For Tina, Art is a way to connect on a deeper level with both the seen and unseen world around her. Tina has two ways of looking at the world - realistic and mystical - and in a profound way, they are innately connected. Art is a powerful way through which Tina can experience this connection and bare witness to it.

From a young age, Art was a deep part of her soul and she would sneak downstairs in the wee hours of the morning to draw the horses she dreamt of when sleeping.

As Tina grew up, she continued to doodle and draw but nothing serious until she reached her late twenties when she started doing animal portraits, florals and landscapes in charcoal, water colour, and acrylic.

In her mid-twenties, Tina met a woman named Diane Raphael. Diane saw people as a whole, and fully healed. She would know where a person’s wounds came from and where they lived in the body. She spoke of rewiring our brains and creating new neural pathways, and planted this seed with Tina as a future interest for herself.

Tina called Diane her “spiritual counselor” and Diane quickly became like a surrogate mother to Tina. She encouraged Tina to follow her passions, and saw Tina as an artist, healer and horse whisperer.

Tina had been working at Xyolhemeylh where every Saturday an elder came to work and on this particular day, March 7 of 2020, Tina met Elder Joy. Tina shared about Diane, who at this point was in hospital and nearing the end of her earthly journey, and how Diane’s daughter and grandson were Indigenous and expressed a desire to have a ceremony performed by an elder to help Diane’s soul along its journey.

It turned out Joy had been performing these exact ceremonies, and so she came to the hospital and smudged all who were present, spoke to Diane and helped her Grandson say goodbye and to accept that it was okay to let her go. Together, they sang the warrior woman song for Diane and she passed an hour later.

In her deep grief and without a job due to the current pandemic, Tina decided to fully dedicate her time and resources to healing and soon learnt about an amazing painting process taught by Shiloh Sophia: Intentional Creativity.

This process allowed Tina to move through healing her heart quicker and easier than expected. As she explored more, she allowed what came forward from the unseen world of her soul to be put onto the canvas. Through this practice, she felt emotions move through her body as she painted and allowed for curiosities and questions to arise. She chose colours intuitively versus prescriptively, reflective of the vibrancy and joy Tina feels when spending time in nature or around the animals she loves.

Tina experienced and learned about somatic experience and healing, and began rewiring her brain through this artistic expression - in the very ways Diane had spoken of - and she created new neural pathways around previously difficult and painful experiences.

Tina knew in that moment Diane was nudging her toward this path, and she now has the pleasure of sharing Intentional Creativity with all of you.

It is in her art that Tina can get both lost and found.