ELIZABETH ST.HILAIRE

and give from your heart. And while an overwhelming number of colors to my show where those involved in romantic relationships, or wanting to be in a romantic relationship, or crying from a failed romantic relationship, you all know by now that when I encourage you to love someone, not talking about romantic love, I mean everyone. I mean real love, A got a love, the kind of love that sacrifices, the kind of love that makes the world a better place.

I want you to love your parents, your siblings, even the difficult ones. To love even the ones that just are like fingernails on a chalkboard because they get on your very last nerve, your children, even when they're teenagers and difficult, your friends, members of your community. Love is all encompassing and we need it. We need it to survive in a world that can sometimes feel very, very

dark and oppressive. My Valentine Special podcast this year is going to focus on the healing hearts, specifically the healing power of art. None of us can go through life without experiencing heartbreak and loss along the way, and like love, loss comes in many forms. The romantic break up is the first form that comes to mind, but we've all

suffered substantial losses. We've lost beloved people, we've lost cherished pets, we've lost jobs, we've lost homes, we've lost belongings, we've lost our way, we've lost relationships, we've become empty nesters, or we've moved to new areas, leaving all that was familiar behind. Some of us are experiencing the loss of

our youth, our health, the vitality we once had. Whatever the loss you or someone you love may be feeling, there are therapeutic activities out there that can help ease the pain just a little bit, just enough sometimes to let a ray of light, a ray of joy come beaming through. Art is the therapy that we're exploring today. Art for the Heart. Art for the Heart with my now good friend Elizabeth, an artist who helped me at a time in my life when I needed it the most.

I'll introduce her to you right after this message from my wonderful podcast sponsor the Home Depot. Our friends at the Home Depot helps so many people update their homes. It's an everyday activity in each of their stores. The paint department staff loves seeing someone in with a picture of a color of a wall they'd like to have

in their own home. You know, the Home Depot now has peel and stick samples made with real paint that you can take home put on the walls in your home, in the room that you're thinking of painting, so that you can get a feel if you really like that color in your home. How he's to use that the Home Depot where doers get more done. Our guest today

is Elizabeth. Hello, Hello Elizabeth Saint Hilaire. So I was in a restaurant, uh two years ago, just a couple of weeks, maybe six weeks after we lost my son Zack, and I was in such a dark place that nothing. I couldn't feel anything like we were in love and Worth, Washington, which is this magical little town covered in snow. It's little German chalets and it was probably i don't know, twenty degrees fifteen degrees out. I could have walked down the street without a coat on. I could have walked

down the street naked and not felt the cold. Wow. I was just so shut down. And we were in this restaurant. Everybody was talking and everybody was carrying on. I couldn't engage in conversation. I couldn't think straight, I couldn't I couldn't follow a conversation. And I got up and excused myself. And I was walking through the hall and I saw this rooster painting and he was so happy and whimsical, fun, fun, and I don't know, for some reason that the colors and the textures and this

painting touched me like I could. I could actually feel something for the first time, I think since I heard the news that Zach was gone. And so I took a picture of it. Wow. And then I tried to research it. I couldn't read your handwriting, but you ultimately found me. I ultimately found you because I googled. You know, it was a mixed media um painting, So I googled. I couldn't read your name, so I I googled mixed media torn paper rooster or something like that, and it

came up, and it came up. See, it was meant to be. It was meant to be. It was meant to be. And then I stalked you. That is a funny story. I really did well in the beginning because I just wanted to learn your style. I wanted to I mean, it was mesmerizing, it so beautiful, and I think I went in your junk folder and I'm like, no, no, this woman is going to answer me because I want to know what you do. Like I it was its

layers and textures and colors and magical your style. And when you got back to me, you mentioned that you had tutorials and some books, some books, and then I

teach on I teach workshops. So once I connected with you and I found out you had workshops and tutorials and book, I became a student and I found I don't know if you remember doing this, but I found an old news real story of you when your kids were running around the house, fascinating news story about you, and I'm like, I don't know, I just oh my god,

I loved this woman. That news story that that was from Growing Bolder, which was a local UM production UM And and I don't even remember how I got the opportunity to do that news story. But that news story really brought me into put me in front of a lot of people. It really gave me good exposure. And it wasn't something I was necessarily expecting. But um, but it but it was great. I loved it because you

were so real. You were so ethnic. You know, it wasn't like you were posing for the camera or like anything was contrived. It was just so real and anthnic, and your heart came shining through. Yeah, they came to my house with cameras and I was like, you know, it was it was a little intimidating, you know, but but um but they were great and and I'm still friends with them to this day. I still talk to the guys that run the show and we we what's the name of the show. It's called Growing Bolder and

it's on PBS stations nationwide. Very cool. Well that was I watched that and I went, I don't just want to learn from this person. I want to know this person that made me want to get to know you. But I really want people to to know your work, and to not just know your work, because there's a lot of artists I love. I love real art, I know you do. I love public art. I love going to Philadelphia. They've had a campaign the last ten fifteen years to uh renovate old buildings and that sort of

thing with public art. And it's beautiful and it's powerful, and it's meaningful and it's heartfelt and its kids, and you know, I love. There's a local art project in a community close to where I live, where you've taught, and there's birds, seagulls that have been cut out of some material and decorated by grade school kids and they're along a fence, uh, you know, and and it's an

ugly fence, you know, just a metal, ugly fence. But it's beautiful now with this flock of birds and each one, I mean I've taken pictures of each individual bird because the kids, their expression is so beautiful and how amazing is it for those kids to have been part of that project with that level of permanency and they get to go buy it and say I did that. That's my bird, that blue bird is mine, right, I mean, that's incredible. So it wasn't just that I wanted people

to know you as an artist. I want people to and the and the reason I wanted you to be on this podcast that that we're calling art for the Heart is because I want people to know you and your passion for encouraging people to tap deep inside themselves and express themselves artistically. Well, it's interesting that that you say that, because I think the most common comment that

I get from people is you've inspired me. You've inspired me to come back to art, You've inspired me to try and mix media, You've inspired me you know, fill in the blank, right, And I think that I think that's the best part of my job really is to know that I'm inspiring other people in art. I think that's better than me making a masterpiece. It's better than a lot of things because it's such a gift to

be able to give artistic inspiration to someone else. And when people tell me your class changed my life, and I mean sometimes people really tell me that because it helped them get to a better place with art. When they say that to me, your class changed my life, I mean that's huge. That's a wonderful thing to be able to give someone else. So well, let me be one of the many to say your class change my life.

And like I said, I was in such a dark place, such a sad place, that I couldn't see, I couldn't feel. I couldn't I couldn't watch a movie. I couldn't read a book. I couldn't I couldn't take my own phone calls for my own show some nights, because if people called and they were grieving like I was, I'd just be a puddle on the floor. And if people called with some trite, ridiculous, petty problem, you know, saying I've got this big dilemma, you know, and I'm like, you've

got a dilemma. And so it was very such a hard thing to work through. And I had a great support system. I mean, you've met my family, now my kids, you met my husband had a great support system, and a friend named Debbie Macomer was a local author, very famous author, happens to be my neighbor. She encouraged me to find a grief counselor. But even with all that support and place, I was numb. And meeting you and discovering this this new form of art which is so

whimsical and so fun. Uh allowed me to kind of unlock that passion for art that I've always had in a new way, in a creative way, and allowed me to create some works of art, one in particular that really helped me work through having to say goodbye to my son. Yeah. You know, no one can ever say that they know how you feel, right, but I am a mother, Um, I have a twenty year old son. And you know, my experience with using art to process

grief was that when I was in college. I spent a semester in college in that was the year that Libya bombed pan Am Flight one oh three, and I lost all of my mates, as well as thirty five Syracuse University students. We were all studying abroad, so very many classmates that I had known since my freshman year and people that I lived with. And I'm your best friend and my best friend, and I was twenty So do you how do you even begin to process that

kind of loss? I used my art and I painted, uh, paintings, but they were dark and dreary, and they were they were me processing, you know, going through the stages of brievement. But they they You've used words like colorful and whimsical and happy to describe my art just now, and I'll tell you that the art that I was creating then

was none of those things. None of those things, and I had a professor at Syracuse that I stayed in touch with, and he said to me, I'll be interested to see what you create when you get through this, when you come out the other side of this. And uh, it took me a long time. It took me ten years to create anything that was happy and colorful and whimsical. Was a long, long process, probably because I was so

young and was it was a huge scale. At that age, you think you're you're immortal, and you realize all of a sudden that you're not, and you're not. Yeah, it closed the curtain on my childhood. Basically, it was the end of innocence. It changed everything, and I still think about it all the time. So you work through your grief through your artwork. And you are a professional artist. You're a fine artist. You've done commercial art, you teach art, you write books about art, you do videos about art.

And for for me, meeting you and becoming friends with you and buying your books and studying your style was a lot. Less about studying your style, because I think everybody who loves art has their own style or our own gift, and more about being open to being open right, being open to just trying something new and finding a

way to express myself and get it out there. Yeah, being open to trying something new is is awesome because I I often stress in my in my workshops when I'm working with students, it's it's more about the process than the product, you know, because when you do something new, you're not going to be great at it. And when you do something in a classroom setting, you're not going to make the best art you ever made in your life.

But you're going to go through the process. You're gonna learn, you're gonna be with other people, and you're going to work through interesting and different ideas. And when you're open to that, you can you can receive a lot of wonderful things that that you may then run with and refine. We were talking over lunch about the fact that if you ask a room full of kindergarten students or first grade students how many of you are artists, they'll all

raise their hands absolutely. If you give them three color crowns and a piece of paper, they will all create amazing artwork. And then by about seventh or eighth grade, if you ask the exact same classroom of kids, who here is an artist? What maybe four or five raised their hand. Many much fewer, and then by high school you might get one maybe two because they lose that joy, as you said, for the process, and they focus on

the product. Yeah, they focus on the product, and they and they start comparing themselves to each other and saying, well, well, your stuff is much better than mine, so I'm no good at this, where they used to not not say that at all. And now I volunteered for many years in elementary school, from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade. Um, well, my kids were in school, and then even after they went on to middle school, I stayed and volunteered in

the PTA art program. So I've seen this firsthand. And Um, in the you're absolutely right. When I would go into kindergarten, everyone would all the kids would be like yeah, they'd see me coming and they would just be like yeah, yeah art. Yeah. And then um, definitely, even in the fifth grade, there were some that were like, oh, I'm no good at that. I'm no good at that. Isn't that sad? It is sad because because they're at that age where they're comping, hearing what they create with the

person next to them. Um, and I guess we're all guilty of that. And I know, you know, when kids get into middle school, they all want to just they all just want to look the same and they don't want to be different. I can remember my daughter in in elementary school had the most flamboyant outfits. I don't know where she got that from. And then when she felt clue, Elizabeth Nunne as, I'm looking at you and your rose pattern bright red and pink and printed in

the sparkly outfit. You gotta love sparkly. I love sparkly, not as much as you love. But but but when when Emily was in middle school, she wore the exact same outfit as all the other girls wore. And I'm talking about right down to the shoes, the brand jeans. You know this. You've got girls. I've got girls they just want to you know, they be just there was just they wanted to look just like everyone else and

be just like everyone else. And when you're striving for that, um, doing anything that that kind of is individual is not what you want to do. So you're not going to be an artist. You're gonna be So how old was your daughter when she broke out of that because she is clearly you left that far behind. She's a dancer. She's a dancer, and she has a shaved head, and she dresses kind of real funky and amazing style. You sent me a video of her dancing. Oh my gosh,

she's amazing. Yeah, she's super talented. She works really hard at it. She's so talented. Her moves are like like water that's been electrified. They're fluid and yet they're so electric and energized. That's a great description. Yeah. Yeah, she high school, high school. Um, probably not the first year of high school. Probably the second and third year of

high school. She just she can't. And I can remember thinking, Wow, I'm so glad that she's back to her individual self, that she's she's back to not really you know, measuring up to others, that she's actually just doing what she wants, what feels good to her, and what is her own personal self expression. And I think dance helped a lot with that. But yeah, I would say it was probably the second year of high school that she came back to her her individual sense of style. And it takes

some people a lot longer than that, it does. I think a lot of it's about confidence. You know. Um, I have a lot of women in my workshops that come to me and say, I love your style, I love your shoes, I love your clothing, I love your hair color. And then they I say thank you, and then they follow up by I I just couldn't do that. I could never do that. And I say why, you know? And and these are not people who are in the workforce whose employer is limiting what they look like, it's

their own self confidence. They say, well, I'm just not confident enough. And uh, you know, I don't know. I used to be that person. I did, but I guess with confidence comes a little bit more willingness to be uh, to stick out. You know, he'll be a little ledgier. Yeah, yeah, I mean you're gonna draw attention. I had a guy in Costco tell me that I was too old for my look. Really yeah wow. I was in line at Costco and he looked at me and he goes, don't

you think you're too old for that? And I looked at him. I knew what he was talking about, but I go, what what are you talking about? And he made the circle like this like your whole like your whole self like that and you know I could have been was the pink shoes were wearing was one of

my best It was one of my better get ups. Yeah, and I just and I've got a nose piercing and great big huge earrings and and so I just looked at him and I was like knowing flaming red hair, flaming red hair, beautiful tortoise shellish reddish glasses that are the exact same shade as the hair as the hair, which is work hard at that, which is amazing. But you know, I mean, I don't let stuff like that bother me. And I know that that's easier said than done.

But but it's been a whole lifelong process. I actually like it when people say things like that to me. I love it because it's great material when I'm doing public speaking or when I'm on the air. Let's talk about that some more right after we break for this important message. But I love that you're not a conformist. No,

And it never was. And and we had this We have this vegan restaurant in Orlando where I raised my kids, and all the staff there had tattoos and piercings and blue hair and crazy clothing and it was a vegan restaurant, right, and I took my kids there a lot, and I always used to say to them, you know, I want you to know that you can't judge someone by what they look like. You should never judge someone by what they look like. You know, because this staff at this place,

we're amazing, awesome, wonderful people, you know. And uh, if I taught my kids one thing, it was that you can't judge people. You shouldn't judge people by what they look like. Not only that, but you should encourage them to look like whatever they want to look like. Yeah. Yeah, so you've been in my house, you've met my kids. You know that I very much encouraged them to be self expressive. And you know, whatever, whatever people are like, you're you're going to let her wear her hair like that.

She's got purple hair? Why not? Uh? Yeah, it's fun. If I could get away with wearing purple hair, I would, Well, you wouldn't look as good on me as it does on Blessing. Let's be honest with that dark ebony skin and purple yeah, so beautiful. So if somebody Elizabeth wants to find a way to express themselves and they're like Mike Kimmy that you've met who says I can't draw. I'm not talented, I have no talent. I think, Um,

sometimes it's hard to encourage people like that. But but you were so encouraging to Kimmy, and you brought her to the workshop, and I dragged her and kicking and screaming to the workshop. And now look at her. Oh yeah, now she's an art machine. But I taught her a technique so that she could get past the fact that she felt like she couldn't draw. And that was the graphite transfer paper. So she out of photograph and basically, uh, you know, like the old carbon paper traced it through

so you get the graphite transfer. And that gave her a proportional drawing that allowed her to feel good about where she started. And then she painted it in and made the closed paper and glue that on top and it and took it in a whole different direction. But at least from the beginning she had a drawing on her on her surface that she felt good about. So she was starting from a good place. And obviously it made her happy because she's making more art than you

and me lately. Not only did it make her happy. Do you know what her kids got her for Christmas? Art supplies, not just an art supply, a desk, an artist table that tilts. And she's like, I'm gonna put it in my extra bedroom. I said, Kimmy, put it where there's light. Get rid of your dining room. You never have dinner parties anymore. Yeah, come on, and she is on fire. That's amazing to create, that's awesome, it's and it's it's so awesome to see a whole another side,

a whole another dimension. Because you know, she was Korean. She was raised in a very very very very conservative family, very um traditional family. You know, mom did this, Dad did this, kids were seen and not heard that sort of thing and um. And then she was married for years and years to a wonderful, beautiful man. But she always saw herself as the homemaker, Kimmy the wife, Kimmy the mom, Give me the homemaker for me the nanny.

And now that you've helped bring out this artistic animal, there's a whole another side to Kimmy that everybody's getting to see, not just not just her art, which is great, but but what it's bringing out in her. Yeah, it's you know, Kimmy story is a little different. Um. The typical story that I get is that I have women who had all those roles like Kimmy. They were the mom,

they were the homemaker, uh, they were the wife. And they get to that point in their life where they're retired and their kids are grown and they have more time and money for themselves, and they come to my workshops and they say, I always wanted to be an artist, but I when I was time for me to go to college, my parents said, you're not going to school

for art. You're going to go to school for something practical, something where you're going to love the type typing, nursing, UM teacher, practical, maybe an art teacher, but as as close as you're gonna get. So these uh women will come to my class and say, now I'm at a point in my life where I get to do what I want to do, and what makes me happy is what I loved when I was in high school, and

that's art. And they come back to art years later and they haven't done it for years, and they realized the joy that they that they had and it comes back to them and they just they're just in a beautiful place because they are doing what they always loved and didn't get an opportunity to do. And that is a story I hear over and over and over, and so it's that's inspiring as well, you know, to see someone say, well, now I've got time, I can do

whatever I want. What do I want to do? Well, I want to take art classes, I want to learn a new medium. I want to take a trip to Italy and make art. I mean, these are great freedoms. Really, they are great freedoms. But like you said, give me stories a little different and that she didn't seek you out. I dragged her there because kicking and screaming, because every time I would start painting, because I've always done art, I would have become an artist instead of a radio DJ.

But it doesn't pay as well. Fine, and and you know, I had to make a choice which passion I was going to follow. And I like talking more than I like painting. And I really like painting well, and you are excellent at talking, and and and so uh. I always have an art project going at the house. Always. I'm always painting on something on some surface. I'm always doodling or drawing or painting, and Kimmy would watch me and stand a couple of feet back and watch over

my shoulder, and I would say, try it. No, no, no. So three or four years ago we started painting rocks with the kids, and I'm like, oh my gosh, she is loving this and it was so relaxing for her. So I knew that locked up in her beautiful little heart was an artist just begging to be unleashed. Well,

now she's unleashed. So if somebody is hurting, or somebody has gone through a great tragedy, I can't imagine losing thirty friends, thirty four friends like you did, but losing a child, losing a spouse, losing a job, losing a marriage, or if somebody is just trying to get in touch with the creative person that they were in kindergarten, what would you say to that person? What? What would your

pearls of wisdom be? Well, you just mentioned that she can be found the rock painting relaxing, right, and not something that I hear a lot when we paint papers in my workshop. People say this is so relaxed, saying and fun. I could do this all day. I could do this all day. And I think that Um. That is therapeutic, you know, the process of of of you know,

playing with color, painting rocks, painting paper, something, um. Not stressing yourself out with details of making a meticulously realistic watercolor, right, but doing something that's just enjoyable. Maybe it's doodling or or like when we do in my class, we paint the paper. Um. It takes your mind off what is stressing you. When you were in that relaxing, therapeutic zone and you are focused on the art, You're focused on

what you're making and what's in front of you. You're not When you're focused on that, you're not thinking as much or maybe even at all, about what is what is bothering you, hurting your heart, or what you're what you're mourning, you know, and you can get a little a little break, You can take a little mental break from all that is is on your mind when you

can get involved in art. When I first found you and I told her I was going through and still I'm going through the grief of losing Zach and now my stepson Ryan. We've lost three boys in seven years. It's incredible. And the artwork didn't take my focus off of my son's but what it did was it gave me a creative way to express my love for my boys. It gave me a creative place to put all that love that is inside that I just can't get out.

I understand that I did a portrait of my best friend for her mom, and I used all this memorabilia, papers and stuff that I had collected in London, including two subway tickets and cork corks from wine bottles and candy bar rappers and and and made this portrait of her for her mom. And that was the same thing for me that it was me expressing my love for my best friend and and and giving it to her mom and telling her mom that I thought she was

amazing too. I think she's amazing too, you know, so, you know, sort of sharing that and the process of creating the portrait, I went through all the memories of the things that we did together, and it was healing. It really was healing. And I think when when I gave it to her mom, it was healing for her as well. And at the ten year anniversary of of the families of the victims of Pan m one oh three, I spoke in front of about four people and they put the slide of the collage of my roommate and

best friend up on the screen behind me. It was a little nerve racking, but it was pretty cool really, you know, to have it give yeah to just to to share it without many people, and to have it be a candy rapper from the candy bar she ate. Yeah, it was all those subway tickets that she held in her hands. Stuff from our pockets. Yeah, that's wonderful. So if somebody would like to to try their hand at eating paper, or try their hand at sketching, or try

their hand, how will they find? You make it easy for them. Unlike me who write, unlike you who had to figure out my signature. Well it's here. It's real easy because I'm all about paper and I do collage. So my website is paper Paintings dot com. Very simple, very simple. And if you if you put that in you find all all my stuff, you can go down that rabbit hole. You can go down that rabbit hole like I did. I've got all your books, I've watched

all your videos. I consume your little tutorial tidbits that you send out because they just inspire me. I just can't even It's like surreal that I'm sitting here with you, especially now that I know that you're not just a local DJ, and that you are telling me that you enjoy my YouTube videos like I love them. That's awesome, I love them, you know, it's it's These are the times,

well I've told you this before too. These are the times when because my parents didn't really want me to go to college for alart either, So these are the times when I want to send a post it note to my parents and say, remember when you didn't want me to go to college for art? And my my parents know who you are. I didn't know who you were but my parents, but your dad knows who Oh, my dad knows who you are. So you have basically

validated my entire life. So all, you've won all the none of the competitions, you've entered, the magazine covers, you've been on Pier One Imports, Reproductions, and yeah, that the aprons that have your artwork on them, and the bed sheets and the tea towels. Right, but that the Delilah been to your class. Dad, check it out. Here's a picture of me and Delilah and her project from my class. And he goes oh boy, you're famous. Now did you thank you for that? Did you tell him she actually

came and found me? Dad? I did, Yeah, I did that that. I love you. I love your art, but I love you, and I love that everybody that that you encounter you encourage. I do. I think that that's just a good thing. It's a good feeling, and who doesn't like a good feeling. You encourage people just by being true to yourself. You encourage people by being honest. You know, you're very transparent. You're not you, don't you know, hide behind this veneer if I'm perfect or I'm this,

or you're just you. And you encourage people by saying you can do this, you can do it. Try it, sure, try it. I'll help you try it. I mean, there are there are many things that you have said. I've heard you say that's not my skill set. You said, I can't do math. You and I are both on the same page, and I can't measure anything. Don't ask me to measure anything that's math. Which is really funny because like all your canvases are like the same dimensions.

Did you have somebody else to do that? Well, no, I bought those that way. But they were hanging them up with tricky. Hanging them up at the same white was tricky. I bet there's a lot of holes behind us. We won't tell anyone. We won't tell any Elizabeth. Thank you for being with us and our art for the heart conversation. Because you know Valentine's month, we celebrate the

whole month on the Delanta show. That's that's awesome. And I think you know what you should do and everybody should do, is make a handmade Valentine with whatever art materials, whatever art materials you have, whatever. Remember elementary school when we made the Valentine some red crayons. Break them up, put them between two pieces of wax paper, use your iron, iron them out, make a cut out little hearts. Just

make a Valentine. Enjoy the process of making that Valentine, and then maybe send it to someone that you care about, your child, your mother, your sister, or or your sweetheart. And you know what I'm gonna do. I'm going to make like five thousand. Well you better send me because you know I get obsessed with things. You better send me.

Start painting rocks. And I've got five thousand painted heart rocks in the house or whatever it is, well, I'm going to be expecting my heart rock and my wax paper contribution in the mail Elizabeth sat Hilaire and paper paintings plural dot com. Try some art for the heart in this new year. When was the last time you allowed yourself to be creative without worrying about how the

end product would be judged. If it's been a while, and especially if you're the kind that says to themselves and others, I'm not creative or I'm not artistic, then I want you to be brave enough to give creativity another chance. Go back in your mind to your early grade school days, when art, loving art was as natural as breathing to you. Draw some stick figures, Pick up some crayons and doodle. Grab a glue, stick, a magazine, a pair of scissors. Make a collage, still too scary.

Ring some rocks, pebbles, pine cones, or petals into a pattern outside. Grab a stick, make some swirls in the sand of the dirt, of the mud or the snow. Decorate a mud pie. I think you'll like it. And while nothing but time and space, faith and compassion will mean to broken heart, art can be and certainly is for me a salve of bomb, something that helps that healing process along. I hope your hearts are feeling uplifted and hopeful, and I wish you a very, very happy Valentine's