Art means something unique to both artists and viewers, and artists’ motivations for creating art vary widely as well. For me, a lot of my creative motivation comes from trying to respond positively to a chronic illness, and the ways in which that illness (chronic, intractable migraines) has affected my life. As those with migraines know, you spend a lot of time in the dark. Alone in a bedroom. In your head.

Battling pain, depression, and thoughts of constrained possibilities. All places that are dark physically or mentally. So for me, since losing my professional career (a much-loved international career involving Africa, the Middle East, and Asia), I have struggled to find some meaning in being confined, and alone, so much of the time. I have started creating art (on my good health days!), and I am finding that I keep to the theme of beauty as a way to fight the darkness of migraines.

I enjoy creating designs involving nature, bright colors, and light. Instead of highlighting the disability in my art, and making it visible, I find that instead I try and use art to “fight” the disability, and the costs of disability. For more than a decade I enjoyed creating a variety of forms of fiber art (i.e. quilts, wall hangings, applied clothing, children’s blankets, crocheted items, etc.). I now, however, primarily focus on creating stained glass-on-glass mosaic art.

See more of Wonder Me Mosaics
Wonder Me Etsy Store.