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2012 Twenty Questions Interviews : Cherie Roe Dirksen
20 Questions Interview with Cherie Roe DirksenSelf-Empowerment Author, Multi-Media Artist
![]() 1. What's your name? Cherie Roe Dirksen. 2. Where are you from? Cape Town, South Africa. 3. Who are you today? A caffeine-induced, work-overloaded writer. 4. What do you do? (Elevator speech) I am a self-empowerment author and multi-media artist (including musical composer and painter/mixed mediums). 5. What's your story (how did you get here)? Ha! I’m going to try and go for the condensed version of this very long-winded story. I was always good at art in school and went on to become a qualified interior designer but that wasn’t meant to be. The rock chick in me decided that bass playing was the road to take and since I left school, I had been in a few bands up until about 2001. I then moved to the UK for 3 years and rekindled my love to paint and started selling my stuff online. I came back to SA and continued to paint full-time. Then I got a brilliant idea to write a book in 2010. Since then I got into the writing side of my creativity and the spiritual path I was on started to come to light. I am now juggling the writing, composing and art. I try to merge it into one source of creativity at my site — I come out with a weekly art blog and a weekly self-empowerment blog there. 6. Why is creativity important to you? Well, without creativity what are we? Think outside the box of what has been and can be done. My motto is to keep pushing the boundaries of your own creativity — the idea of expanding your reality and perspective really excites me. Complacency or being comfortable with what you do and staying there for the sake of comfort is tantamount to dying for me, you may as well be an artistic zombie. I can’t not create, that would be like asking me not to breathe. So I guess the answer is simply: survival. And you can take that any way you want — monetary survival, soul survival, sanity (or lack of) survival... 7. When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill? There could be 2 answers to this, a kind of a birth and then rebirth. You could say I popped out the womb with a paint-brush, art has always been a big part of my life and very much in the forefront of my childhood. But I would say that I had my true ‘calling’ or perhaps clarion call was when I had my spiritual awakening experience in 2010 — that was when I truly started to question what I was doing and how I could make a difference. 8. How did you embrace it? Years of retrospection. It has taken me a long time to come to a place where I feel comfortable with who I am and what I have to offer. I would say that it has taken me somewhat of 10 years just to get to this point. Feeling like I know my medium and my message. I embrace this gift now by painting or writing from my place of integrity and not really giving a hoot about what other people think of me. I’ve always loved abstract but have been good at realism, so I needed to merge the two and also come to a place where I felt it OK to embrace the contemporary part of who I am. 9. How did that feel? Liberating. I truly had my ‘a-ha’ moment with this and discovering that I just am what I am — nothing more, nothing less. I have allowed myself so much more freedom than I ever thought possible. 10. Where has your journey taken you? Down diarrhea creek and up the slippery slope of a fantastically fun roller-coaster ride. I actually feel like I have done the leg-work and I am now reaping the rewards of my labours. Kind of like finally getting that energetic exchange that has eluded me for many years. 11. What challenges have you faced? My biggest obstacle was self-worth. I knew that I had the talent and the physical capabilities to paint, write, etc. but the one thing that kept on tripping me up was belief in myself and what was possible. I also have a timid side to me that just wanted to shy away from the big wide world but now I have to take the bull by the balls (or is it horns?). 12. What worked for you? Constant questioning of my truth and what it was that I wanted to accomplish. How is this affecting me and the world? It is good to keep on questioning why you are doing something and find real purpose for what you are doing. This keeps the spark ignited. 13. What didn't work for you? Trying to conform to what I thought ‘the public’ wanted. Being what I am not — painting things that didn’t excite me in the slightest just because it sold well. 14. What three tips can you share with those starting on a similar path? Paint what YOU want to paint — what excites you. Step into your own truth, what have you got to offer the world that is unique? You can find this simply by meditating on who you are, what you are about, what genre can you comfortably fit into without losing your integrity and then expand on that. Be different, add your uniqueness and don’t be afraid to show who you really are. So simply put:
Just remember, most people want an original not a copy. 15. What are you working on now? Something called ‘Rock Art’. I am blogging about the whole experience. You can read more here. 16. What's coming up for you in the next year? I have no idea and that’s how I like it. I am constantly being thrilled by things popping up from unexpected sources. However, I am hoping to have my Rock Art series completed within the next 12 months and I am planning to do an exhibition in and around the Cape Town area. 17. What else do you desire/dream to do? I want my own TV show, nothing elaborate, just a worldwide platform to spread my mayhem over. 18. How will you make that happen? I am starting to do vlogs (video blogs) and hope to do a complete series called ‘Finding Beauty in Chaos’ which was an art series I started painting a while back. I am now merging it with the self-empowerment side of things and taking that onto the audio-visual playing field. We’ll see what happens. 19. What question would you like to be asked (or are just itching to answer) that's not on this list? What is your favourite colour? None of your business. 20. What's your Web site address? 7/30/12 |