Melting Glass with Fire, Expanding Horizons w/ Art

My name is Patricia and I use art to help myself and others connect to ourselves and what I call "that warm lively feeling"... If you've ever felt moved, touched, even healed by a beautiful piece of art... a glint of joy in a loved one's eyes... the way sunlight highlights the veins in leaves... then you know what I'm referring to... Seeing and experiencing beauty is essential to our well-being, I know it is to mine, and what I've finally learned about myself is just how important creating beauty is to my well-being. Though I've always been quiet and creative, I didn't start life with a solid enough foundation to learn how to channel or hone the drive to make stuff. I didn't even think the drive to create was worth much and yet in August of 2018 I took the plunge, licensed my tiny business, and began making and selling art full time.

I'll share my story in three parts... where I came from, what finally threw open the gates of my creative process, and what I see ahead, essentially, why I'm here on GoFundMe seeking financial assistance.

The short of it is... I'm raising money to pay the tuition and materials fees for a seven day-long intensive art instruction course at Feather River Art Camp... a summer program for adults offering, among many other mediums, a course on the ancient craft of glass bead making. Over a small open flame, the instructor, who has nearly two decades of teaching experience, will pass on the ways to meld glass and the creative forces all artists channel, into tiny works of art that can actually light up an entire project with magic like no other.

The class, from the website, "generally includes the following: Basic bead formation and shaping, making and using design components, including glass stringers and multicolored “twisties,” use of design techniques, such as dotting, casing, color shading, air bubble entrapment (“plunging”), pin-wheeling, ancient “Roman”/Venetian raking, discussion of color and design theory, use of specialized tools, sculptural aspects of glass bead making, as well as many other topics."

The total of all fees adds up to just under $1700 and includes the expertise of the instructor, use of tools, materials, primitive lodging at the campus nestled in the foothills of the Sierras, three healthy meals a day, and the company of community, a wonderful resource in and of itself, for a generally solitude loving type of person. 

Here is a glimpse of studio life at this essential retreat, taken from Feather River Art Camp's website:


And here are some of the spectacular beads I've come across other masters of the craft have created... 




I taught myself to draw when I was little, then to paint, weave words, and take photographs ... I have now spent years honing my current medium using mixed media you can see at the bottom of this page ... Lamp-work bead making, however, I cannot teach myself, and thus, here I am.

BEFORE I GET INTO MY BACKSTORY, a side note... If you'd like to donate to my campaign through VENMO (patricia-tyrcha), personal check, or some other way, let me know... Credit card companies take 3% of your donation plus a tiny fee, which is the reality, and some folks have contacted me asking how to make sure all of what they donate makes it to the tuition fund. Email me at [email redacted] :)

Now, the long of it... my story.


Where I came from...

We all have lives, it's true! We all have hopes and struggles and dreams; every person has their joys and sorrows.  Every person has a past, their story, an amazing story, chapters closed and chapters beginning...

My early chapters consisted of wandering through some pretty rough stuff...  Both my parents suffered the disease of addiction and, despite their most loving and best attempts, I experienced emotional neglect, physical abandonment, and general chaos, uncertainty, hunger, and on brief occasions, homelessness... The ability and willingness of my maternal grandparents kept me out of the foster system when my mom finally sought recovery, but as I entered the teenage years, my way of being in life (my nervous system with its stunted emotional development and my mind lacking proper socialization) took drastic and erratic twists.

The breaking down was fueled further by hormones, all the regular pressures of high school, and my utter, though unconscious, confusion. That hallmark lack of attunement experienced by children of alcoholics made understanding the world around me, let alone myself, simply impossible. During these high school years, I still painted, drew, contributed cover art to our school yearbook... but it was becoming clear some things had gone very very off track. Like too many teenagers, I was diagnosed with clinical depression, fraught with suicidal ideology, self-harm, and increasing volatility. When I graduated is when I began to run. 

I enlisted in the US Army months before 9/11 occurred,  seeking structure and family, only to be stationed in South Korea and nearly immediately, assaulted by one of my supervisors. Without the inner resources to not only care and fight for myself, but even cope at all, I began to unravel from every seam. When I was brought in to speak with the commanding officer of my company, because there was clearly something wrong with ME, not that something terrible had been done TO ME, he asked, what do we do about this?

And so I painted. Just as I had in basic training in South Carolina and during job training in Georgia, I painted morale murals. Art, though consisting of skulls, war, blood, and guns, actually sustained me through very precarious times.  Fast forward to after honorable discharge, I once again skipped through many short chapters of my story, which I now almost affectionately title:  "a complete inability to function long at any given street address." ...

I wasn't done running...  I stumbled into the chapter which felt like the end of my story; the very last chapter. I had sped up my life pace faster and faster -  to just get it all over with... I had no language for asking for help; no emotional capacity to even understand what the hell was even wrong... Art no longer helped, there was no reason to create... I was isolated in my bid to protect others from me and me from others, so there were no people to share art with anyway...

It all changed one night, in 2010, when my pace suddenly slowed. But it slowed to what felt like those slow-motion moments before crossing the finish line of a race... but a race in which I wasn't made to participate... Fully expecting to cross that line and never wake up, you can imagine the shock of instead...

Emerging.

It was still dark, literally and figuratively, but it happened that through no action of my own, I had emerged into a clearing of inexplicable grace...
profound kindness of strangers...
and the sheer grit of an aspect of my soul I had never met.
About ten years ago, I emerged from the absolute darkest night of the soul.

The "emerging" actually wasn't one single night, it unfolded over the course of almost two years, and this chapter I also refer to ( also affectionately) as the combined super-chapter: "spiritual crisis/full-on existential crisis." Cliff's Notes available upon request ;)

I really don't mean to sound so dramatic, I swear! :) Well, maybe part of me does but it's only coming from a place of deeply-felt gratitude for everything that has unfolded since.
30 years, up to that point,  summed up into a couple of paragraphs seemed like a good way to begin to illustrate how important art is to me.

What threw open the gates of my creative process...

I continued into that clearing and through my 30s, healed deeply and learned the most profound discovery...

The trust I've built with myself, the universe, and the people now in my life I hold very near and dear is the "how" I was able to dip my toes back into the clear, calm pools of creating art... And I can narrow down the time frame to a volunteer opportunity I took. The task was painting a giant mural meant to inspire an organization that had welcomed me, scars and all, a couple of years prior... For a county-wide event, I painted a 6 foot tall, 6 yards long canvass depicting iconic Mt. Tamalpias, of Marin County, California, with the Serenity Prayer lettered carefully and gratefully in the sunset sky above it. 

I felt tons of pressure and anxiety to make something good, but going forward with the task felt consistent with that sense of Grace I'd met in that clearing...  It was similar in that there was no denying I was not alone ~ I was meant to continue...  It was different in that I'd been given tools, by those caring and committed strangers, some of whom have become my family. I'd also been taught how to seek more tools and ways to live a life so I actually had an entirely different framework for making art. I had a connection to a self and the support of others, authenticity I didn't know possible. But I also had something I never even knew existed... and that remains a living relationship with the Grace I met in the clearing... A.k.a. a power greater than myself... I had access to what some people call God, others call the Universe, Oneness, etc, what I call The Great Assisting Force. And for the first time in my life, I let my hand and paintbrush be moved by the creative process (The Great Assisting Force) coming through me. I surrendered all my past mistrust and pain and panicked lurching and was given instead, the most personal and specific guidance I'd ever received.

The mural brought some people to tears. Not because I'm such a skilled painter, by far, believe me! I think the people who were so moved by it were actually feeling, basically and for lack of more consice terminology, the power of the Grace that actually painted that mountain though me. Speaks more to their hearts and spiritual health than anything else, but what I derived from this experience was clear indication that I am meant to make art. Furthermore, I am meant to make art and share it.

Where I'm headed, a.k.a., why I need your help...

Since the mural experience, I could share many, many more tiny yet precious moments when something I made touched a special, sometimes seemingly sacred place in another person... Slowly but surely I came to realize my life's purpose had materialized in my consciousness.  I'd been shown my drive to make art is worthy of heeding, does make a difference to me and others, and must be what I cultivate from this day until my last.

It wasn't until I learned to let art create itself through me that I realized how imperative creating is to my well-being. 
And creating wasn't possible until I built the foundation of a worthy, loved, and trusting self.  It wasn't possible to begin and continue to build, without the help of countless professional healing interactions, deepening relationships with people I trust, therapy, meditation practice, and a community of people dedicated to recovering and healing and being of service.

So, I took the plunge, started my business, and began to invest 100% of resources into creating, sharing, and living my actual purpose... I know it happened gradually but when I made the decision is when everything in my life, all the twists, and turns, the tears, sweat, and blood, came into the clearest focus... They began to make their own kind of sense. And as I wake up every day excited, sometimes daunted, but utterly determined and certain I am finally aligned, I know why I'm here. 

It takes more determination, focus, and discipline I even knew I could access to try to run a business; bookkeeping, paying taxes, marketing, and social media are all part of maintaining and growing a living, breathing, if very small, engine of social productivity and contribution. Lucky for me, the other part, the actual creating, is now a daily way of life requiring almost zero effort.

I discovered the awe!!some art of glass lampwork in my treasure hunting adventures sourcing the materials I use in the mixed media pieces I create today. Jaw gaping, heart fluttering, I've spent hours in a single artisan's portfolio... completely dumbfounded by the beauty they skillfully make. Their artwork isn't, nor should it ever ever be, inexpensive for me to purchase and then incorporate into my own work...  But the exquisite aura of art glass simply won't release me from its otherworldly appeal... 

When I talk to folks about my art, I longingly share how if I could raise the sheep to make the wool to spin the yarns I use, I would...
If I could mine the gemstones and crystals and precious minerals to craft some of the beads I use, I would...
If I could raise the birds who molt the feathers I use, I totally would!!
But obviously, I couldn't possibly...  I instead support the people who can provide those things and feel ridiculously grateful they do what they do...
Now...  to be able to melt glass and spin galaxies encased in clarity and adorn my artwork with my own handmade torch-fired glass beads? This is a skill I can and must pursue... 

There's a certain gut feeling I recognize now, after all the twisting and turning and healing and clearing of trauma from my system...  It's a knowing, we all have it... and in the past, in order to survive, I had to learn to trust and act upon it. Now, however, following it is about thriving, not surviving. 

My intuition has become my favorite superpower. 

And it is pointing me to this class, this year. This skill, this beginning.

Although this class is an annual offering and apparently people return to it year after year for the dynamic instruction and friendships, the time for me is now. Registration is open. A decent discount is offered with registration before March 15th. After that, I have until June 5th, and the class begins on June 7th. 

When I first researched where to begin learning this skill, and found this program on a tip from an artist neighbor, I laid my eyes on the cost, and my heart did drop...

I have multiple savings accounts at my credit union where I save all year in order to afford the annual registration and semi-annual insurance costs of my vehicle, the website hosting fees of my online presence, and the self-employment taxes I'll owe the government for employing myself... Every single dollar I bring in is earmarked... new supplies, food, gas, rent, living expenses. There's no way I could save up, on my current trajectory, for this class inside of a two-year timeframe. I did then try to convince myself to be patient, tighten the belt tighter, and just wait.

But I can tell you, dear reader, when my gut says go, there is really very little I can do to squelch it... Squelching it nearly killed me long ago, giving up this new chapter isn't an option.

It's my sense of wonder, my trust in people's ultimate altruism, and my hard-won ability to ask for help that brought me here to GoFundMe...  I'm thinking maybe... juuuust maybe, enough people think I should get to do this class THIS year...  And frankly, if I don't try this route, my gut will spend the next two+ years pressing the gas pedal, while my brain lays squarely on the brakes because I'm finally super low on debt and it's simply too slippery a slope to say screw it, I'm putting it on the credit card.

So... if you've read my whole thing and find yourself at this moment in time, let me just thank you for that... You realize just your perusing GoFundMe campaigns is the embodiment of the deepest thing that makes us human, right? Seeking to help others. Even if my campaign doesn't strike a chord in your heart and you move along, thank you, so much, for the spirit that moves you to be of service.

I'd also like to wish you a great week, filled with the people and things that remind you of how amazing YOUR story is. Corny as it sounds, and though we may not know each other or ever meet, thanks for being you.  This is what the world needs: people living from their true selves and gifting the rest of us with your light.

In case you want to see more of what you'd be supporting the expansion of, find me at Meticulouslight.com, on Facebook, and in my fledgling Etsy shop.

Below, a couple of the pieces I've made using the glass bead artwork of others...












And here are a few of the other steps involved with my art... I hand cut, sand, and seal the larger wood hoops of my dreamcatchers...












I hand-collect, sanitize, and individually dry some of the naturally molted feathers I use...












And purchase many other naturally molted feathers from small family homesteads where the birds are well cared for and happy...









Every single piece is special to me...










And every single piece represents a connection, from where creativity originates (The Great Assisting Force) to me, from me to another person, and from the other person to the piece...












And it can expand even further with your help...









Thank you for considering my cause!!