A story of an Artist

' Ever since i was a young boy running through grass
I was a dreamer writing stories down the back of the class,
Now i sit at this piano with my heart in my hands
Take my love and all my loss and get the darkness to dance...'
- Dreamer by Dermot Kennedy

The song dreamer by Dermot Kennedy is probably one of the most heartfelt, descriptive songs for me as an artist. I feel like i’m always trying to take all my pain and turn it into beautiful art.

You may have noticed on my social media that I often title my posts with lyrics from songs, and I love creating photo reels to music. I think lyrics like poems are so incredibly powerful, and music is another art form I have a deep passion for. I have a book of poetry i’ve always dreamed of turning into songs one day, and every photography session I create, there’s always the perfect song playing in my head.

I love dance, I love music, I love poetry, I love painting, I just love creating. My dream is to create masterpieces mixed of all the art forms I love combined. I push myself to create beyond just a photo, but a story.

I first picked up a camera as a teenager with my dad in Abbotsford at the local camera club. Although I loved spending time taking images of landscapes with my dad, my passion was people. Expressions. Stories. That one perfect moment when a person first laughs. The powerful stance of a woman owning her confidence. The magic of children discovering the mundane. Still landscapes just didn’t hold the feeling I wanted to capture.

I was always the friend at events who was never in the photos, but behind the camera. Most of my photos even from my teenage years, i’m either dancing or holding a camera. It was such a love language for me to show the people around me, in my life, how I saw them.

I struggled like a lot of people after both my pregnancies with Post Pardum Depression, those years were some of the darkest and hardest of my life. My father gifted me his Canon 80D and multiple lenses and said,

” Get outside, make some memories, take amazing photos, and bond with those babies”

It was the best thing I could have done, as it ignited my creativity and was an incredible bonding experience for me and my children. I would sit for hours after they went to sleep and edit photos of our wonderful adventures and it helped to make me feel so whole as a mother. Art has a beautiful power to heal the soul.

Shortly after becoming a single mother in 2019, the 2020 pandemic hit. Like so many others, life was turned upside down, I was stuck inside my house, and wasn’t able to photograph and adventure as I used to do. Everyone in that time was so scared, and so isolated. We all had to find different ways of coping and healing through that chaotic and lonely time.

I really fell in love with painting and writing poetry during the pandemic. I would sit at home all day and create water colour and acrylic paintings, and ended up with multiple sketchbooks full of drawings and verses of poetry. I loved combining my paintings and poetry together. In 2021 I was able to get an apple ipad and pencil to start digitally drawing with procreate. This opened a whole new world of being able to combine my art, poetry and photography together!! My goal is to create a graphic art poetry book.

Working digitally really allowed me to expand my skills with portrait drawing, and one of my favorite art creations to do is photographs to art.

After the pandemic, I took a couple of years break as a new single mom to put my nose to the grindstone and work. I spent 2 years as a photo editor and printer, and really learned a lot about photoshop/editing. I am so so happy to be back doing what I really love, with no restrictions, a new website, and a brand new drive to create beautiful stories and memories.

I feel like the last 5 years since launching my photography business, has been a journey of discovery, learning, growing, and finding myself as a human and as an artist. I’m so thankful for all the friends, family and long time clients that have stuck with me while i’ve found my brand and my path. My hope is that my art helps at least 1 person in this lifetime, even if it’s just healing myself.

” There’s a beautiful art in healing ” – CJ Artistry