Welcome, friends...

This is where you'll find me.

If you’re reading this, I imagine you saw the door to my creative heart open, as you heard my voice say: Welcome to the world inside of me.

If you’d like to stay and learn more about what this artist is doing here, I’d love for you to take a seat (if you will) as if we're just two kids at a tea party surrounded by all our stuffed animals. Maybe this is too childlike for some, but I believe it is perfect for many of us. If this invitation to the party feels true to you, feel free to grab some coffee or hot tea and join me in a spirit of conversation. After all, this place we call creativity, born of pure imagination, was never meant to be a monologue nor a fierce competition. That's what the sports are for, am I right or am I right? Rather, creative expression was meant to be a place of dialogue where the voices of many come together to share what is being seen and heard from these imaginative, otherworldly spaces.

First of all, this post in and of itself is me saying *YES* as I share my response to the creative process with you -- spiritual insights, paintings, photography, &/or everyday happenings in a wider, more courageous way. It’s a willingness to offer my life’s story, creative odyssey, and ultimately the way I live and move and have my being here on this Earth as a fellow pilgrim making our way *Home* together, wherever Home may be. And I would be remiss if I forgot to thank Ram Dass for pointing us to this epiphany: in the end, we're all just walking each other Home.

In that vein, my endeavor here on SubStack is about carving out a place inside of me from the lands of imagination to inspire one another to collaborate, whether in spirit or flesh, so we may do just that: walk each other Home with our treasure maps in hand.

I hope what I share here emboldens you to find your inner map, if you haven't already, and then offer its treasures to the world more widely or loudly but definitely kindly. If it does this in any way, then this crazy quest to find my creative heart again has been 100% worth it. If what I share here helps create a refuge for us to offer our authentic selves to the world without fear of judgment or rejection, then I’ve returned to my heart's truest dream: that my life and its multiude of expressions would be medicine to this world.

It's taken me a long time to get back here — as I’ve made my way through tumultuous oceans of spiritual and emotional anguish, which I plan share in future posts. But for now, here I am. If you're reading this, here you are, too. Here WE are. TOGETHER. We made it. We're breathing. Our *heart eyes* are opening. We can see each other and we’re returning (hand in hand) to a simple, childlike faith where there are no cumbersome, heady conditions to find our place in this world or the one beyond. We're all welcome here. Well, at least on the inside of me.

Can you imagine if we all showed up in this carved out space together? Oh the places we could go. Oh the things we could make. From a grain of sand to a galaxy. Lofty, I know, but I’m a dreamer of dreams. I happen to believe that TOGETHER we can create places of HOPE not despair -- a hope birthed with every creative, life-giving, pulsating, healing energy flowing through our clasped hearts and hands.

But hope on this side of the veil isn't always pretty at first. There have been times, as I’ve made my way back to the childlike heart within me, that this creative work began with an existential ache or painful belief. Sometimes my *yes* to the knock at the door was more like a muffled whisper or syncopated gasps of tiny breaths, but time and time again I managed to reach my fingers around the knob with a barely audible *yes.* It was some miraculous kind of movement. Then I’d fall out of bed…okay, there have been times the miracle came through the kindness of a friend where I received a peptalk with a loving embrace. A bonafide miracle nonetheless (not without the coffee placed in my hand because, let's be real, coffee is a miracle, too.).

Oh friends, more times than I can count, this otherworldly kind of inspiration, the one on the other side of the door, has come through those incremental breaths and sobs. Weaving in and out like a strainer looking for gold. I used to think I had to make all my art from the mud and the mire, like if I didn’t find myself wading in the anguish for a good while was the thing even going to be good at all?!! On the other side of this kind of thinking, I've learned the essence of my creative process manifests as I move from the *Land of Too Muchness* to the *Land of Safety* —inwardly, inwardly, inwardly. Then, outwardly, outwardly, outwardly. Because when I create from a place of inner safety, everything I make is infused with an otherworldly peace that I really can't take credit for. My process is a rhythm, a song: I’ll meet you in your happy place. You’ll meet me in mine. We’ll make it. Release it. Rest. Play. Then do it all again. This is the best kind of Groundhog Day!

So where did this creative, spiritual quest begin in me? Well, it started with a prayer I learned when I was very young — a prayer inspired from the Bible actually. It's a simple one where I pray for the eyes of my heart to open so I may see that truer, greater thing beyond what I am longing for here on Earth. Once I pray that, I wait. Then once I see into this wider, inner place from the map inside of me, I am compelled to move because now I have hope...With this hope, I move with paint, pen, wide-angle or macro lens. My voice lifts with a vibration soaked with color. The Odyssey within me continues, expands, grows. And get this: it even continues if I am stuck on the floor in that mud and mire. Like whatever is fueling this whole thing will send people/friends who will love you off the floor and out of the bed into the world. The movement and energy of creativity never stops, just look into space. The universe is full of all kinds of energy, not to forget COLOR!!! But I digress (oh how we’ll dive into space here, just not now.).

In the end, most of us call this kind of epic journey *faith* or *spirituality.* While others may call it *heaven* or *cosmos.* I don’t think the vernacular is as important as the experience. Experiencing it will transform you. Merely thinking about it will not.

This place I call *Beyond the Veil* isn't something I can put together in a discertation. Although my ego wants to tell you I could because I do have a master's degree, but then I’d end up losing its reality and I can't live without it. I’ve experienced it my whole life. Maybe when you were a kid, you, too, closed your eyes at night only to see patterns inscribed on what you called the curtains of your eyelids, which, once parted became an imaginative show or place of deep safety. Um, hello, tea party or sheet tent! It never made me feel crazy or weird. It made me feel special. It made me feel seen. But there was a 20 year period where I didn't paint at all. I felt very unseen, blind really. That is also another story for another day, but it's how I learned the hard way: I truly cannot live without the experience of this place inside of me. I quite literally almost died.

All of that to say, my fellow creatives and travelers, this is me. This what I know. This is what I experience. There really is a something over our eyes, physical and spiritual, on this side of life which doesn't let us see the whole picture by ourselves — a veil, a curtain, a door. The shadow of the reality of it is what we identify as eyelids and skin. In the otherworldly, they are veils and doors. Now, how we all landed here, I don't quite know, I’m definitely not God, but I know I want to explore the reality of it with you because we need all the angles from all the lenses and all the colors from all the irises. I want to share what I see and hear from the beyond place. I want to bear witness to what you have to share, too. I don't know it all so I need you. By the way, I don’t think any of this is *woo, woo* OR *coo, coo.* If we all could quiet our minds and listen to our hearts, without the noise in this world, we’d realize we aren’t the crazy ones after all.

In light of all this, I'll be waiting for you with every post or message. I'll grab a coffee or a cup of loose-leaf tea. But you should know I am unapologetic about being a coffee and loose-leaf tea snob. There will be no debates or conversations about that. If you drink instant coffee you may be a real alien (insert winky face.). Everything else is up for grabs, even my favorite mugs.

I have so much to share here: paintings, drawings, essays, fine art photos, photo art, maybe some old songs — well, that one is a big, ole maybe. Ha!

Friends (and friends only), the door will stay cracked open for you. The tea and coffee are always brewing. The hand-sculpted mugs (which are my favorites) are hanging from the hooks against the wall. And your favorite artist other than yourself (insert another winky face) has already taken her seat because after many years of staying small and quiet, I’m ready to speak — BUT also hear! I can't wait for the conversation to begin. I'm saying yes to the invitation to go further and further beyond the veil, but not alone this time. I hope to hear the yes in your heart, too!

I can't wait to get to know you. We have so much to share.

Hope to see you soon.

Loving y'all forever from here,

KC, aka, Kelly Irene ;)

P.S. The top banner is a fine art photograph and a surreal expression I made while working out a visual concept/experience of heaven in response to profound grief. Below are vignettes of various angles of me as I continue to see beyond the veil of this thing we call life. The first photo is from my last long hike from the 2024 season, where this tree sang this love note to me. Though possibly defaced, it left me with a message that went straight to my heart. The others span from old to new. I hope they speak to you as well. I can’t wait to create what the eyes of my heart see next! Looking forward to seeing/hearing yours, too!