#sparkchamber 071425 — Daniel DeRebi
We love a good plot twist here at #sparkchamber, especially when the leading character ends up exactly where they belong. We have such a story today, starring artist Daniel DeRebi. The tale begins at university: “Although my schooling was in medicine undergraduate, for a few complicated reasons I couldn't pursue that at the time.” So Daniel changed his focus to advertising and graphic design, spending the next 20 years as a production coordinator and digital artist.
Something else was still tugging at his heart, though. “I wanted to do something that I always wanted, which was working with people.” Inspired by some work he did for the International Rescue Committee in the Sudan desert, he connected to his passion for working with people in distress, to bringing relief to the underserved, and those in need of help. The beginning of a dream coming true, Daniel became a social worker, finding fulfillment there. He now works for several agencies, providing multiple outlets of artistic expression: art therapy, helping seniors and individuals with autism and mental health challenges explore their feelings and process their emotions; one-to-one mentoring to achieve positive progress in academic or behavioral challenges associated with school and daily activities; and all-ages “paint and fun” groups, fun for family and friends. The fairytale ending when the path unfolds to reveal “my true childhood Identity. ARTIST.”
1.] Where do ideas come from?
My ideas and inspirations don’t always come to me right away. Often I sit in-front of the canvas and stare at the lifeless blank white canvas, until I get all fragmented emotions. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to sketch just what I have been through in my dream. In it, rules are not followed neither do they exist. It is like my soul is departing and leaving my body, travelling through a wall of mountains, crossing all the obstacles in the way. It reminds me of Lobsang Rampa’s philosophy. Every time we sleep, our soul separates itself and wanders throughout the universe to the unseen lands until it comes back to join the body to wake us up. I see all the colours swim on my blank canvas like a school of fish. It is like catching the most beautiful ones. Colours talk to me. My strokes of brushes decide, the calm, the nostalgia, the frustration and or the memory. Should they be crowded or overlapped to mirror the feeling [overwhelm], or distance to echo loneliness or introspection, or should the joy burst into bright colours. That is me. That is where it comes from. Other times, the nature plans it for me, in my walk of the trails and or the forest.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
NATURE commands me. I give each piece a name, as if I am giving voice to what nature says to me. When summer comes, I feel something is taken off from my shoulder to relieve me. I work on a piece that radiates freedom, as drifting petals. Like a butterfly that tests all the landing. When the winter comes, I feel like blanket of the north. Cozy, hushed winter that makes me feel paint with texture that feels like wool and silence. Spring and fall lead me to the unknown to the undiscovered trees, to the multi-colour flowers and bushes. At times I have a bad brush day as if the painting on the canvas is disagreeing. I get away from the canvas until the colours become all one happy family and invite me back. It is always a conversation between all the colours. At last the order comes and fulfill my imagination like the nature orders me.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
Canvas waits for me like a trusted friend. No judgment just presence, I have a habit of leaving a blank canvas on one easel in the space close to me. Painting gives me more energy than it takes. I may start tired only to end rejuvenated at the end of my sitting. Like I have just returned from a walk of my inner forest. I listen inwardly and when that whisper comes from the wind, the memory, trails or the MOOD, I JUST CAN'T IGNORE IT.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
There is always a quiet collaboration between my hand and the unseen. Not just choosing when to stop, but being chosen. The moment — the magical “now it’s done” — a silence that falls over the canvas, like it exhales. My brushes no longer reaching because the emotion has settled. A subtle shift in my feelings, nature has closed that chapter for me. It is overwhelming when I feel the sense of completeness. I can’t explain it. I only feel it is done. Complete. The story is Closed.