Cathrene Gehue

My earliest stories were illegible scribbles on paper, but once read aloud, made wonderful sense. One of the first legible pieces of writing was a poem, age 7 or 8, in which some liberties were made to make it rhyme.

I’ve always loved books and their stories. One day, while reading Roald Dahl, I declared, “I want to do that!” That was a catch-all expression, meaning writing and storytelling.

Writing turned out to be a frustrating process, mostly due to my own lack of focus. It became so frustrating that at the age of 15, I experienced a second calling toward visual art while struggling over a piece of prose.  Symbols and art were important to me at that time as well. 

At the time I denied this calling. My internal response to it was an overwhelming “Nooo!”, because I believed all artists starved, died miserable deaths and/or lopped off body parts, and everyone else other than the artist made money from their passion. Now I know this is true for only some artists.

My pursuit of writing continued via studying English Literature at University of Toronto, which seemed the most logical progression. For some reason it didn’t feel right. Even more confouding, during second year, my best grade was an elective course in Fine Art History. Without a doubt, I was on the wrong path, so I dropped out.

Later in life, I returned to York University to study Humanities. This time the study material was perfect, yet the university environment still didn’t feel right. For a second time, I dropped out of school. However, the education this time around was invaluable and pointed me in the right direction.

At the age of 34, in a fit of being fed up with writing, I quit it, this time for good, and turned to art. At this point, I recognized a pattern: When the writing gets tough, the art gets going; when the art gets tough; the writing gets going. Back and forth. For about 15 years this has been going on.

Imagination Unbound is my attempt to bring the writing and art together-integrate them instead of keeping them separate-to let these two talents duke it out or find some form of reconciliation… 

Finally!

I currently reside in Toronto, along with a laptop, a bunch of canvases, and with my awesome boyfriend, fine artist, Sean Chappell.