We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Denise Chasin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Denise below.

Alright, Denise thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was young, I thought I would build my life around art. My parents, doing what they thought was best, made sure I knew that art was a hobby and not a career. They also made it clear that I had to go to a liberal arts college. Art school was out for me. Two of my closest friends at the time were heading off to Rhode Island School of Design and Parsons School of Design. ( Both did indeed create successful careers around their art). With all that being said, my journey took me to many other creative endeavors that did not involve canvas’ or paint brushes. No regrets of course. It was all as it was meant to be and here I am now recreating my professional art career that I always new I wanted.

It is never too late to pursue your dreams. There are many success stories of artists and other entrepreneurs that had their greatest success in that last chapter of their life. I intend to be one of them!

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.

Art was in my blood. I remember sitting for hours upon hours at an early age drawing, sketching, crafting. I could get lost for hours on a project. It was my peace of mind before I knew what peace of mind was! When I was very young I was really intrigued by pointillism …where you use tiny little dots to create an image. I can remember sitting for a whole day into the night creating a black and white panda bear using this technique. That is quite a lot for a young child to commit to.

Fast forward an entire life time, I am now gifted with the time, space and energy to revisit my art professionally. When I re-entered the artworld, I was mostly drawing flowers. I was selling my drawings and creating merchandise such as cards, pillows, coasters etc. I shifted away from this because my acrylics and canvases were calling me. When I was younger, I was a painter, oil paints back in the day. Needing to paint in our house, I decided acrylics would have to do. I went big to start, 2 paintings that were 4 feet by 6 feet which are both now part of the Stanford Children’s Hospital permanent collection.

I have not stopped painting since. When I began my subject was flowers. My inspiration came, not only from my love of nature, hiking in the woods, hunting wildflowers and being close to the ocean, but also from years of studying plant medicine in various forms. I felt a connection to the plants and flowers and felt I could express something ephemeral by painting them. Over time I was feeling a need to express something more than this. I felt a strong pull to express more of what I was feeling inside. As this feeling was growing, my painting started to shift into a more abstract expression of the flowers and then into fully abstract works.

At the moment, my paintings have had a lot of circular and spiral abstract forms that are portals or gateways into our own consciousness. With the bold use of color and transparency I am creating an enchanted experience of the vastness that opens the viewers’ awareness. While this is far removed from the paintings of the past several years, the influence of the flowers, their colors, their boldness and their transformative and enchanting nature are clearly present in these newer paintings. My work is still evolving, and I welcome any of you reading this to join me for the journey. These newer paintings are an invitation to enter into a transcendental experience and give the viewers a sense of their own empowerment.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Oh yes! Books have always been very important to me and have given me confidence as to what was possible. Although I do love stories, non fiction and biographies provided the greatest inspiration for me growing up and even now. I most definitely have a theme going as to which ones are top of my list. I will share here the top three. The first two were from my earlier life and the third a more recent acquisition!

The Lives of Beryl Markhman, Errol Trzebinski. Beryl Markhman was known as an adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She lived her life boldly. She accomplished things that woman in her day dare not accomplish. She was the first PERSON to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic but her flight went down before it reached land, I believe outside Nova Scotia and therefore was not recorded as a success. I admired her tenacity and her strength to do what she wanted to in her life. I read everything she wrote and several other biographies about her. There is also a film or video about her as well.

Portrait of an Artist, Georgia O’Keefe by Laurie Lisle. I still have my original copy, which is tattered with pages turned down, underlined, highlighted. What is interesting is that, while I certainly admired her art, it was her as a person that I was most interested in when I was young. It was only later in my life after a visit to her museum in Santa Fe that I really focused on her actual artwork.

Agnes Martin by Henry Miller. Agnes Martin’s art work is of course outstanding and mystical and an experience unto itself but Agnes herself is where the inspiration lies. It is quite interesting that a person that was considered mentally ill and a recluse would be so inspirational. There is one part of her story that stands out to me above all the rest. She was fully determined in this life to “know herself” and was willing to go to all possible lengths to do so. That was her only true mission in life. She was a brilliant mind that could express thoughts that were hard to articulate back then and even know. She was able to express them very methodically on canvas. Considering all of the fog and confusion she must have felt in her life, her writing and art was so clear.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The reason I relate to Agnes Martin is because of her desire to know herself. And she used her art as her vehicle to do so. I feel that mission is alive for me as well. Through this creative journey I hope that in finding something good within myself, others can find it in within themselves as well. In this last 1/3 of my life, it is my mission to use my creative gifts to their full potential.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.denisejoychasinart.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com\denisejoychasinart
• Facebook: www.facebook.com\denisejoychasinart
• Linkedin: denise joy chasin