Hi there,

Thankyou so very much for visiting my website and for exploring enough to find this page. This site has been a dream for many years and to see a large portion of my art in one cohesive collection is just wild! So, a huge thanks to all who have assisted me along the way. Thankyou.

This is the first blog post that I have ever written, so I thought I would take the time to share a little about myself and my journey.

I was born in rural NSW Australia and grew up on various sheep and cattle stations, surrounded by oppressive dry heat, expansive skies, vast dusty clay pans and an abundance of salt bush. Ouch! Unfortunately, I found myself unwillingly wrangling a little too intimately with these plants, cacti and different species of very large, angry ants more than once through childhood. Ahhhhh good times…

Here’s a pic of my unbelievably cool big Sis and I.

My first love was writing. Our mother taught us to read and write before we had even started school. I loved writing scary stories and would illustrate them. I even had one of my stories called ‘Alien blues’ published in the local paper thanks to my amazing teacher Mr Cook! That was a big deal to me! He was the most encouraging, uplifting, supportive teacher, any child could ever be lucky enough to be guided by. He made a huge, positive impact in my life. Thankyou Mr Cook. It was in his class, that I completed my first little painting of a primitive mud hut. With that painting, came the first inkling of a real love of creating art. Maybe I could actually make art that really looked like stuff!

I was lucky enough to also have an extremely talented, patient and oh so fun and cool Aunty, who would scoop the two of us up, whenever we were fortunate enough to make the grueling, long drive towards family. We would spend our time with her, laughing, being silly and going for walks. But my absolutely favourite was when she would let us make little creations out of fimo and cook them in her oven, hardened forevermore. Then we would paint them. I would make tiny, tiny creatures, just like me! My most memorable being a tiny man, sitting on a log, eating soup, his little dog by his side. These are my fondest childhood memories. This wonderful Aunty, one day showed me an absolutely stunning painting she had masterfully created, of a gorgeous, colourful bouquet of flowers. This very moment changed my life. I stood there looking at this marvellous creation in awe and a little seed was planted in my heart. Maybe one day, I could create something so beautiful. Maybe I could be an artist, just like my beautiful Aunty….

Life goes on and my beautiful creations consisted of doodles on letters and notes, illustrations of hilarious conversations as they were happening and intricate, detailed scrawlings on school desks that I was very proud of! My art teachers over the years were frustrated with me, as was I with their classes. I found the strict guidelines to the tasks annoying and found satisfaction in adding my own little twist to each one. Oh well. Fast forward to me leaving school and the grind and enjoying being a little stoner.

I moved out of home at age 15 with a friend and started to really create art that actually came from my heart. Still to this day, my favourite environment to create in, is when someone is jamming on some kind of instrument. It’s almost like it soothes the beast and lulls me into the creative state, where I can witness the art flow out onto the page of its own accord. Bliss. Whilst living in our little flat in town, we had friends who would come and hang out from the refuge up the road. One day while visiting at the refuge, one of the kind workers mentioned that there was a small exhibition happening at a local cafe and asked me if I would have some art to contribute and I agreed! They organised everything. Framed them, hung them, everything. I was flabbergasted that anyone thought my work was good enough to hang on walls and that anyone was crazy enough to pay money for such a thing! The opening night happened and I didn’t attend due to high social anxiety and an absolute lack of anything to wear to such an occasion. The next day, I was informed that I’d sold every piece on the opening night!! Words cannot express how shocked and excited I was! One of these drawings was an illustration of one of my friends dreams. Years and years later, I reconnected with my friend, who told me the story of how he had arrived at a clients house to work on his computer. As he was working, he noticed a piece of framed art on the wall and had an uncanny sense that this was just like a dream he’d once had. On closer inspection, there was my little stoner pencil and pastel drawing from the past, popping up to say hi and spin us all out once again!!!

I named it ‘Blue Hallucination’.
At that time, I was signing all of my art with the name ‘Amethyst’.

The stoner phase didn’t last forever. For a short while, I worked as a screen printer, which I absolutely loved. Briefly studied some short courses in fine art and design, designed many tattoos for others and myself, as well as tons of random sketches. Then along came my two beautiful girls, 14 months apart. As you can imagine, my creative hands were busy changing nappies for a while and the art making became a background activity.

Fast forward to my early 30’s and a random encounter granted me the job of my dreams. I had a tattoo apprenticeship! This became my career path. It made sense of my urge to draw all of the time. Previously I had questioned myself about why I continued to draw, even though I wasn’t a ‘serious artist’.

In 2015 I had an art exhibition called ‘Totem’. It was focused on totem and spirit animals. It was such a fantastic and scary experience. The first time I had ever seen so much of my art hanging in one space and it was as though I had taken parts of my soul out and placed them on display for all to see and potentially judge. I was terrified and grateful. What an experience! I had two months to prepare all of the art for a full exhibition and I lived and breathed the task. It was art as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning until I could keep them open no longer. Next day, repeat. By the time the date came around for the exhibition, I was running on pure adrenaline and astonishment that I actually achieved my goal!! My partner and I hand made all of the frames and I was so, so proud. The highlight of my art career to date! It was such a fun time and a complete success. (Whatever that means. I guess no one came and stood in the centre of the room booing, so that’s definitely a win!)

The very day after the exhibition, the complete lack of rest and caring for myself during these months caught up with me and I crashed. Big time. I was sick for a few months after. Right through the start of my whole new venture- my yoga teacher training, of which changed my whole life, but that’s a story for another time..

Regardless of all the ventures I have travelled through, I have always come back to some kind of creativity. I feel it helps me to process things in my life. It helps keep me grounded and helps me know myself more and basically be a better person. I have learnt to also use it as a form of therapy that has saved me on more than one occasion and truly hope to continue to create in one way or another for the rest of this life.

Presently, I am working towards completing a life goal- a tarot deck, started 3 years ago. The major arcana is “completed” and now I move towards seeing what the minor will look like. Exciting times artistically for sure!

I will leave it there for now.

Thankyou so very much for taking the time to get to know me a little better as an artist.

Until next time.

Mirabai xxx

Introduction