on in Erin Stone’s head, but I can say there aren’t many of us who can do what she is doing for the Valley and not have some kind of anxiety about it. But, if you take a good look at the series of photographs that make up “Teeth,” I betcha you’ll find the answer.

Pictured first a woman holds several oversized teeth in her muddy hands. By the smudges on her cheeks and the disheveled clothes, she appears to have been run through the mill. The look on her face is one of terror, maybe even panic.  As Erin explained to me, the model is emoting embarrassment for the loss––as if she’s involuntarily lost control of a situation. 
In the next photo, the teeth are in the process of being buried by her. At first glance, you think she’s ridding herself of the evidence when in actuality she’s planted them. This is symbolically illustrated in the last photograph. A tooth, once hosted by a living soul, has been reborn––rooted in the mouth of Mother Earth where a new life has been generated.

 

There is no getting around the fact that Erin’s conceptual photography is indeed exploratory. Her artist statement reads that her goal is “to share her understanding of experiences and questions around intimacy, sexuality, insecurity, loss, and personal growth.” It’s a known fact that anxiety tends to come up during times of transition and often points to concerns experienced by the dreamer in waking life. Perhaps with Erin Stone, she has had some anxious moments in her life. I’m sure her thoughts and ideas have been entertained and discarded, they’ve come alive and died––birthed and rebirthed. Whatever the process is, I’m sure glad Erin Stone is dreaming because we are about to have one rockin’ art scene and it’s going to begin with the area code 818!

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: David Estrada

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Lives there and enjoys late night grilled cheese sandwiches at Sitton's Coffee Shop on Magnolia

MEDIUMS: Mixed

WEBSITE: http://theemptystudio.com/home

David Estrada was referred to me with only a mention that he had done some art involving the "American Indians." Patterned into assuming he painted scenarios of Native American life––perhaps sleepy villages at river front edges or portraits of dark skinned natives wearing feather headdresses, I searched him out on his website but found something entirely different. And when I finally met David, I was further enlightened, especially after I realized I'd made a few stereotypical assumptions about Native Americans which, in essence, happened to be the crux of his art––or shall I say, his political art (for the sake of definition, political art offers a perspective––direct or indirect––on social relations).

Sunday morning: I didn't meet David in North Hollywood where, by all rights, a working father of two would've been sleeping in if not for our interview, but in the studio space he rents at an art co-op located in an industrialized area of Glendale. Finding him was not a problem for all I had to do was follow the jazz music emanating from inside. A cropped-haired man dressed in a white t-shirt and Wayfarer-style eyeglasses greeted me in the lobby of the building, which was covered wall to wall with the landlord's display of miniature clay heads. Those heads equally lined the stair's wall and up into the open space of the second floor where David had laid out his most current mixed media project––something called FOLLOW––which he said was a reaction to Shepard Fairey and his alleged plagiarism of other people's images (seems the guy never formally credits the originators).

Follow by David Estrada

Well, I knew who Fairey was, but I felt I needed a translation of the black outlined face and white-washed background before me. David explained the irony behind the piece––literally behind the white, that is––original vintage cartoons and photographs placed next to Fairey's stickers of the same, but stolen imagery, and all with an order to OBEY. Thus, David's reaction to "follow."

But I wanted to know more about his Native American work. As it turns out, David is half Native American himself, but the honor and respect he has for that part of his heritage is huge and very likely the motivation behind his innate sensitivity to political issues often unnoticed by the most politically correct of us. And it all began with his interest in sports teams and their mascots––specifically racistly-named ones like The Washington Redskins or closer to home as in The Indians, depicted in David's triptyc of Burbank's John Burrough's High School.

Photo of John Burroughs H.S. exterior. (note the Jeep Cherokee)

John Burrough's H.S. was built in the 20s, according to Wikipedia, and further Googling revealed that the school indeed incorporated an American Indian theme, namely for one of their sports teams, the Chieftains, during the 50s. Currently, any usage of Native American folklore has been reduced to a single feather in the school's logo––a little less offensive, but offensive all the same. Using these imageries was wrong then, but even more wrong now, according to David and many people who support the elimination of ethnic stereotyping. 

High School Confidential #1 by David Estrada

In the case of Native Americans, usage of their historical imagery makes one think they are not real, a myth, or something that no longer exists––a dead culture. Moreover, it's a lack of respect. A good example, David gave, is the use of the infamous feathered headdress for purposes of costume entertainment. In Native American culture, each of those feathers are earned by the one who wears them. It would be like you or I donning a shtreimel, a fur hat worn by married Jewish men, particularly members of Hasidic groups, and expecting that to be ok with those of the Jewish faith. Why, this ethnic stereotyping goes as far back as the 19th century minstrel shows when they featured blackfaced actors on stage and thought that was ok.

High School Confidential #2 by David Estrada

But back to David's John Burrough's triptyc, called High School Confidential. The three images clearly are a statement to this fact and asks what would it be like if a high school banner endorsed a Jewish profile or an African American's as its mascot imagery? Or worse, could you imagine the repercussions if any Islamic symbolism were used? You see––wrong.

High School Confidential #3 by David Estrada

David Estrada's political art doesn't rub anything in anyone's faces, but it does make ya think. 
Ultimately, he only wants us to be more aware and informed for no ignorance is bliss. And once we understand, it's up to us to decide what to do with the information. Personally, I would like to thank David for helping open my eyes a little bit wider. As for the rest of you, you may consider thanking him too, or better yet, show your support by liking him on his Facebook page.

THE HIDDEN ARTIST: Janet Lamb

CONNECTION TO NOHO: Lived at 11911 Weddington from 1941-1949

MEDIUMS: Pen and ink, pastels, watercolor

WEBSITE: http://janetlamb.net/

I’m a spiritual person to a certain degree. I practice a metaphysical faith and try to affirm positive reinforcing statements about my life, but I have to admit I fail miserably at simple things like meditating and quieting of the mind. I prefer to say I get my “connection” and inner peace by performing my art. That’s because I believe I’m an expression of something larger than myself. And so it goes with Janet Lamb although she’s tapped into something at a much more sensitive level because she IS a sensitive, often referred to as a medium; someone who uses his or her psychic or intuitive abilities to tune into the spirit energy surrounding a person. Only Janet’s special gift is a constant communication from her heart center that is graciously and generously given to her recipient in the way of a symbolic energy drawing.

When I first met Janet Lamb at an 11:11 art gathering, she stood quietly in front of me and observed my face in what was neither confrontational or a discomforting way. Rather, she seemed to exude an inner calm and peace in the midst of the wide-open space filled with chatty gallery patrons.  And suddenly, out of nowhere, she offered to read me. Admittedly, I have always been somewhat of a skeptic when it came to anyone claiming psychic ability. Perhaps the onslaught of PSYCHIC READING signs spattered across the valley Houdini’d me into thinking they were mostly frauds preying on unhappy misdirected victims. But Janet got my goat, so to speak. How could I refuse an offer from someone willing to draw a portrait of my inner aura? Game on.

The outside temperature on the day of my late afternoon appointment with Janet must have been near a record high of 99 degrees. Upon entering her home, the first thing noted were rainbow lights dotting the walls of her living room from sunlight refracted through crystal pendulums hanging on her western facing windows. My sister who’d been visiting me that week and I took a seat at her dining table where glasses of cool iced tea were placed before us. The interview and our readings began. I went first.

Andrea's energy drawing

To watch Janet sketch was clearly a magical moment. Without pause, she began to map out four hemispheres on her rectangular sketch pad with lines she said depicted elements of my personality; light for my soul, water for reflection, fire for inspiration, and earth or my earth walk. She told me each set of symbols laid within these drawn boundaries revealed fragments of my life specifically placed on the paper at the present moment, meaning NOW. In other words, if a drawing was to be done a day or even hours later, the symbols might change based on any changes in my life from that present moment to the next. (Pictured on the left is my energy drawing)

Exactly, what had just happened here? Googling later, I found that during the advent of Spiritualism in the mid 1800’s, some mediums were more suited to private explorations of “automatic writing.” This involved the medium seated in front of a mirror lit by candlelight while he or she held a pen over paper ready to write any message that would come to them through a semi-trance state. But Janet hadn’t gone into a trance. She was as present and cognitive in the moment as my sister and me. This basically bashed any apprehensions I might have had about mediums before sitting down with her.

Turns out, Janet’s spiritual awakening happened to her in 1982 after attending a workshop of Luiz Gasparetto, a Brazilian intuitive known for channeling artists like Renoir, Monet, and Picasso among others. It was then she discovered she too was a HSP (highly sensitive person) and learned how to artistically express the energies she felt from other people. Although Janet’s drawings are nothing like Luiz’s and encompass a style all her own, they most definitely are a language from a dimension unseen.

So what of my reading? All I can tell you is she was spot-on as she was also of my sister’s. I can also say that Janet and I were strangers before this meeting and she didn’t know beforehand that I was in a huge transition in my life or that I had a big heart or that I’d had certain life-altering events (depicted by breaks in lines) which have led me to where I am today. She didn’t know if I was spiritual or if I used the feminine or masculine side of my brain, which, by the way, I’m definitely reasoning with the masculine side these days. And what did I walk away with when my energy moment was symbolically drawn before me? Well, because Janet only weighs into the positive by complimenting and emphasizing one’s strengths, I can say I came away empowered, hopeful, and with a great sense of ease knowing my life is always changing and with each change there is always good. You may learn this about yourself too by contacting Janet Lamb for readings here . She does not charge for her services but will accept your gracious donations.