This book constitutes a first amendment speech REVIEW / COMMENTARY of our experience at this location. This REVIEW constitutes words and art photoshopped photography. It is NOT being sold because it is being offered FOR FREE @ www.GraceDivine.com since it's a REVIEW. The writers/creators of this REVIEW are NOT making any profits from the sale of this book. If you would like to read the review and see the art/photography go to www.GraceDivine.com I like to go places and to take photographs. In Spring of 2014, Steve and I traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, USA. This is considered "THE SOUTH" in the United States. It is a place filled with history and is the location where the US civil war commenced! It is also filled with churches, cemeteries and near old slave plantations. I like to take photographs that offer unique views of the world. In my photography, I like to inquire about the 'mysterious' in the everyday. I am interested in the LIGHT and the SHADOWS and the effects these have on human perception and memory. And I am attracted to images of things that intrigue me. I love it as well, when I am surprised afterward, to find things that I hadn't seen in the images before. After the photography is done, I further work on the images, allowing them to inspire me as I creatively digitize them. And when this is completed, I journal. I write down whatever insights, ideas, concepts and emotions, I gained from the entire experience. And the writings, you will find, are the writings that accompany each image. Please note, since these writings constitute a personal journal, I have taken the liberty to express them via a wide variety of literary genres. Some including poetry. Others include basic narrative and fact opinion. And still others making a serious attempt at comedic fare. In the end, I thoroughly enjoy this process, as throughout, I experience what I would refer to as a kind of awakening. Also, the process helps me to get in touch with feelings related to deep shadow parts within myself. This is awesome, since as I become more aware of them, I am able to release them. And this release, I have found, typically brings me inner healing and ultimately, more enjoyment of life. I earnestly hope that the images and writings here do the same for you. I hope these ideas awaken something inside you and that you will feel something new, and perhaps something even wondrous. Thank you
About the Author: I am a survivor who believes in the inexorable power of the human spirit. I am a believer who has seen through tragedy into the eye of the setting sun knowing that the morrow can bring a new and brighter day. I am a compassionate human being who empathizes with the suffering of others and wants to be there for them. And I do this by writing transformational stories and creating art filled with characters and images that are imbued with passion and love. I was born in California. At five I was abducted in the trunk of a car. I only saw my mother a few times after that. I was moved from place to place as a child and hid in the US, Mexico and Spain. I went to ten schools the first twelve years. During this time, I had to contend with a father whose mental illness and drug and alcohol addictions caused him to be a dangerous sadist. I was barely eighteen years old when I ran away from home because he threatened to kill me with a 38 revolver. But I got on my feet, found a job, bought a car. I graduated from UCI with a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics and the ability to speak several languages. While there, I married a medical student. My first pregnancy ended in stillbirth. Notwithstanding this and other hardships I graduated from UCLA Law School in 1992. We moved to Texas and while I was raising my children, I graduated from the University of Texas Dallas where I received an M.A.. There I took several writing courses. Then, I began a career as a visual/writing artist. My artwork, mostly surrealist, includes extensive writings, short stories and poetry. One of my paintings "The Kiss of Death," is featured adjacent to a Picasso in the acclaimed documentary by the BBC: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE: THE KISS BY GUSTAV KLIMT ICON OF THE 20TH CENTURY. Today, I engage my writing, photography and art in an effort to understand the nature of the human experience, the processes of the mind, the experience of memory, visual and mental perception and life in general. My art and writing also include queries into the nature of the universe and the existence of life after death. As such, my art constitutes a form of auto-biography. I see it as a glimpse into an American woman artists experience at the turn of the 20th century. Ultimately, I am glad to be able to share my artistic experience. Perhaps others will find it useful in their quest to understand life.