By Tracey Yao

I started painting when I was a toddler.  I grew up in humble surroundings. My father was studying overseas, my mother went to night school and my grandfather who had Alzheimer’s was the only person home during the evenings.  During the evenings I used to paint and make up stories about what I was painting to entertain myself.  I continued painting in my teens.  I was not afraid of new challenges, and I never cared what others thought.  My mother was a preschool teacher at the time.  I would draw characters for her music sheets, make and paint stage props for her school productions, and even created elaborate Christmas floats.  When I became an adult I painted less and less.  Part of this was because I had less spare time, but a lot of it was due to the fact that I started to care what people thought.  The fear of failure stopped me from even starting to paint.  Over time not only did I stop getting better at painting, I started to regress as a painter.  Recently I started to paint more regularly, not caring about the outcome and just using painting as a form of meditation.  I don’t create any masterpieces, but I love the process.  Finally my fear of failure wasn’t stopping me from trying new things.  I love the freedom and fun this new attitude has unlocked for me.  Now I just need to apply this to other parts of life too :)

- Tracey