How Art Heals-WEB

11 5. Kerri Blackman WWW.DAILYPAINTWORKS.COM/ARTISTS/KERRI - BLACKMAN-5119/ARTWORK OREGON, USA “When I began painting again at forty-three, I was in the midst of a very traumatic time. Right at the same time, the economy crashed and my husband was going through a deep depression that came across as anger toward me and the children. We had been married for more than twenty years. “We were involved in very rigid Christianity, and our church had a cultish culture. We have ten children. I had no college or real skills and had been a stay-at-home mom for the whole time we were married. A friend men- tioned Etsy, and I decided the one thing in the world I might be able to do is paint. (I have always been into art, all my life.) So I started, completely out of despair and desperation. “As I left the rigid Christian culture, I started reading books about em- powerment and started to work on changing the way I think. I had become depressed and very hopeless during this time.” My art is a ref lection of the process I have gone through, to give myself and others hope and encouragement.