Biography Heather C. Williams Artist Author Teacher All people are sacred beings with a unique story. Here's mine! My kindergarten teacher told my mother, “Heather loves to draw. Support her in this.” My mother was an artist who had healed herself from a very serious illness by drawing and painting. She was very happy to support my passion for drawing. It has been a valuable way for me to learn about and express my world. I majored in art in college but became disenchanted when my abstract expressionist professors ignored my questions about how to paint representationally, (which brush or medium do I use to achieve this or that effect). They advised me to “just get the paint on the canvas!” Somehow art, to me, was a kind of sacred journey; an opportunity to explore and express life’s depth - not just fling paint. After graduation from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 with a degree in Art and Humanities, I went to San Francisco in search of a teacher who could help me wake up to the deeper aspect of life. Fortunately, I met Thane Walker and The Prosperos - a 4th Way School of Ontology. This school offered classes where I learned HOW (not what) to think. I learned how to use my problems as opportunities by re-identifying myself as Consciousness. I became a Prosperos High Watch Mentor in 1978. Then in 1980 I got back to art. I met Norwegian Master Painter, Jan Valentin Saether, and shortly thereafter became his apprentice for 5 years. With Mr. Saether, I developed an understanding of the "alphabet" of the visual language, which I describe in my book, Drawing As a Sacred Activity, (published by New World Library in 2002). Today I teach this to my middle school students. As a self employed artist, from 1985 - 2000, I facilitated thousands of painting and drawing workshops for university students, counselors, teachers, therapists, people living with aids, cancer, schizophrenia, people with eating disorders, bipolar disorder, traumatic brain injury, homelessness, poverty, developmental disabilities, learning differences, Alzheimers, teens in recovery from drugs and alcohol, and men and women incarcerated in jail. Indeed, all people are sacred beings with a unique life story. For nine years I was a Special Education teacher and I also taught one or two ART classes. Since 2013, I have been the full time ART teacher at VIDA (Vista Innovation & Design Academy) a public, magnet middle school in Vista, CA. We use Stanford’s Design Thinking Process to teach curriculum.