Education/Teaching continued...

• I was an Associate Professor at the University of Lethbridge in the Fine Arts Department, New Media Program. I taught 4 courses to full time and part time students.

• I worked at the University of Calgary Faculty of Education, in the graduate program division for the Graduate Research Division of Education and Applied Psychology. I rebranded their programs, redesigned their websites, and advertising, and marketed their for-profit classes and programs. 

• I would love to teach workshops or classes on Introduction to Metaphysical Literature in the Modern Era, healing, bodywork, acting from Source, and learning to feel and interpret energy, and Singing with the Chakras.

Bodywork & Healing Facilitation

• After returning to Vancouver from Calgary, I was having a hard time finding employment. A friend suggested that I get a job as a massage and energy work practitioner. I had taken adult education classes out of a fascination with bodywork and healing therapies. I had never considered doing the work on others, so I didn't pursue a certificate. 

• I tried, and doors to employment opportunities opened and welcomed me. I discovered how much I knew about bodywork, energy work and healing, having worked on healing myself the previous 20 years, and in fact, even my fine art practice and research focussed upon Socio-Cultural Discourses and the Body. I was reminded of my desire as a child to help heal others. 

• The next three years, I worked for a couple of alternative health clinics, and managed my own practice. It awakened in me a profound, heartfelt caring, for the bodies, minds and souls of others. It gave me an outlet to connect with others in a healing and nurturing way, and into which I could channel my energy into helping others, directly, which had been missing from my other careers.

• I knew if I were to continue on this path, I must either work for a company or create one that brought together all of my true passions and talents. From a diverse array of influences, studies and innate interests, Mindful Living Solutions was born. I would do bodywork therapy, relaxation therapy, and lead meditation classes. 

• The creative process I had taught for many years I believe is nearly identical to the healing process. I want to teach others to facilitate their own healing, through developing a creative, self-reflective process like the one involved in art making. 

• Creating an environment of serenity and beauty, on a very limited budget, was a joy, and learning to make each customer feel important and special was part of the wholistic experience. 

Marketing Communications & Graphic Design

In the same year that I started university, I got a job as a layout artist for a printing company. It was one of the first businesses in town to implement the new Apple digital publishing software.
​I have been using Adobe Creative products since they were introduced. 

• I paid for university classes working as a graphic designer and layout artist, working for the student newspaper.

• I was a graphic designer for Flora Manufacturing and Distributing, a natural health company

• I started my own company after working for Flora and specialized in designing for natural health companies. I have worked with many of the major natural health manufacturers in Canada and the U.S. 

• I have developed a unique symbolic and metaphorical approach to designing for alternative health companies, to keep it fresh and avoiding steriotypes.

• I enjoy the challenge of doing the marketing, communications and design for a bodywork and spiritual self-development company. I enjoy directing and managing my own or someone else's business, while utilizing the power of the web to make connections with with people who wished to come together and grow together. 

• I have developed all of my creative and graphic design related skills including: creative strategy development, branding, layout, magazine design, illustration, photoediting, copywriting, direct-marketing writing, magazine writing. You can see examples in my portfolio.

• My marketing communications knowledge was gained while teaching in the Marketing Communications Program at BCIT. In order to teach graphic design to marketing students, I needed to read their text books, and I also used many others when researching design projects or coming up with new lectures on applied design for marketing. 

• Through working with the other instructors and doing group projects, I gained a new career and skill set, and a methodology of working to make successful campaigns as a graphic designer.

• I look at graphic design as a strategic communications tool, for marketing products and services. It must reach and appeal to the intended audience and communicate the message immediately.

• I taught a course called Web Design for Direct-Marketing, and in this class I examined  all the techniques to gain and maintain prospective clients, and close the sale.

• Being able to reach a global community through marketing, communications and design has always been one of my major goals.