My true-life journey, spiritual voyage and pilgrimage of the soul started when I took my road less travelled.
Maralyn Nash
Join me to inspire you on your own journey to rediscover yours
My love affair with art and creativity had its origins from my earliest childhood memories growing up in a small town in the Australian bush surrounded by sheep farms and a lot of red dust.
Reading Enid Blyton’s “Famous Five” adventures set in Cornwall, England and “Seven Years in Tibet” about the young Dalai Lama, I lived in the world of my imagination.
Writing and illustrating my own little books, even believing I could fly was how my passion for creativity started.
Art was an adventure in my mind and after completing my HSC an unintentional act of rebellion against my parents going to art college.
After art school living a bohemian lifestyle became my artists muse with an exotic array of adventurous world travel journeys throughout India, Africa, Egypt, Greece and the Pacific Islands.
My inspiration to write “The Naked Artist Journey” originated from a long ago travel memory as a hippie in the medieval kingdom of 1970s Kathmandu and discovering a very magical book on mandalas in a bookshop tucked away in a winding laneway off Durbar square.
And the story of my life as an artist, adventurous traveler, photographer, and art therapist is to share with you the process it has taken me to peel back my layers overcoming many challenges to rediscover and reconnect with my true spirit.
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love, it will not lead you astray.
RUMI
Qualifications
1980
Bachelor of Art (Fine Arts)
Painting & Photography
La Trobe University
Victoria
1997
2008
Master of Arts (Art Therapy)
Western Sydney University
Certificate IV in Small Business Management
Sydney
1991
1992
Commercial Advanced Certificate, Textile & Fibre
Dover Heights TAFE
TAFE Teacher Training University of Technology
Sydney
Art and creative expression has the power to help us communicate and reconnect with our authentic selves in a deeply healing way.
Before I even started school I could read and write fluently and by eight years old I had read most of the books in our primary school library. My best subject was Written Expression, and I often had my stories published in our school magazine. Writing my stories and adding illustrations I imagined what it would be like to become well known talking about my books.
I continued to get top marks in English and was enrolled at The University of Sydney to study English Literature until I swapped courses to study Visual Arts.
Two publishing workshops were instrumental in formalising my process to write “The Naked Artist Journey”. What began as a 30-day writing challenge on Art Therapy for stressed high powered lawyers evolved into this ten-year writing project embracing art, travel, art therapy and my personal experiences to authentically connect with and inspire my female readers on their journey of self-discovery.
My current 30 artworks are inspired by the writing of my book, “The Naked Artist Journey” featuring chakra mandala ink drawings and circular paintings reflecting my return to artmaking from a sacred healing perspective exploring vibrant and emotive colour schemes.
My artist’s palette is a collage of paper, paint and photographic images collected from my exotic and adventurous voyages around the world.
I created this series of interconnected artworks to form a global community of artworks, not just one grand piece but lots of little pieces to form a collective whole.
I’ve been regularly exhibiting my work in group and solo shows with my artworks and photographs sold to individual clients and acquired in numerous collections.
I became one of the pioneering Australian art therapy graduates from Western Sydney University in 1995-96.
I was successful in creating the first Art Therapy positions in mental health at the Sydney Clinic, Cumberland Hospital and Sydney Children’s hospital from 1996-2006.
Involving the use of various art forms such as drawing, painting, sculpture, journaling, mixed and multimedia, the primary focus for art therapy is for the art making to be therapeutic.
With an emphasis on the creative process rather than just the end product, the relationship between art therapist and client is also an integral part of art therapy.
Since relocating to Central west NSW, I have evolved my journey as an art therapist to focus on women’s personal development journeys and mandala workshops inspired by my book, “The Naked Artist Journey”.
My passion for documentary travel photography evolved from my first journey to Kathmandu, Nepal.
Seeing the world through the camera lens became a very different creative experience to drawing and painting and was my main artform during my decade of world travel in the 70s and 8os.
Street photography was visceral, raw, intense and where I honed my skills to communicate and charm all kinds of people to have their photos taken.
Without doubt my most memorable experience was the day I took a third-class train to Aswan Dam in Egypt which was full of local workman wrapped in turbans and cheeky grins.
I was the only female and obviously non-Egyptian. Feeling freaked out I concocted this story that I was a photographer with National Geographic, and they were all going to feature in it. Amazingly it worked as they became super well behaved, and I got a fantastic photograph with them all smiling at me nicely.
I have embraced living an unconventional lifestyle immersed in the arts, literature, and music all my life.
Ever since I discovered Tree of Life, flowing hippie dresses in my 1970s art school days wandering around Newtown, Sydney in bare feet, I have remained passionate about a life philosophy of freedom, individuality and open mindedness towards other cultures and their beliefs.
At heart I am altruistic and a humanitarian, loving all things boho and quirky but with a deep empathy and compassion for all living things on our global planet.
Being a bohemian is the essence of who I am, living life my own way on the road less travelled.
