Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cherie Harte. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cherie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I am in a lifelong love affair with learning, exploring, growing and creating.

Creativity for me is a way of life. It is in everything I do. From how I approach my day-to-day living. my relationships, my parenting, cooking, and of course my art.

I would definitely say I am an experiential learner. I learn by doing. The studio is my playground for throwing rules out the window and getting lost in hands-on learning. Approaching so-called mistakes as an opportunity for reflection and growth is one of the key ingredients of my work.

I learn a lot about myself and my way of being in the world when I am faced with painting that is not coming together, or I have taken it too far, or distractions offer me an escape route. What I do in these moments, how I react and interact, is very truth-telling.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

In 2013 I began painting regularly at ArtEmbassy, an art studio/gallery in Toronto, run by gallery owner Julie McMeekin. A few years into my journey McMekkin suggested an exhibition and we mounted the first solo exhibit of my work at ArtEmbassy in 2016.

Forever a creative, I drew tons as a child and later taught children’s art/crafts classes at local schools, while staying home with my own two young children.

In 2012 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and my world was turned upside down. At the time my marriage was also falling apart and shortly after ended in divorce. A very dear friend invited me along to an oil paint workshop with her. Initially, I said no but a loud whisper within me told me it was exactly what I needed. To simply paint, create, and be surrounded by other creatives.

Since my early exhibits, my work has shifted from abstract portraiture to an abstracted but very childlike “heart being”.
I have always activated and layered each canvas with journalling and doodling my wishes for the world. This process gets me totally out of my head and into my heart centre. It allows me to be fully present and attuned to what wants to come through me in the moment. It allows the painting to come from a source outside of me – an active meditation of sorts.

One day I was working at my desk and a huge beaming heart was staring back at me from my studio wall. Typically I would go back into the painting and add another layer, seeking a resolution, but I realized this was the resolution I was seeking.

I simultaneously loved and feared the work.

Was it too simple? Would viewers understand the depth and the greatly undervalued importance of Cy Twombly-esque child-like-mark-making?

Composition and colour aside would viewers understand what the piece was wanting to convey.

What if we individually and collectively embodied love, caring and compassion?

What would the world look like if we saw ourselves and encountered others as these walking, talking heart-beings?

What if I was the shape of love? What if you were the shape of love?

I knew the message was too important to ignore. I knew I had to set my fear aside and open the dialogue for us to chat about love, The modern messaging of love and the world we have created as humans.

There is no conversation more important.

At its core my work is about personal growth, transformation and all the love, magic and manifestation that go along with it. It is a journey of healing generational trauma, as a survivor of child abuse, and a Métis – mixed European woman who only learned of her Indigenous roots in her early 40’s.

“My work transports me to this magical place. A space where social constructs and labels dissolve and all that remains is the essence of love, vulnerability and deep abiding connection often felt in childhood. It is a place where my memory and life experience meet my inner child and all of me can come out to play. A place where I can dive in and explore love, unity and the power of transformative work. My deepest desire, my dream, my promise to myself, is to make the world a more inclusive and loving place. I believe love is contagious and creating art allows me to explore and amplify that love both in and out of the studio!”

Harte’s work is held in collections throughout Canada, USA, England, Australia, Korea, China and Japan.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Definitely! My mission is to be a better person daily and inspire others to be the best versions of themselves in this moment.

I wonder a lot about how the world and society came to be the way it is. To this end, I do a lot of reading and podcast listening about transformational work. I am always changing the energetics of the life experiences I am creating for myself.

Covid brought our inequality, and less talked about inequity, to the forefront. I believe it showed us we are such a young people who have not learned how to care for one another collectively.

My desire is to simply be more caring, compassionate, and loving toward myself and all others. My desire is to spark conversation about how we can create a more caring, compassionate, equitable world – as individuals and a collective.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I was born to two teenage parents. My Mother was 15 and my father 17. Both came from Catholic households and both were told that marriage and parenthood were their only options. Both quit school to work and continue the cycle of poverty and domestic abuse handed down to them.

My paternal Grandfather, from Nova Scotia Canada, was born to an unwed teen and was given up for adoption at birth. He was adopted by the Harte family as a future farmhand and fought in World War 2 as a young man. I don’t know a lot about his story because he refused to speak about it. But I witnessed how he carried those scars and as an adult, I now see how the impacts infiltrated our family life. Both contributed to wide-sweeping generational problems with mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence on my Father’s side. I believe my Grandfather at his core was a very loving man who was grossly failed by a colonial, patriarchal, capitalist systems.

I have also very recently learned that my maternal Grandparents were both Métis. Shame and fear for their own lives, and the lives of their children, meant keeping their Indigenous roots secret. Neither of my Maternal Grandparents spoke of our Indigenous roots (ever), residential school abuses, or what the process of colonization did to them or their families. All Indigenous ceremonies and teachings were outlawed from 1845-1951, and families were forcibly divided. Children were taken from their parents “in order to wipe the Indian right out of them.” and assimilate them into colonial culture. Learning this was pivotal to my understanding of the ongoing mental health, family break down, addiction and domestic abuse on my Mother’s side.

I love my parents, my siblings, my Aunties and my Uncles. I love my Grandparents, And I mean no disrespect but I can’t tell my story without sharing the history and the way colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism have negative impacts on my family and society at large.

As a young adult, I suffered from my own mental health challenges, not surprising given my history, and I was hospitalized for a long stretch due to numerous overdose attempts.

A latchkey kid, I would often be without a parent at home for weeks in elementary school. I would stay up waiting, afraid to go to sleep, and then stopped going to school. I was 12 at the time. No one noticed. No one cared. No one was home.

My sister and I were no strangers to children’s aid, due to community concern, but fear of parental punishment and foster care kept me very quiet.

And the upside; no parents at home meant no domestic violence.

As a young child, I frequently witnessed my Mother being abused. emotionally, physically, and sexually. By my father and subsequently other men. I would often take my baby sister and lock us in the bathroom. We would sleep in the bathtub together until it was quiet and safe to come out.

I was told frequently by my parents that if they could do it all over I would not be here.

As an adult my parents, and many of my extended family, jumped shipped during my contentious divorce. They sided with my ex-husband in an attempt to remove my children from my care. I remain estranged from my family.

My story of resilience is simply still being here today.

Having cultivated beautifully imperfect relationships with my now-grown children,

I am now re-partnered to a man with two adult children. We have added a son to our blended family. He is the glue for our older children.

My resilience is illustrated through the very honest and vulnerable sharing of my story. It is found in the belief that until we can be honest, and do our individual healing work, we will continue to create a world of darkness.

My resilience is found every time I trust and open myself up to loving connection despite a generational history of abuse.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cherieharte.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheriehARTe_studio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/art.cherieharte/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherie-harte-38b814171/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/cherieharte
• Threads: cherieharte_studio

Image Credits
Greg Aspden