I grew up on Long Island, born into a very socially active family. Both parents artists and activists. Weekends at Lincoln Center, exposure to the arts. I learned to dance before anything else and migrated on up north through visual arts and music. I was once an accomplished guitar player and a well known visual and performance artist back in NYC. I segued into theater at some point and eventually vocally fronted three different bands through the late 80's and through the end of the 90's. Jazz, Blues, Rock. They all ruled. Through it all, I always painted, I would always draw. It was my mantra and I always found a way to express myself with mind and body. Long after a late show, I would be finishing a canvas as the morning light was breaking, reminding me I had to get some sleep, if only to get up and do it all over again. I loved my life back then and my art was my anchor.

Then something happened to me that changed my life forever. The year 2000. I was conned, big time, ripped off, stripped of my living, my place of residence, clothes and money missing and all my music and art that was there. 25 years of my life gone, almost over night it seemed. When I brought in the law, my life was threatened and I was stalked until I evntually had to move out here to California. It was hard to believe at the time that this had happened to me, making me feel insanely out of control. I got my act together, slowly but surely here in LA. It took lots of hard hard work to make myself whole again. I persevered and I am here today with all of that behind me. And this is not a sob story. More of an explanation to myself about why I am dormant in my creativity.

Some things have been lost forever. I can't draw or paint anymore. I've been told it's related to trauma. My missing art will probably never show up on my doorstep and all my missing recordings and videos are god knows where. I still feel the loss but it doesn't kill me like it once did.

Today, I am reaching out in new directions, finding new paths to express myself and carefully approach my creative source again. I am stronger now than ever before, probably unbreakable, certainly glued together in others, and most definitely softer and more compassionate because of it all. I know I see more clearly now than ever before in my life. People seem to speak through thier eyes, deep from the inside to me. And there is light and dark in everyone to see. We all have it. I see it shining back at me every day from the mirror and I am reminded again that it takes a little of both to walk with any degree of balance on the earth.

"Out of the dark was forged the light that is my heart. Moving forward with my heart, I light the darkness before me. I cannot be one without the other". Copyright - Laura Toy