20 Questions Interview
with Dawn Kotzer

Artist, Life Coach, Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach

1. What's your name?

Dawn Kotzer.

2a. Where are you from?

I'm from Saskatchewan, Canada…specifically, the open landscape.

2b. Where are you today?

Nestled between the Boreal Forest and the edge of Tobin Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada.

3. Who are you today?

I am more ME than ever before and loving it...even on a bad day!

4. What do you do? (Elevator speech)

Be Real — Find Freedom…I hold the flashlight for others as they discover their own gentle, playful, doable ways to get through Self-Sabotage, past the fear and anxiety that comes when you don't show up for your Self in your own life. I listen.

5. What's your story (how did you get here)?

My family is wildly creative in diverse and dynamic ways and just a tad dysfunctional…From a very early age I felt uncomfortable…like I didn't quite fit in. That's most likely because I didn't. Having way too many choices of what I could do if I set put my mind to it, and feeling supremely rebellious, I sidestepped all external argument and got married…way too young. [I know…so much for the rebellion.]

At least the only critic I then had to listen to was inside my own head. If I kept busy enough, I could drown out that voice. I became very good at it.

When my job didn't keep me busy enough, I opened my first business…I was 24, had an almost 2-year-old child and was looking for a way out of the house, out of my relationship, out of my life — except that to do so, would put me in peril of total social rejection.

Yikes.

Obviously, opening a business was the perfect solution…and it was for a time. My floral store was a great success from day one…it thrived, I thrived unless you asked me if I was happy… Finally, I realized that outside success didn't quite do the trick and it was time to leave my marriage.

Ahhh…one thing I didn't factor in was the possibility that I would be leaving without my 8-year-old son…Long story short, it was incredibly painful, suck-the-breath-right-out-of-your-chest trauma, scary and lonely as hell.

It was a rock and roll journey I never want to take again but honestly, it was the first hint of the real DAWN. It was also the foundation of a beautiful relationship between a wise young son and a woman who discovered the true meaning of nurturing, intuitive mother-love. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I sold my business and took a few years to try this and that, traveling here and there to figure out what i wanted and, more importantly, didn't want.

Eventually landing in almost wilderness Saskatchewan, I built a wildcrafting Design company, selling my creations across Canada at juried art shows. To make sure I didn't get bored I kept busy as a small business mentor/coach and Floral Design Instructor.

Adding to the mix, I joined forces with my new man and set up a Field Scale Certified Organic Farm operation. My role included accounting and doing field work, specifically cultivation. Learning how to drive a 340hp tractor while pulling a 60' wide cultivator was a little scary; I grew to love the job.

Hours spent alone in the middle of a large 1/2 mile square field became my time to watch nature from a new vantage point. I have to say driving my tractor, cutting straight furrows through rich, glorious topsoil, until rounding the corner in a 1/2 or full turn — felt a lot like synchronized 'dirt' ballet.

This past year we've decided to move on from farming. In between visits from my wee grand ones, I Get To coach {creativity, life and wellness}, write and do art from our almost wilderness home.

6. Why is creativity important to you?

Creativity is not something I do. It is the way I live and breathe and think and act. I even rant creatively. It is my connection to clarity. Creativity is my source of equilibrium.

7. When did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?

I think I was 4 or 5. I loved to fill scraps of material with dandelion petals. I would then take them to the adults, ask them to close their eyes and inhale…"Do you like it?" It always made them smile. For the life of me, I could never understand why they weren't doing this as well.

8. How did you embrace it?

Mostly alone. Quiet. Curious. Then I shared it with others.

9. How did that feel?

Calm. Curious. Happy. Refueled, Strong….and safe. Being creative made me feel safe.

10. Where has your journey taken you?

Floral Design Businesses, Design Instruction, Financial Success, Financial skills [There's an amazingly creative flow to learning how money works], Forest Floor Found Design and Art Company, Field Scale Organic Farming, Writing, Coaching, Teaching, grandparenting.

Continue to Interview page 2 »