Two sides to every story

It’s hard to tell a story that relates to others when you never felt like you belonged anywhere. Rural living had me isolated but I felt a comfort in being alone where I could express myself without fear of being abandoned or transgressed on. I felt safe with my drawings. If I was deep in my imagination, I wasn’t a bother to anyone. But as much as I wanted to be alone, I also wanted to share my joy with the people I loved. So that somehow, they would hear my voice in all the things I struggled to say. But my side of the story is divided.

On one page, there is the safe yet imaginative and deeply creative abstract geometrics that showcases my love for the natural world. Part of me loves to present my art as a mask to show just how clever and creative my artistic expression has become, piecing together mathematic principles to show something that’s both different yet familiar.

And on the opposite page a truer definitive expression of my inner self. Something that comes wholly from within me to express an even deeper version of myself that is both quirky and fun but also honest and unmasked.

Growing up I also lived in two worlds. An 80’s child at the end of Gen X, experiencing the freedom of life pre internet, but also young enough to spend many of my formative years in the era of expanding technology. We have that nostalgia of drinking from the hose but also still haunted by the sound of a dial up modem. We learned to suppress our unresolved trauma but as we age we understand the need to express our feelings and deal with the emergence that many of us are not as neurotypical as we once thought.

As I moved out on my own my story divides again. I present a myself as some one who is put together. I buy a house, have kids. I do all the things I'm supposed to do to be a responsible adult. But I still feel like an outcast. That's when I discovered treeplanting.

Here is a group of misfits I can relate to. They're all wildly divergent musicians and creatives. People that are different like me. I start working away from home and find a new family in this community. The life style allows me to work hard and raise a family with lots of down time and freedom in the off season to be creative.

But it's also a lifestyle that came with a lot of drinking and partying which ultimately led to the breakdown of our little family. I spent many years trying to understand myself only to discover that the drinking and the drugs were just symptoms of a greater problem.

As more information comes out about ADHD more and more things about my life started to make sense. The hyper-focus and the disorganization, distractability, relationship breakdowns, task paralysis and dissociation. These were all things that were destroying my confidence and hindering my development.

But painting has always been a way to stabilize my mental health. I don't just paint because I love it. I paint because I can't not.

Even with a new chapter of sobriety in my life and spending more time with family, the need to create will always be there. As will my desire to share it with the world, and who knows maybe someone like you will relate to being an outcast like me.

Family

Only two things bring me more joy and stability in my life. My three beautiful kids and my dog. When I'm not painting I'm off adventuring with them. Be it family road trips or concerts. Hikes in the forest or just chilling watching movies and listening to records. Nothing in life is more import.

The Creative Process

Regardless of my style. All my canvas paintings are custom built and stretched by hand. This gives me the freedom to work on raw canvas and build my paintings to the dimensions I like.

Starting from an un-primed raw surface gives me the ability to create different textures and layers. It also gives me the ability to control the quality of my product. Here at Red Heron Creatons we care about giving our customers the highest quality products on the market. From our canvas and stretchers to our archival quality paints.