Other than making love to my wife, there is nothing in the world that makes me happier than to see a gifted, hard-working and worthy human being meet their dreams and find their purpose in life. Rachel Barlow has been working as hard as anyone I have ever known to be a full-time writer and artist. She has suffered debilitating fear and depression, she has fought through it every day, she has written beautifully about her bi-polar disorder.

She blogs, writes short stories, does cartoons, sketches, watercolors.

Sometimes, when I talked to Rachel on a dark winter’s day, I wondered (and she wondered) if she would make it through the night. I know now that she will always make it through the night, she is passionately determined to live out her live,  do what she lives, find her creative path and permit it to ground her and guide her and lead her through her life. She’s in a pretty good space right now.

Rachel has been a student of mine for nearly five years, and she is breaking through. She is selling her beautiful, touching and wonderfully written and illustrated paintings, watercolors, cartoons and sketches almost as quickly as she can make them. You can see them and buy them online, I’d hurry. She is hot.

She credits Maria with being an enormous inspiration to her, for helping her to see that it is possible to build a life of an artist if you stay with it, follow your heart and work hard every day. That seems to be a magic formula for almost anything worthwhile.

I have a wonderful Facebook-connected group called the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm, Rachel is one of the members. We have, of course, had some tensions on the group, especially about people called “lurkers,” an Internet term for people who come onto blogs and websites, but never post or reply to comments or  reveal themselves.

I am sometimes accused of being harsh, even cruel, for my impatience with the scores of lurkers who join the group but are too cautious and fearful to contribute. This is an old issue of mine, I have problems with people who are content to watch other people work while people like Rachel battle their fear and depression every single day of their lives and contribute almost every single day.

I believe in encouraging those who want to work, not those who can’t or won’t. They have to get there themselves, or find the right help, as I did. I created the group to encourage people who are often afraid but determined to create. Perhaps this frustration with the silent members of the group – I don’t ever toss them out,I just grumble about them from time to time –  is something I should grow out of, but to be honest, I don’t think I will. And to be even more honest, I don’t really want to.

We all deal with fear, every creative person on the earth, few people more so than me. Like  Rachel, I fought it every day for most of my life. I don’t fight with it much any more, thanks to a long line of shrinks, therapists, social workers and spiritual counselors. You can put Humpty Dumpty back to together again.  I am comfortable with who I am and what I believe. Rachel is an inspiration to me. She evokes Joseph Campbell’s definition of an artist: she completes work.

Rachel brought a big case of her soft and touching water colors to our Open House, she sold every one of them. Saturday, at the writing class at Pompanuck Farm, Rachel unveiled her newest idea – an Alphabet Book about parenting for adults. She showed us the first draft, the first sketch for her letter A: A is for All Nighter – Attending Ailing Anklebiters.

Her project for our class will be bringing the letters to us for guidance and feedback and encouragement. We are ready. I’m happy the share the very first rough  sketch for the book, as yet untitled. I can’t wait to cheer Rachel on as she brings this one home. Go take a look at her work for yourself.