Where ART Lives Magazine Volume 4 Number 2 | Page 78

Inspire!
Written by
Wendy Brightbill
Stories of
inspiration
& art!
My name is Wendy Brightbill and I
consider myself to be a creative
wanderer, an artist who loves to explore
different mediums and styles. I love
making a mess with paper, glue, paint,
wax, and stitches. I have a love for so
many different mediums and I am always
learning and stretching myself as an
artist. I can’t seem to sit still when it
comes to art. I like to think of it as having
creative ADHD.
I can still remember carving out a small
little space in my dining room for art
making. I had a few tiny shelves and a
corner of my dining room table. With two
young children, I would fight for time to
be creative. I would sneak in little ten
minute bursts of art practice, then step
away while it dried. Since these tiny
beginnings, my art practice has continued
to expand into what it is today.
I am so grateful for my creative life and
I have always been a creative person, but practice today. I never imagined that
never really considered myself an artist. I something so amazing like creativity
actually used to be a kindergarten
could come out of such a devastating
teacher. I picked up a paintbrush after a
event like my car accident. It’s been al-
car accident rearranged my brain. I was
most 14 years now since my whole
in a fog for a number of years after my
life was turned upside down. I feel like it
accident. I struggled with chronic pain on was a different lifetime ago. And my true
a daily basis. My personality changed. I
life began after I started pursuing art and
struggled with remembering simple
creativity.
details of every day life, like how to drive
a familiar route in a city that I have lived
I try not to treat my art as being too
in my whole life.
precious, and yet, I am deeply committed
to my daily creative practice. Art making
Art helped me put the pieces of my life
is a little like breathing air for me. I can’t
back together. Art became my therapy
live without it.
and my passion. It has helped me work
through my depression by painting the
When I am not making a huge mess in my
color back into my life. I believe that
studio, you can probably find me cooking
there is healing to be found in art making a big pot of chili, snuggling my three girls
and getting lost in the process.
and ignoring the huge piles of laundry.
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