As
I was born Patrick Charles Kemball in 1938 in Cranbrook, British Columbia,
Canada. My artistic imagination began as a three year old as I lie on
the floor drawing to comfort my invalid mother. In 1958, out of gratitude
for remaining alive after a near-fatal accident, I took a vow to be "god's
artist." One month later, I had a spontaneous out-of-body experience.
I applied to the Trappist monastery in Kentucky where my then hero Thomas
Merton lived and went off to study at Alberta College of Art in Calgary.
The monks accepted me but said I had to give up art. This I could not
do.
In
my fourth year at art school, a mysterious bride appeared on my canvases.
She invited me deeper into contemplation. I left art school for a small
cabin in the solitude of Northern Alberta. In 1965, on my twenty-seventh
birthday, I went into a trance and my soul soared up into the godhead.
For one year I was flooded with all the classic mystical experiences--heart
openings, third-eye openings, flights of ecstasy.
The
Bride in my early work is my soul hovering in a radiant world full of
love (when we die that is where we go). Long before the goddess movement,
I was given a new name, ManWoman, to express the balance of yin and yang.
