About Celeste
Growing up the youngest of three children in a skilled, artistic, working class family in North York, Ontario during WWII, I inherited a down-to-earth work ethic, a lively curiosity, and an intuitive spiritual connection to Nature. These gifts helped me to balance the traumatic experiences of life, and helped me not only to survive, but ultimately to thrive.
My first art study was with William Withrow of the Art Gallery of Ontario. All who were committed, authentic, absolutely unphoney, were my teachers. Without sentimentality, they encouraged me, insisted that what I was seeking I had to find myself, in myself.
I taught elementary school both in Toronto and at the Munich International School. After 13 years of teaching academics, art and music, I eventually found myself working as a graphic illustrator in Germany before coming with my husband to live on Pender Island B.C. in 1980.
Although my husband retired, I found myself restless. I started painting. I had always known I wanted to be an artist, and here on Pender, I was able to nurture that destiny.
The journey to get where I am now, includes many lessons “ both tumultuous and humbling as well as joyous. I have studied many things, and have had many experiences that have taught me more and more about life and our interconnectedness, as well as what my role is in being here.
I was always the kid who longed for a pony for every birthday. Of course I never got one, but I never stopped hoping. When life gave me trouble, I would dig and dig, reasoning that with all this horse manure there was bound to be a pony in here somewhere.
It was not until recently, in my sixth decade, that I started to realize that I’ve actually uncovered many ponies. We all have ponies inside, and the ones we long for are wild and free. If we compromise and allow our ponies to be tamed, we give away our essential gift, our free spirit.
Awakening my own Creator within unveils my true nature continually. My passion lies in knowing, without a doubt, that everyone and everything holds a beauty at its core. It is a privilege and honour to work with people to discover, uncover, and recover their wild artistic potential.
More than the formal education, it is life’s encounters and adventures that have had the most lasting influence on my life:
In my 20s, I went canoe trip camping in Northern Ontario, where I encountered wolves, bear, and deer aplenty, and felt at one with pristine Nature.
In my 30s, I overcame my life long fear of water by learning to scuba dive in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and the Indian Ocean.
In my 40s, I learned to sail in the English Channel and to ski in the Alps.
In my 50s, I took up competitive cycling, and was 97 BC Senior Champion road racer.
In my 60s, I delighted in helping people to awaken the Creator within as a healing process, as well as painting, making environmental art, writing, and caring for my aging husband with Alzheimer’s, dogs, and garden, on Pender Island , B.C., Canada.
Now in my 70’s, having seen my husband placed in wonderful permanent home care, I realize that I haven’t had time to paint at all for the past year. So now I am trusting my heart and following all the advice I’ve given you in all my Fresh Horses newsletters, and slowly closing down my business. I will make art again and much more. The final Fresh Horses tells all about it in
“Stumbling on Happiness*.
Threaded through all my experiences, I have always been a practicing artist at heart, seeking the essence, meaning, and connectedness of everything in the World. This call, first heard as an infant, is now guiding me much stronger to connect and reflect back through the senses in gratitude to the Divine Source.
Celeste Varley
Heartsong Studio
Discover, uncover, & recover
your wild creative potential.