I’m not sure exactly when I became creative… I know that I began to keep a diary and thus write around 1999. In the following years, I composed hundreds of poems, none of which I have transcribed for digital viewing. They are hidden away in my notebooks at my parents home in Canada.
My 2000 I was also playing and composing music… I played a lot with my friend Ben. We just jumped into it without knowing anything about music, never having taken any classes or even played any instruments. I played the drums and he played electric. We made heavy metal music.
Around the same time, my parents bought a piano and I taught myself to play that. No sooner did I learn a few chords that I was composing. I learned guitar in about 2002. My roommate had one, and I taught myself to play it. Really, I didn’t think I’d ever play it decently, but as soon as I knew two chords, I was already composing.
Except for special occasions, a day rarely goes by without me writing a song, creating a painting, or writing creatively. More common is working on several paintings, writing several songs, and coming up with many fresh ideas.
When it comes to writing, I was pretty seriously committed to writing down my meditations on various philosophical and existential topics while studying at University. I have about 200 pages of notes about Korea, including a daily diary of my dreams over a period of three months. My notes from 8 months in Peru were edited and published as the book “Shamans and Healers.”
My painting career began in 2005. Again, I jumped into it without even knowing what acrylics were, what pastels were – or anything about art, for that matter. I had never taken an art course in my life, but I knew that it was my destiny to become a painter. I began buying little 80-page sketchbooks and filled maybe 8 of them with drawings over a period of about 4 months. Then, I moved on to pastels, then to acrylics.
In 2005-2006, I made ink drawings on a daily basis, usually one per day. They required intense concentration and brought me much satisfaction. I must also say that the style of my ink drawings was quite unlike anything I had every seen before.
By 2007 my drawing slowed down, and most of my artistic efforts became focused on painting. I worked part time and painted every day without fail, which resulted in about 1 painting every two weeks.
In 2008-2009, I worked as an Art Healing counsellor and learned a lot about the therapeutic value of art. I held sessions with children and teenagers on a nearly daily basis and it was an incredible experience. The second half of 2009 was education in the hands-on, practical sense. I visited Ireland, Paris, and the Ukraine, before moving on to Peru, where I presented at the 5th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference. There, I met the late Pablo Amaringo, was interviewed for some Latin American TV show, and became deeply involved in Amazonian Shamanism.
In 2011, after exploring most of Mexico, I settled down in the beautiful colonial town of San Miguel de Allende. There, I became a full-time artist. The period between 2011 and 2013 had been one of the most creative periods of my life. In San Miguel de Allende, I met many important and very talented artists, and spent many hours in discussion with them. I also wrote extensively on visual art, invented new techniques, explored many mediums and had numerous exhibitions in local galleries. My artwork was very well received and is now in many important collections around the world.