eCREATIVE
“I absolutely love it. It’s my home away from
home,” she said. “When I’m there painting, I’m in
my own world. It’s the best therapy there is.”
Over the years, Wagner has sold her
paintings for hundreds of dollars with other larger,
commissioned pieces going for thousands.
“People have gotten so much joy from my work
and that has brought me so much happiness,” she
said.
In 2015, Heather Wagner took a brave, new
step in her journey as an artist. She decided to
exhibit her some of her personal paintings at the
Cherry Building’s annual Holiday Open House.
“There is something very scary about painting
what you really feel without worrying about
whether it’s going to sell. That’s how you know
you’re being honest with yourself.”
For years Heather painted alone in her
studio, pouring her vulnerability, insecurities, and
pain onto dozens of canvasses. Then she hid them
from public view. “When I was painting for myself,
I didn’t want people to see how much I was really
hurting,” she explained. “I have stacks of my
paintings in my basement that I’ve never shown to
anyone.”
Wagner says the inspiration for her exhibit
at the holiday event came earlier in 2015 while
she was teaching a class for trauma survivors. “I
was helping people in the class use creativity to
ease the affect of the traumas they had
experienced,” she said. “I saw and heard
everything they had been through, and I thought,
‘I can do this too.’ It was a real turning point for
me.”