Valerieann Giovanni has been a professional artist for over 40 years, with 25 of those years teaching others how to paint. She is also an author, therapist, mother of 6 and a bit of a Rebel.

She is a self-taught artist with many awards, who dedicated many years to mastering realism before developing her own style.

Her present work depicts emotion and the energetic vibrational flow that comes from them. Using acrylic, oil paint and the language of light, she brings the unseen into form.

Valerieann was raised on a dairy farm in a small town of three hundred people in southern Idaho. From an early age, she had a keen interest in art.

At the local county fair each summer, she intently studied the paintings on display. Observing that the blue ribbons were most often awarded to those who painted inside the lines of realism, she grew determined to master that style.

With no access to painting classes, she learned to paint by trial and error. Before long, she was winning first place, grand prizes and being commissioned for works of art. Images of her paintings found their way into local and state news. “I had arrived,” or so she thought.

In 1989, upon completing a beautifully detailed painting of one of her dad’s Percheron horses, Valerieann was surprised at her internal response. She thought to herself, “So what, I can paint any subject picture perfect, why not just take a photo . . . it would take a lot less work.” In that moment, Valerieann determined she would rather quit painting than keep working so hard to create the illusion of realism. Accolades and praise no longer mattered and making money took a back seat to the heart.

In the spring of 1991, when Valerieann was eight months pregnant with child number four, she heard there was a woman from Germany coming to a small neighboring town to teach an art class. It was a rare opportunity, so with curiosity and a great desire to learn, she attended.

At the first class the teacher said, “Today we’re going to paint joy.” Valerieann was stunned and wondered, “How do you paint something you can’t see?” The idea of painting feelings was completely foreign to her and in her words “blew out all my neatly defined painting circuits.”

Valerieann’s first attempt was met by the teacher’s raised eyebrow. “That doesn’t look too joyful,” the instructor said. “You have to feel joy inside first, and then let that joy flow down your arm into the paint and onto the canvas,”

Sequestering for a day, she shut herself off from the outside world, determined to test what she had learned. She gave herself permission to play with paint as if she were a child again, mixing paint with new wonder. Valerieann explained, “My mind silenced as it surrendered to the feeling of the brush plunging into paint, the sensation of one color merging with another. Mesmerized by the process, my body began filling with a love beyond what I had known love to be; divinity breathed me.” She had created a painting from the heart, not the mind. A deeper artistic spark was fanned to a flame that day.

Valerieann’s original oil paintings can be found at the Village Gallery along with her Magical Journey card decks that she developed. With 55 cards of original Sedona vortex paintings, 55 word cards, 12 number cards and an instruction book, she says you can “engage with and gain awareness of subtle energies at work in your life, and learn to play with the mysterious 90% of the mind rarely used. Each painting in the card deck is a bridge to a world where you and I are one . . . to a place where all things are possible.”

The Village Gallery has a Magical Journey card deck available for you to experience. Use the deck to create magical vortexes to manifest your dreams.

“I believe we all have an ignitable fire within us, a passion or reason for being here! I love helping others light theirs and keep it ablaze.”

You can see more or her work on her website www.valerieann.com