I pick up little tricks along the way and I'm far from being an expert so hopefully
this has never used as how to how to paint that is. I learned that one doesn't hold the
brush like a pencil you hold it like you're you're an orchestra leader and you conduct.
and so having been a teacher that had to teach printing and writing I find it quite hilarious
that I'm having to learn how to undo some of my habits. I was told multiple times by colleagues
that "Oh Karen you're so creative" but when I did art with little kids they would always
protest "can't do it" "can't do it". Well neither can I so we'll do it together. So well I am Karen
Johansen Mussin and I am a retired elementary French immersion teacher and decided that I
needed to have a different career than what I did while I was working so then I ended up becoming,
I guess an artist not knowing that I had that at all in me so there you go.
Art to me is just exploring different ways of doing things. I don't know I've just ppppp I
can give an example of a painting that I did when it was done just looking at it gave me joy
I had to really get outside my comfort some would even start to paint so when we moved to
a new location meaning we moved from Owen Sound to Stratford I knew that I needed to quote join
the community well that what does that mean so you get to know people here we go for coffee and they
talk about their interests and then they say oh I need that yeah the studio get back painting and
then you say well that sounds like a good idea and then they say I need somebody to share the
costs and you say I don't know anyone who could share the cost and then you think oh well maybe
I'll try when you move to a new community you have the chance to reinvent yourself there's a
lot of creative energy not just in this building for say but in the town it's sort of you know Oh
someone's doing that and you see things hey you can do that Kenya oh and it just was a whole
revelation to me whereas I thought it all had to be he had to have a skill and it had to be there
but I've learned that you have to develop it so I had to say am I gonna regret not having tried
you have to do like this you always learning something and so I'm enjoying the fact that
I am always trying to push my boundaries a little bit more and more I just go through
little learning curves you know I can't do it I can't do it oh yeah and I can't do it I can't do
it again man up and and so it taught me or is teaching me that the messages that we give to
ourselves are often not accurate and so we tell ourselves we can't do it so we don't try so I had
to kind of put that down and say okay so what if it doesn't work out and I finally got it in
my head that all in I'm doing is practicing and when you practice you make mistakes so
then I could accept when things didn't turn out alright and I realized that among many
people we all can paint we all can do something creative it's just allowing yourself to do it