Today we’d like to introduce you to Debbie Lewis.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
How does one begin to talk about themselves? Well, that’s easy when you are a creative. Let’s begin with my very first creative experience, drama in High School which I used to escape my dysfunctional family, I was going to become a tortured actress. Instead, I became the afternoon special and got pregnant at 17.
I went on to have six children and two stepchildren, along with nine grandchildren, who are an integral part of my creative journey. In the last 64 years, I have sung in a jazz band, decorated numerous homes, invented tons of Halloween costumes, decorated a lot of Christmas trees, etc… All of this while constantly battling depression and anxiety, a constant struggle in my life that we could not find answers for. In September of 1978, I suffered a major stroke. Damaging the right frontal lobe of my brain, my creative side. I went into the hospital with slurred speech and not knowing what day it was and I was only 58. I spent several days in the hospital but I was blessed enough to walk out on my own, speaking and able to wipe my own bottom when I went to the bathroom. The next year I spent on my couch with my dog trying to figure out how to get my life back together. My family said I wasn’t the same, I was not allowed on the internet because I ended up buying things we already had or applying to scam jobs.
I fell into a dark depression which is quite normal for a stroke victim and I also started to have seizures, also a side effect of strokes. I really didn’t want to go through life like this as I felt so broken but my daughter suggested that I start going to BACKSTREET Community Arts, which is our local nonprofit that exists to provide a safe, welcoming, creative environment to anyone who may benefit from the healing powers of art and community. I have to be honest and say I thought about it for weeks before I had the courage to actually go. When I went, everyone was nice and had me working on a project right away. It was a multimedia art project which engaged my brain and I found it took my mind off my stinky thinking. So I went back again and always found myself doing 3-dimensional projects because I just couldn’t see myself as a painter. But Faith, one of the volunteers there challenged me to take a painting class, so I did and I have been painting in acrylics ever since. Their philosophy is “Art saves Lives” and it did save mine. I have painted every day since and every day, I get better. I have become a prolific painter at 64 with a damaged brain and seizures so all things are possible. My love for creation has grown so much that now my husband makes beautiful wood pieces that are amazing because I believe that creating is contagious and brings joy.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Nothing is ever smooth but that’s okay as it’s in the struggles that refine us. As I mentioned before I am a stroke survivor which destroyed the right side of my brain so now, I suffer from mild epilepsy, and that can make detailed painting difficult but that very thing is also healing. I just take breaks and push through.
I also suffer from debilitating anxiety, the kind of anxiety that keeps me in my head and home. It has been worse since my stroke and we are having a hard time finding the right medication to qualm the fears. Because I had a son die at six years old in such a random way, he slipped and fell off a 3-meter diving board, landing on the concrete, dying three days later from a head injury. So hence, my anxiety centers around someone I love dying or being hurt, basically everything is out of my control. And in today’s world, it’s enough to really make you crazy. So having this type of anxiety makes it hard to go out publicly and show my art. But at the same time, painting has been the only thing that gets me out of my head and feels better.
Also, I am now on disability which gives me more time to paint but limited funds for painting supplies, that is why I like selling some of my paintings. You can only make a certain amount of money while on disability.
And as Kelly Clarkson claims, my truth.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I like to paint series I find topics and then I do several of the same topics. Honestly, I have just started so I hope to become known for something and that this article will help me do that. I am proud of my orange glasses series and the pictures I have done of my children, especially the portrait of my son Tony, who died when he was six. What sets me apart is that my brain isn’t perfect and I kind of let that stay in my work, so you won’t get a picture-perfect painting as it will look like someone really painted it.
How do you think about luck?
Let’s discuss a different perspective on luck? In 1988 my youngest son, Tony died falling off of a diving board. He was six years old. I coped with his death by drinking alcohol a lot, that you would say was bad luck… my mother insisted that I start going to AA with her if I was going to continue to live in her house, she had been sober for years. I decided to go and it ended up being a good decision. Good luck perhaps? Six months later I met a really good man named Jim, three months later we were married, and we have stayed together for 35 years with two beautiful daughters… now that’s great luck, right?
Our time together has been one fun adventure after another that has always had us land on our feet. More good luck, I have always grown from what I have learned and now as a painter over 60, I have realized that if you don’t reach out and try to do some of those things you are good at, well you never will and you never have to worry about what others think about you because who in the hell cares?
Finally, I felt it was good luck that I got asked to do this article because I don’t know how in the hell y’all found me but I am so grateful you did. I really hope luck stays on my side!!!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Instagram.com/painterafter60
- Facebook: Facebook.com/painterafter60
Image Credits
Debbie Lewis Jim Lewis
