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Lyndia, you’ve had an interesting life; what experience or experiences would you say, influenced the direction of your life most profoundly, therefore affecting your art?

It is hard to answer that question without first qualifying it with some background information. Sometimes when people ask what I do, I tend to answer – “on what day, or in what year?” because I do so many different things. I have been a classical musician, worked in business, have advanced degrees in both social work and special education. For the past 16 years I have worked as a child and family therapist in psychiatric, foster care and residential treatment settings. Presently I perform home based developmental evaluations of special needs infants. And, in 2002, I lived for several months with an indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon where I helped the women set up a kindergarten.

After many years of searching and growing, I have come to the realization that I cannot define myself by one descriptor any more than I can say that my life and art has been influenced by one particular experience. I am a woman, artist, musician, teacher, therapist, evaluator, elder, vegetarian, etc. etc, because all of these are small pieces that make up the whole. The whole is still emerging and changing and hopefully, will continue to do so until I leave this plane.

I never expected to be, at long last, exhibiting art in galleries or selling my work. Drawing was always this thing that I did because I needed to do it --and I did it while I was also playing music or making a living as a paralegal, teaching, providing psychotherapy. My mission has always been the search for authenticity in every area of my life.

How did you begin as an artist?

I recall making music (picking out tunes by reaching up from beneath the keyboard on the piano at age 3) and seeing people’s reactions when they recognized the tunes and realizing that I could imitate what I heard.

I don’t have as vivid a recall of the visual area. I can remember making marks on paper and feeling a burst of energy when the eye connected with the hand and paper; and a tremendous feeling of release when I was able to put paint on paper. There was (and still is) a sense level feeling of returning again to something I had done before. There is also another thing that happens -- there is a kinesthetic thing that happens that I can only equate to resonance in music -- there is a feeling I get that I am getting back in tune - something like my vibrational frequency is being retuned -- sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it happens as soon as I start drawing or painting. I think that was the feeling I remember from early on.

Did you have any childhood experiences that influenced your art?

One of my father’s sisters was married to a man who was raised in Germany in an upper class family. This man, who was my godfather, was a fine artist who had to give up his artistic career to work in business. He was my first exposure to a fine artist -- and I vividly remember sitting next to him at dinner as a very small child. He would draw pictures on napkins to keep me entertained. I have a wonderful memory, which must have happened when I was about three, of watching him draw a picture of a balloon floating in the air. When he drew in the lines that gave the balloon dimensionality I held my breath - because it seemed so magical. I also remember that he watched my reaction and seemed to understand that I realized what he was doing. I then tried to draw what he was drawing. This became a favorite shared activity whenever he came to visit. Later on, in kindergarten I remember standing next to a painting I had done of my house, family and the sun and explaining to the teacher what was going on in the painting. There was this awesome realization that my images were communicating something and someone else was able to understand them.

Who has been your most influential mentor and why?

I spent the first 10 adult years of my life as a freelance classical musician - I was a classical trumpeter playing with orchestras and chamber ensembles in NYC, and I also toured Europe and the US with different opera and dance companies. After I gave up being a career musician (which was traumatic and painful and too long a story to address here) I was lost for several years. I worked with computers to make money and returned to drawing as a creative outlet. I couldn’t listen to or play music for years.

Art was just something I did. I never considered myself an "artist" and still struggle with that label to this day. I don’t think I internalized the possibility of that identity until after I ended my musical career and had started to question why I was here and what I was supposed to be doing. Meeting Frederick Franck, author of "the Zen of Seeing" and his wife Claske was a turning point for me in many ways. We met at one of Frederick’s silent 2 day workshops - Seeing/Drawing as Meditation - and there was an instantaneous feeling of recognition. One of the tasks during class was to begin to connect the eye to the hand to the heart. He watched as I drew a leaf from memory and he then acknowledged the drawing in silence with a bow. In that silent bow I felt that I was greeted respectfully as a fellow artist. Later, he spoke about my work (all students' drawings were always exhibited anonymously at the end of classes) and pointed out the lyricism of some of the lines and wondered if the drawing had been done by a musician. It was the first time the two parts of my life had been linked up.

I then visited the Francks at their home and realized that I had found a sort of artist/parents -- people who recognized my abilities and wanted to foster them. Frederick, who recently celebrated his 97^th birthday and just published his 18^th book, is not just an artist - he is also a philosopher, expert on Zen and Christianity, metaphysician and amateur musician. So I was invited to spend time in an environment where art and music and literature and so many other things were revered. It was through them that I returned to music -- I began to housesit for them and finally, after months of touching it and moving away -- I was able to play the piano again.

Frederick's wife, Claske, was an equally important influence. For Claske, life is her canvas and her love is the media she creates with. By observing her, as she went about the tasks of daily life, I learned about living an artful life, filled with respect for all creatures and creation itself.

Wow, what a powerful experience. You use a lot of vibrant color in your work; what is your feeling about color?

Prior to my time in Ecuador, I drew mostly in pencil or pen and ink and painted in transparent, restrained colors. Living in the jungle brought about a dramatic change in my artwork -- a move away from realistic images to an evocative inner landscape peopled with fantastic creatures. Some of my work is filled with the vivid hues that surrounded me during that time. However, there are many drawings that I do only in white or very light blue on black background. Sometimes there seems to be a sort of internal glow that emanates from the forms -- which I feel is the appearance of Spirit on the page. In many ways I feel my drawings are not really mine -- they come through my hands but belong to Spirit and are meant to be shared. To borrow the words of the Sufi poet, Hafiz, I try to be a hollow tube - to allow Spirit to move through me onto the paper.

What is your intention with your art?

So much of what society calls "artists" are really, in my personal view, "artistes" -- someone who is posing as a creative being and is invested in the label and the image and the possibility of celebrity. A true artist is someone who answers the creative call, dives deep within, wrestles with all of the doubt and despair, gathers the disparate inner voices and weaves something beautiful from the chaos. This can be with paint, wool, paper, words, sounds, or in more worldy ways -- as a chef, housekeeper, nurse, mother - it doesn’t matter -- it is about listening to the call, following the clues, completing the process and producing something authentic. Artists are the wayshowers --- they are keepers of the creative process and by their efforts they shine light on the twists and turns of life’s path. If they are truly authentic - they paint the road maps, highlight the road signs and show the next step in the journey.

Do you use your artwork in your therapy work; and if so, how do you use it?

At present, I primarily do developmental evaluations of babies - which allows me more time to devote to my artwork. When I was a play therapist with young children and their families, art was an integral part of the therapeutic process. My playroom was equipped with paint, clay, and a variety of art and collage materials which children and their parents could explore freely. I am also trained as a sandplay therapist -- which is a form of therapy (based on jungian principles) where clients use a variety of symbols to create their world in a large tray of sand. It is a non-verbal, creative therapy that is profoundly beautiful and very powerful. A person portrays their inner world in a contained, externalized way so they can safely explore it from a distance. Symbolization - through art or sandplay or pretend play is another language - - and my role as therapist was to provide a safe place for expression, to help translate the symbols and to foster understanding and integration.

When you are drawing or painting, what is it that you see or feel?

That's an interesting question. I often draw on the subway. I do home based evaluations so I spend at least an hour or two every day going back and forth from my home in New York City to homes in the inner city areas of Manhattan and the Bronx. Sometimes I think I draw in response to some of the experiences I have in my work. I frequently visit families living in poverty and some babies have dire medical issues. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and powerless so I retreat to my drawing pad and try to contain some of the emotions. I like to joke sometimes that, at least on the page, I can exert some control.

Some of my drawings -- flying shaman, for example, were dream images. I awoke and had to go right to the easel. Usually, however, I don't have an idea in advance. Most of my drawings just appear on the page and the more intricate ones evolve over time. Generally they start with one eye or a single creature and expand from there. In "High Priestess", for example, her skirt is made out of many different birds. When I was drawing them, they seemed to be signalling me -- almost like they were saying "hey, over here!"

Where do you see yourself going with your art?

I am grateful every time I finish a drawing. They are gifts from Spirit and I never take them for granted. I feel very strongly that they should be shared. I see the positive effects they have on people and I know they are filled with special energy. So I hope to send them out through gallery exhibitions, as fine art prints and through my line of notecards. Lately I have been feeling a powerful desire to build some of the images out of clay or to do them in bas relief -- that's my next project - once I get some free time.

Thank you very much Lyndia for taking your time to speak with us here at the Celestopea Times. You do wonderful work! Good luck with your exhibitions. I’m sure you’ll do very well.

To view more of Lyndia Radice's beautiful artwork, please visit her website: http://www.drawingfromspirit.com.  If you would like to send her an email, her address is: lyndia@drawingfromspirit.com. 

All works are copyright.  Permission to use these images in any way must be obtained from the artist.