Featured Artist
July  2008

The Silence of Sophia

Faith Dyson
President of OAG

My story as an artist is more simple than most. I can't call myself a self-taught artist as others do and I had no formal training to boast of. My mother said I became an artist as soon as I was old enough to hold a crayon. Everything I do is a pure Gift. It's like Magic.

I have no process by which I work and I don't think I want one. The Unknown that turns into The Known without any effort on my part is too fantastic to give up. All I do is sit down, mostly with colored pencils though graphite was my first love, and I stare at the paper until I begin to see the picture already on it.

When I can see that, then I know the picture is a "Done Deal", a "Fait(h) Accompli"; all I do is "trace" what I "see" on the blank sheet of paper - without any other picture. I feel like a midwife of sorts just catching the baby. If I was writing a story this way, (and I do write this way), I could call what I do "Automatic Writing", but since pictures are drawn instead, I'll just call it "Automatic Drawing". Another good name for it would be a Miracle, because if I have none of this Inspiration going on, then I can't draw or paint at all! The times I've tried to create a plan of attack have always ended in failure. I have to just let things happen "as they will", or they don't happen at all. So, I guess you could say I create by Faith!

I really can't take any credit at all for the artwork. It just flows through me.... I don't know how and at the present time in my life - I don't care how - anymore. I'm just thrilled it still does it after all these years. It really is an Eternal Fountain.

I'm just your regular person who is originally from the Md./Va./D.C. area who has moved and lived all over the country. I ended up in OKC on the same wind of inspiration. I wish I could say I soaked up all of the culture along the way, but during those moves I was busy using this same Faith to recover my twin sons from Autism and my daughter from Learning Disabilities. It worked the same miraculous way on them too. It's the only way I could figure
out how to allow us all to be 100% "Originals".