Visual Art – Orange County

Born and raised in Orange County from two very artistic parents, Denise fell in love with with Ceramics in high school when throwing on the wheel and doing her own glazing. Just out of HS she joined the US Navy and served 4years. During her time in the USN she sustained a head, neck and back injury. While faced with TBI, body pain and MST and no support from the military she moved forward with her life anyway as best she could. Ten years later being hit in a crosswalk steered her towards a profession in the healing arts as a massage therapist, Reiki Master and Holistic Health Practitioner. The purpose was to fix herself and be able to have a career at the same time. Eight years after becoming a CMT she was again hurt when she fainted into a steel door frame and got her head stuck over her shoulder which caused her to stop being able to do massage as a profession and start healing herself full time. During the healing process Denise sought out ways to get better from the trauma she survived. One of the ways she did this was by taking an art4healing class which helps get you in touch with your feelings by expressing them as color and texture on canvas. This sparked Denise's creative juices and now she brings healing art sessions free to Veterans in the community and for a donation from civilians to help spread the healing to those who need it as well as by creating her own art. Denise believes that you can receive healing from not only doing art yourself but by looking at it too so she tries to make happy art with lots of color, sparkles and texture. She considers herself a mixed media artist with an eye for nature. Hearts and rainbow colors are her favorite to use in her work with a touch of "bling" and some clay for texture. Each piece is very unique and unreproducible. Denise is very approachable and loves to "nerd out" talking about Art and Healing Arts. You can find her on Instagram as debestmt and WomenVeteransCommunityHub