I always knew that I was an artist. I didn't seem to have the brain for creativity, though, even as a small child. Struggling with more trauma and stress than I knew how to cope with, I spent the first decades of my life frustrated and blocked, never able to colour outside the lines or think outside the box. Despite only really excelling in more left-brained subjects, I went off to art school anyway, but made a compromise: I decided to be a photographer—not my first choice, but what seemed like a logical one. I eventually launched a commercial photography business, and after years of struggling, working way too much (mostly sitting, depressed, at a desk), and destroying my health, I finally resigned to being an artist. A landscape photographer, to be specific. Somehow this seemingly impractical niche brought me more ease of success and greater wellbeing than anything I had tried before.

Thanks to the abuse previously inflicted upon my body, however, there were great periods of time when I had to surrender to rest and healing, where any attempts at running my business (or doing much at all) caused great pain and more damage to my health. I could barely function or get out of bed. Photography was becoming further and further from what I wanted or needed; but still, I was an artist. So to remain creative, I wrote. I researched. I experimented. I learned.

As I made valuable discoveries, I started blogging about them. I kept hearing "you should write a book!" and I became the go-to person for advice about life and art for many. The more I healed myself and my creative practice, the more I was able to help others—and the more I felt compelled to make that my focus.

One summer's day, I decided that I should write an official creative guide so that I could help people in a more thorough and consistent way. In no time at all, I had my system scrawled out into a cheap notebook. It felt like more than just a guide for my own mentoring practice though; it seemed greater somehow. I thought it could genuinely help many people if I could get it out into the world. That is how Create Now was born! I sent a draft to Chronicle Books, and they took it on the spot. In weeks, I went from a barely-functioning photographer and sort-of blogger, to unexpected author.

Since that summer, largely thanks to the Create Now system, I have been able to unleash a flow of inspiration that seems to have no end. I feel more alive and free than I've ever been. I've overcome much anxiety, pain, and depression. I feel a lightness of being that I didn't know was possible. I have also further honed my creative philosophy and have written a second book—Creative Alchemy: Meditations, Rituals, and Experiments to Free Your Inner Magic.

All of my work is focused on the idea of consciously creating one’s life and work from the inside out, based on the true values and passions of the individual. My aim is to express how to lead a fulfilling, successful, and exciting life by living and creating from a higher, more powerful, level of consciousness—flow. I hope that I can help more people bloom into their most exceptional, joyful, and inspired selves, for their own benefit and for the greater good.

I believe that the biggest key to life is learning how to apply love and creativity—meaning conscious and authentic action—to one's own wellbeing in symbiosis with the wellbeing of all. I believe that we can transcend our challenges as individuals and as a collective, if we learn to shift from our preprogrammed behavior into inspired action—action that is not based on external pressures, but on our own inner wisdom.

Learning how to live in our true creative power is how we may transcend our fears and limitations without needing to wait for disaster and struggle to force us awake. Learning how to focus our creative power into any and every area of life is how we may solve our imminent challenges in paradigm-shifting new ways. It is what we need now to both survive and thrive.

I presently live in the mountains of BC with my partner in life and art, James Wyper, and our rescue dog Ana.