My favorite thing about the Hot Shops is getting to go to my own studio and be myself and do my own thing, my own way, in my own time. I love to teach and do it the only way I know how, intuitively. I love helping others experience the joy that comes from pushing color around to see what might happen, at any age and any circumstance.
I’ve taught at QLI Rehabilitation Center for several years. Amy arranged rides to the Hot Shops every Tuesday to paint with me in my studio for about a year – eventually taking public transportation by herself … mind you she was quadriplegic. She told me that when she came to the Hot Shops and my studio, she felt like a real person again.
That’s a powerful statement.
I’d say, “Of course you are a real person!” But she said, it was just different. We can only imagine what one’s brain and body go through in that circumstance. But being here and creating at the Hot Shops made her feel like a real person again. Creativity gave her hope and a feeling of “real.”
I think the raw honesty that my space represents is actually an open book of my life because each painting has a personal story behind it, so, although my space is large, it is intimate because of that. It is truly therapy.
Dar VandeVoort – Studio 215
