the 7 year hiatus.

​ Something I find hard to explain but really should is; when I'm speaking of my art career why did I take a 7 year hiatus from my art career. I call it a hiatus because for some reason it sounds better than a pause, or took a break when the reason is I didn't take a break or a pause.  Its not because I need to or wanted to, in fact its everything I did need but I wasn’t able to. I moved several times and got close to opening my studio up again then I had to move again so it wasn’t possible. and during all that all my art was stolen. In reality I thought about for 7 years everyday and here's why.

Importantly - virtually and literally all my art was for lack of better words stolen.

It took me all that time to get it back and I got it back almost by complete fluke. I just got that call one day in November of 2022 and they said if you want it you have to come get in now! I’d tried almost every day for 7 years to get it back. Then just like that I got the call, now? like what do you mean now. Its been gone for 7 years, I have to rent a trailer, etc., etc.

So one cool day in December of 2022 a friend helped me load a trailer and I went to get it, by this time it was in the possession of a bailiff, it took about 20 minutes to get it after all that time. It was surreal.

It was literally being held for ransom all that time and I was unwilling to pay. I just couldn’t do that. Despite my desperation and efforts for my work to be returned to me there is no way I was going to pay someone who stole my work and was holding it for ransom. This is very very true.  I did everything anyone else would do if your property was stolen. I reported it to the police, I told people about it and for some reason it just didn’t seem to matter. That meant I didn’t matter.

Obviously with it being held for ransom it was valuable to someone. So it was different than stolen in some way, it was stolen but they said they'd give it back to me if I paid for my own art they stole, that was totally not going to happen, its actually called extortion. 
 
I couldn’t paint anymore; I’d been devalued as a human being. Being a artist who practiced my art as a career was of course a choice I made many years ago. It’s what I do best. But above that a artist is who I am at my core, even if you’d never heard my name or seen a painting I did there was never a time in my life that art wasn’t my center.

I did think about it everyday over those 7 years though I was devastated. I never gave up despite being told to move on, you’ll never get it back . I couldn't paint as I said I felt devalued not as a artist, I felt devalued as a human being.

So some of it was damaged when I got it back, some gone for good, however most of it was still just as I the last time I saw it. I guess being held for ransom they needed to keep it in good condition as if I had paid, which I never did they obviously knew I wouldn’t pay for damaged art. Of course it is more complicated than that, but not really either. When my art was returned or what was left of it, I slowly started to feel my artistic self come alive again, but I’ll never forget how could I.

Seven years is a long time, I don't even know where I could have been had that not happened and I don't think about it because there's no use. You can't undo the past and you can't make it into something it never was.

I  picked up where I left off all those years ago but I'm certainly not the same as I was, we're shaped by our experience and its one that had a profound impact. For sure! I believed some day I'd get my art back or I'd spend the rest of my life trying. That was never in doubt, and it came around full circle in some respects and I'm so thankful it did. So in July 2023 I was ready to open up my studio again and see if I could get back to painting, painting is probably more natural to me than anything else.

Shelley