Well I was always a little out there. My mom said that I would always do crafty and art projects my own way different than others and I would never follow the teacher’s instruction. HA! Maybe that’s why to this day I can’t stand art classes that you have to paint and draw like the teacher does. I did art projects at bible camps, Sunday school, girl scouts, and with my mom. My mom also bought me a sewing machine when I was 6 and we would sew side by side. When I did Elementary school art contest, I would always win first! The only real art instruction I had was when I was 8 years old and took an oil painting class. After my first class the teacher was blown away about what I created, she pulled my mom to the side and said that I had a real gift for art, that what I created in that picture and how I used the paint, it takes students years to accomplish that technique. I was only able to take a few oil painting classes until my dad got electrocuted. He totally died and went to Heaven, was dead for 22 minutes and was a total miracle! That was it for art till 11th grade in High school when I took multimedia and took a high school art class, which brought so much love to my life. Sadly softball and volleyball always trumped my art elective. My senior year I was the photographer for the newspaper and yearbook and also inherited my PawPaw’s darkroom and medium format camera. I had some fun with that. I also finally left those mean girls alone and started the path of whom I was meant to be. I hid my talents most of my life because they made me so different and i just wanted to fit in. I saw the world different. I saw something in everything. I saw the beauty everywhere I looked. It’s been tough to navigate. It’s confusing to decide on the one thing to focus on, still 40 years later. So i decided what makes me truly happy is to do a bit of everything. I LOVE BEING REAL, HONEST, CREATIVE, and a BUILDER! After high school I got a graphic design degree and worked in publishing, laying out magazines in New Orleans. I also took fine art classes at Delgado and UNO. After years of that I decided I wanted to be free and not stuck behind a computer all day, so in 2003 I started on a BA in Art from Nicholls. Actually I was like, ahhhhhhh, what am i gonna do? It was August and Nicholls said I couldn’t take any more art classes until I took English and math; which I was deathly afraid of, so I trashed the thought of college. Until December came and I received a pamphlet in the mail saying I could go to college for free and would get paid a monthly siphon because my dad had just received his 100% disability for his PTSD from Vietnam, but I had to enroll before I turned 25 years old which was three months away. So I took it as the sign I had been praying for. In college I was unstoppable, when I wasn’t studying I was in the studios making stuff, I was the leader of my art fraternity, graduated with the highest art award given even though my last year I struggled with migraines and being around chemicals: Tis the reason my studio & life is toxic free! I was the senior graphic designer for the newspaper and yearbook while I was in college, I taught art classes for the Houma Regional Art Council, and led many art shows as a curator and performance artist! It was such a beautiful journey, I miss Nicholls so much, those art studios are a treasure, and I try to visit at least once a year. I moved to the Bywater Art Lofts in New Orleans in 2007 and played a big role in the Colton Project where about 200 artists took over a post-Katrina school in the Bywater. We fixed it up and changed the world. We hosted after school art classes for the 9th Ward kids, bused in kids from all over to have an art day, and had many art openings. We would have really changed the city with that place, it was a dream, so amazing, and then they kicked us out and rebuilt it. It’s a nice charter school now. I was in many group shows and had a couple of solo shows on Julia St. at the Canary Gallery. Life was great. Then in 2009 I got pregnant, was totally alone, crazy, poor, my world just fell apart, but I had this incredible life growing inside me that saved me whom I call Luca, Bringer of my Light. My body was not ready to carry a child. I struggled with a lot of migraines, depression, neck and back pain. It’s taken about 8 years to let go of the emotional and physical pain and get my life and art back on track. But you know what, I’m coming back hard and all those dreams I had and all those things I ever wanted, I am making them happen now. The past is the past, whatever, make every second count now! I was stuck for such a long time. Ugh, that pain has strengthened me and has made me who I am inside and out. I am grateful for all of it. I named my business Freedom because Freedom is what I have sought out after since I was 18 years old and now I have finally arrived. It feels great and I can’t wait to inspire the world to find it. My ultimate vision has always been to have an artist residency program for artists who struggle with addictions, pain, confusion, and abuse. I want to teach them how to live a healthy artist life through diet, meditation, gardening, cooking, dancing, yoga, group therapy, and God; while have them teach community art classes in our amazing studios. What’s awesome is that I had this dream that I had an art box on wheels and I would go to the different parts of the cites, rich and poor, and call out people from their houses, young and old, and create art with them. Then my cousin Massie gave me a journal a week later and I made her write something to me in there and she literally wrote my dream and in her version of “if Heidi was a piece of Art,” the art box had spinning lights and we all danced. I just feel that God did his confirmation thing. So I’m pumped and so grateful for this life on this beautiful planet. God Bless us all and everyone who steps in our Light! Dream Big!