We’re looking forward to introducing you to Devorah Brinckerhoff. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Devorah, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: Have you stood up for someone when it cost you something?
I’m Devorah Brinckerhoff, originally from Vermont, now living in Oregon with my husband and youngest daughter.
I’m a mixed media artist and transformational guide who has spent over 30 years using creativity as a direct pathway to ourselves, our intuition and inner wisdom.
My life took an unexpected turn 16 years ago. RISD-trained and gallery represented, I was building what looked like a successful career when our family faced crisis involving sexual abuse of my young children. The protective choices we made led to complete estrangement from both families and loss of our entire support system overnight. What I thought would destroy me became the catalyst for my most meaningful work. While helping my family heal and simultaneously processing my own childhood trauma (which surfaced during my first pregnancy), my work began to change.
With awareness and intention, I began incorporating personal materials—old love/hate letters, photos, journals—into the foundation of my paintings and everything shifted. As I was ripping up a sweet card from my mother along with the class action papers they brought against us (our collective parents) I realized something incredible: I was disassembling and reassembling myself, my history, my story. And, in doing so, I completely transformed how I related to my most difficult past experiences. Something in me moved. I felt lighter, freer than I ever had before.
Creativity became a superpower.
This led to what I now call “Soul Portraits” – a process where I either guide people to work directly with their own materials – during workshops or wellness retreats. OR I’m commissioned to create a portrait for others. Either way the process works to help shed false identities and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck in the past and armored against authentic connection.
My work isn’t about fixing people; it’s about helping them remember who they are beneath all the stories they’ve been taught about themselves.
As an introvert at heart and feel most comfortable alone in my studio working. But I’m equally passionate about supporting others as they move through their deepest wounds, so I also love stepping out into the world to teach the power of this creative process.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a Creative Transformation Guide. I help people break free from unconscious patterns by physically transforming the materials from their past. Instead of just talking about what happened to you, we use the actual evidence – letters, photos, documents – as the foundation for art that sets you free.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
Fear and misunderstanding break bonds. If we force ourselves or are forced by others to betray our own knowing in order to maintain connection.
Restoring bonds came as the natural by product of maintaining courage in the midst of overwhelming fear. It required me to stand in my own truth even when that meant standing alone. I needed to learn how to take responsibility for, process and metabolize my messy experiences and discover that love doesn’t require agreement – it requires self connection, self acceptance and forgiveness as well as the willingness to let people be exactly who they are.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
I didn’t make that choice once. I made it in baby steps, over decades, often without realizing what I was doing.
It became notable during a challenging time in my life when I started incorporating materials associated with my life falling apart – into the foundation of my work (love/hate letters, journal entries, legal documents and photos).
In doing so I recognized that I was disassembling and reassembling myself.
Instead of letting my past remain hidden away in a box, I took “it” out and physically transformed the materials and items correlated with painful experiences. With conscious awareness I became the witness to events – not the actual events themselves. That new perspective shifted everything, dissolved decades of stuck energy and limiting beliefs and allowed me to step into a truer version of myself. I continued working through layers and layers of false identity until I was ready to offer this creative method to others.
Pain became power when I learned to acknowledge and take responsibility for my history with self compassion, acceptance and forgiveness. Only then was I able to integrate and metabolizing experience at the somatic level where it actually lives.
I couldn’t think my way out of blame, shame or guilt. I had to feel the difference between what happened and the meaning I had assigned to it – what I believed it meant about my self worth. I needed to physically revisit (without reliving) the past, and engage with the correlating materials to re-discover – in my body, not my head – that I was so much bigger than my interpretation of everything that had happened. Soul Portraits emerged from that discovery.
I’m not teaching creative technique or skill. I teach that healing and self connection are a natural byproduct leaning into the very thing we wish to avoid and using creativity and intuition to help us do that leaning in effortlessly. Creative process matters more than product because it makes room for authenticity, vulnerability and truth to come to the surface and be revealed – if only to ourselves. The most important relationship we can have is the one we have with ourselves across time, and we don’t have to share what we discover with anyone else.
I learned first hand, that our pain doesn’t have to be a prison. It’s our raw material and we’re the one who gets to decide what to make with it.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
That those we wish to blame, hate and demonize the most – deserve our understanding, compassion and love.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. Have you ever gotten what you wanted, and found it did not satisfy you?
I thought I would feel satisfied and complete being represented by multiple galleries. While I did have meaningful relationships within that system it didn’t begin to compare to the sense of meaning and purpose I feel working directly with people and watching their personal transformation and empowerment unfold before my eyes. It is such an honor to witness the courage and strength of others as they navigate and release their old selves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://soulportrait.art/workshop/
- Instagram: Instagram: @devorahbrinckerhoff
- Facebook: Facebook: Devorah Hake Brinckerhoff & Soul Portraits
- Other: TikTok: @soulportrait.art
https://soulportrait.art/innervoice/
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