We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Krista Augius. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Krista below.
Krista, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
Life constantly throws you curve balls, or at least that has been my life experience. How you respond to these moments shows us how life can creatively shift in various directions based on the path that you choose. Taking risks for me has been choosing the non beaten path and being a seeker in exploring the world and other cultures and finding deeper means of self discovery, healing and expression.
A big shift in my life happened when a dear loved one closest to me disappeared and who I discovered was murdered a year later. It was absolutely shocking and life just did not seem the same to me anymore. My bleeding heart and soul yearned for deeper answers to the questions running through me. So I left my first job out of school along with my significant school debt, packed my bags and headed for India to explore the ancient wisdom of the east and to find that which could hopefully fill my aching soul. I packed some art supplies, some basic needs in my back pack and off I went, the big leap across the world from my home in Los Angeles.
My trip to the east although now filled with colorful great memories was hard. It was before internet searches or social media postings in the time of travel guide books. Pay phones were still a thing and the infrastructure of roads were ages behind the western world. It was a hit the ground, explore and follow your nose kind of journey that unraveled mysteries of philosophy, meditation, yoga, astrology, divination, havoc, danger and well more growing up lessons.
I studied yoga, meditation and the native Indian way of healing called Ayurveda at the beginning of my journey. Getting into the body and mind with new approaches to health and healing from an ancient source was a good anchor. Meanwhile, I painted my inspiration and spent time with myself healing my wounds. Art became my best friend, it listened to me and gave me unlimited permission to express my conscious and subconscious emotions with a new palette of indian colors and surrounding inspiration. After a few months, I traveled south where I rented a little Portuguese house by the sea and spent time amongst philosophers, yogis and healers while I painted and exhibited my work.
I stayed in India closer to a year’s time and was called back to my life and re-entry into what once was. This leap across the ocean, exploring, taking the time to heal and create from the depths of my soul gave my personal and experiential wisdom. It carved the path for deeper studies in art and healing that stem from the center source of being aligned with your mind body and spirit as in meditation. The trauma and recovery that I experienced set me on the path to be a source to help others align themselves and transform. I started my own businesses, ONA VEDA, where I offer therapy, courses and retreats to help others along in their journeys and my brand Krista Augius Art for my artistic creations.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have always been a hard worker and over achiever. I push myself to be the best version of myself. It is a trait that I learned from my family who came to the United States from Lithuania because of World War II in order to escape the persecution by the russians at that time. My grandparents and my parents were forced to leave everything behind and came with practically nothing. They were artists and educated professionals who started over and followed the American dream to build their lives for a brighter future, which they did.
Education was the encouraged and supported path. I naturally loved learning and I excelled in school. Sports offered a great competitive edge and I even still hold the high school record for the 300m hurdles. I studied Biology and then received my doctoral graduate degree in physiotherapy from the University of Southern California. Art was always my passion and a constant throughout my life path. One of my first memories was of carrying around a doodle book filled with my drawings. I didn’t seriously considered art as a profession until I was done with school and actually had some free time to dive deeper. I have walked along this blended path of the arts and sciences that for me holds a magical space of life and its expression.
I studied the Mische painting technique in Spain with masterful artists Robert Venosa and Martina Hoffman in the hometown of Salvador Dalí. It was an exceptional time where I truly invoked the spirit of being an artist. My journey continued on an intertwining and interweaving path of the healing arts and establishing my brand of Krista Augius Art. My art has been featured in movies like Iron Man 3 and Fast and Furious 7, TV series, national and international art exhibits like the prestigious LA Art Show and museum shows like the MAAAC Museum in Italy. I even had the opportunity to create a bronze sculpture commission for musician Joe Walsh with a renowned artist Yossi Govrin that was a spectacular experience. This summer I exhibited my work at the Samogitian Museum in Lithuania where my art became a part of the museum’s permanent collection.
As for the healing arts, my skills as a healer and facilitator also rely on being acutely present with people to integrate knowledge with intuition. With a strong foundation in western science, I have also studied and apply holistic approaches to healing with osteopathic techniques like Craniosacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation, Reiki, Pranic healing, Shamanism, Kundalini yoga and meditation and Dzogchen meditation. Besides being a clinician I am also an intuitive healer, I read people and their energy and I can sense and feel how people store their traumas, emotions and stress in their bodies. It is an interesting correlation and presentation of how the systems of the body like the musculoskeletal system and the body’s energy systems are intertwined. It is truly an art. In my years of experience, I have worked with people resolving chronic pain from clearing deeper underlying structural, mechanical and emotional sources. I have also worked with people for transformational growth in training the mind with meditation to address trauma recovery, goal attainment or performance issues with clients ranging from people with chronic pain, competitive athletes to corporate leaders. From my years of experience, I developed ONA VEDA’s Center Me course series that offers guided centering techniques for the mind, body and energy systems. ONA VEDA also offers retreat experiences to dive deeper into the practice and art of aligning with the power of being centered.
Before I start a new art piece, help someone heal, make a life decision or find myself in a challenge, I clear myself and meditate. ONA VEDA’s Center Me courses were created from my experiences with meditation that have helped me and my clients tune into the breath, body and energy to center in order to channel and express the energy that wants to come through. Meditation is a practice that has elevated my consciousness. My world travels and time with various teachers and meditation practices have instilled a deep rooted place in me of connection that is unwavering. I have experienced deep stillness and powerful energy while meditating with a Tibetan monk who guided me to go deeper within myself. My personal experience with Kundalini Yoga as well as Meditation teacher training have been intense and powerful experiences of clearing out the cobwebs of the psyche and stored body memories to allow for my energy to shine and transform. Meditation can be like the feeling of sitting at the bottom of the peaceful ocean floor and being a witness to the waves at the surface. Our constant becomes our inner world that is not affected by the external comings and goings of energies that we can not control. It takes dedication and practice to be centered but the benefits are amazing. Being centered within allows for the external stimulus and triggers of life to fade back so that we can witness them for what they are and remain present within ourselves, our truth and our ability to manifest. It allows our true nature to shine and become more powerful as it is not attached or entangled with external influences.
It is from this space that my art creations have been born. My creations are usually either born from visions or creating works of expression from which I paint into and follow the flow of expression. My Flower Chandelier painting is an example of a painting that came from a vision. I was up in Topanga Canyon one evening and while looking out into the darkness of the night, I had a vision of this glowing chandelier with rose flowers instead of electric lights on it. This painting symbolizes the power of nature that gives light to us and attracts even the rarest butterflies from all over the world. An example of a creation from expression is a mythical abstract painting like Fiji that unraveled its powerful story to me as I painted. It captures a moment where I experienced the healing power of nature while swimming in the mystical waters of the Fijian islands. Still Point is a portrait capturing the moment of the meeting of the conscious and subconscious minds. My portraits are painted with the intention of capturing a moment in life while also anchoring a vision for the future. The Circles of Intention painting was created by painting the intention of a positive word out of a poll from the community and painting it into each of the 500 circles in the painting. This painting has a positive vibration of representing over 500 people and intentions of positivity. Art is its own meditation and the presence that you bring to a piece as you work on it fills it with intention as well as supports the patience to execute skilled elements.
It’s been a great journey. I know that the best place to exist, heal and create from is from the inside out. The depth of our center, with all of our emotions, physical, mental and energetic bodies are the real source of power and taking the risk to get there and truly be there is a great risk to take. I feel the reason that I have been so successful with my clients and my art is that I have dived deep into the emotion of what it is to be human and I have been dedicated to the path of my truth no matter how painful it was to uncover or face. The tools that I have to help people facilitate that journey are rooted in eastern and western science and the freedom of my creative expression is unbounded and aligned with my vulnerability to truly feel and express myself.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I have had to unlearn is to be timid about sharing my artwork. As a younger developing artist, I was shy about my pieces and held back displaying them. I had to unlearn that no matter what stage you are as an artist, your art has value and it is often your own self critique that is the limiting factor. Case in point is that even through I have a hand for detailed fine art and skill with my art creations, I equally value the rough and spontaneous art works that are so truthful and childlike. Both creative processes are beautiful and have a place in this world. What I would say to new artists is show up and keep showing up! There is an audience out there for your work.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding part of being an artist is the act of creating and entering into the magical space where the world of the unknown and the world of possibilities collide. The freedom of this space is like surfing a wave of energy and capturing moments of the beauty, feeling, sensation and texture and creating a personal language with how to communicate it. It’s spontaneous, intuitive and playful and when it can elevate another person’s experience when its shared, that is a sweet spot.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kristaaugius.com, www.onaveda.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristaaugiusart/, https://www.instagram.com/ona.veda/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krista-augius-0abba51/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ethereal-body-santa-monica
- Other: https://www.onaveda.com/digital-products-1-1
Image Credits
Flower Chandelier, Still Point, Fiji, Rose Love Affairs, Mystic Mountain Cloud, Red Rose Pyramids, Amethyst