I came by way of falling into the hands of a Jungian thinker and artist named Dorothy Royer. She was a pioneer in the field of art therapy. I was five years old at the time, and her studio was a place of magic. My teacher taught me the fundamentals, but the more enticing landscape lay in the land of dreams, of the imagination. Although I was very young, my teachers treated me like I was already an artist.
Artists do that kind of thing.
Directly after high school, I headed into a beckoning spider web of artists, writers, movie folk, dancers and musicians. I sought out artists whose work turned on the fire for me, and began to study with them in their studios in what evolved into long apprenticeships. This was a world of amazing, interesting characters who were willing to share their world with a mere pipsqueak. I was hooked. I used to live by the ocean, and thought I could never leave it.