About the Author

My father always told me that, as a child, my three favourite words were, “why not daddy?” I guess from as early as I can remember I have always looked past the obvious. Having the ability to see beyond the lines opened many doors and windows for me. It allowed me to fly with a creative spirit, free to explore any opportunity or challenge that stood before me.

From an early age, art had always been a way to express my emotions and has been the tool that I have used throughout my most joyous and saddest times. I have encouraged my children to do the same.

This book was written from a verse that ran through my head every night when I laid to bed and my children were still quite small. When I look back now I see that it has carried me onto a journey…

After having been called into a parent-teacher interview for my son David, who was in first grade at the time, his teacher began pointing out how bright and energetic David was. “Although”, she began, “he has some difficulty staying within the lines”. How fabulous! David was doing what I had encourage him to do; to not accept what was there simply because it was. To her credit, his teacher asked me to explain my thoughts on the subject. I began to explain how art, regardless of its form, allows us the freedom from the world as we know it, to a special place that is exclusively ours. To my delight she then asked me to teach the other children how to colour outside of the lines, of which I did with much pleasure. This was the incentive I needed to take the verse that played in my head into illustration.

I painted what I felt and then followed the path that the paint had presented. Marvelous things and places were hidden in the paint and lines they created. As the images appeared I received and supported them. The paintings were abstract reflections of colour that I let take shape themselves with my stoke as an instrument with much enjoyment.

Aha!! This was a wonderful technique for creative expression that was individual as we are. It certainly would be different depending on who viewed it as well as what they needed to express at the time. Each piece presented the opportunity to encourage the capacity to be viewed differently by whoever took in the image. My intention is that the paintings and words expressed within Yours for the Dreaming spark the creative spirit of those who read it and helps them to look at each new day and each blank page from a perspective of, “Why not? It’s ours for the dreaming!”

We hold the brush that shapes our thoughts.

This book sat quiet for 17 years. Tucked away, it waited for the right time to be received, when we were ready for a different way of looking at things. When I asked my father in his last stages of his life should I continue in my path of business and art or as a single parent secure a sensible position. He, the accountant said, “Kay do you know how many people live their dreams? Never stop”. I guess he knew instinctively it would take time and that my dream would become “Yours for the Dreaming”. Thanks Dad, I didn’t stop till I got there.