We recently connected with Kathy S. “WhiteBear” Copsey and have shared our conversation below.
Kathy S. “WhiteBear”, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience comes from experiencing many challenges in our lives. Some of these challenges are small, some are great. We all face challenges of many sizes along our journeys, and I have certainly had my fair share. To name a few, for most of my life I have dealt with being bullied, health challenges including pain I feel body-wide and chronic fatigue among other issues that I feel every moment of every day since I was 17 years old, going thru tough financial times in the past including being as poor as eating one meal every other day, and so much more.
Like many difficult challenges, things at first can be quite overwhelming, but then you start to adjust and build a tolerance, becoming mentally stronger than you ever were before. This in turn builds your resilience to handle the next challenge along your journey. Having dealt with massive physical pain for over 26 years, I certainly believe the tolerance and resilience I learned from such an experience allowed me to handle greater challenges that came many years after I got sick including, but certainly not limited to being rear-ended in 2013 and having a back injury and second neck injury to contend with since.
While I would never wish the most difficult challenges I have faced in my life on anyone, whether it be my health challenges, severe financial struggles in the past, or even dealing with unkind people, they have helped me build myself into who I am today. And, this in turn allows me to keep building and becoming stronger and more resilient, giving me the ability to not only face future challenges in a better way, but also to help others who may be going through difficult times and need a helping hand, even if it’s just in the form of emotional support and kindness.
For many years I lived in survival mode, and even though that served me for a time, it no longer serves me now. I have had to learn to know that I have survived things that could have very well killed me, I have grown and continue to grow as I travel along my journey, to be grateful for the blessings I have received, and to have faith that even when things are beyond challenging, things will get better and there are many amazing blessings ahead.
We all have our pains we experience along our journeys. But, the trick is to take that pain and use it to grow, have faith, and never give up so we can become resilient and strong, yet humble and kind, so we may be of service to help others.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m an American artist with Native American & European heritage. I specialize in Original Contemporary Native-themed & Wildlife Artwork mainly as Acrylic Paintings with Texture on canvas. Although I focus on acrylic paintings with texture, I also enjoy working with several other mediums including pencil drawings, freehand (digital) drawings, writing, music composition, photography, and videography. I’m a self-taught artist with a strong background in art and music, having worked in multiple positions including computer graphics, custom picture framing, as a musical instrument repair technician, and managing a music store for many years, and I now focus on my art as a full-time artist.
Many of my pieces come from dreams and visions I have received and animals that visit me in person, and with each piece also comes a message with my art being focused on helping as many as possible in all ways possible. One of my largest goals and purposes is to help share healing, love, and kindness, and I endeavor to reach as many as I can with my artwork, whether it be by owning a piece I create or simply seeing it and receiving the message that accompanies it.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Continually drawing for so many years is easily one of the most impactful things in my journey because not only by doing that consistently have I been able to increase my skill level to something I’m proud of with my drawing, but it has also helped me create my unique style of detail in my paintings with texture. In addition, the love of animals and nature has driven me to “study” them in a sense of how they look which is an important aspect of when trying to recreate the texture or look of their fur or feathers and also be familiar with their spirits and personalities. Thirdly, I would say that embracing the Native side of my heritage has impacted my life greatly, even when it wasn’t as prominent in my life as it is now, because it is a very important part of the core of my spirit and essence as a person and my views and beliefs because of the way my Native heritage greatly influences my artwork as well as my striving to become the best version of myself I can be, not just for myself, but also so I can be of the greatest service to all living beings.
For anyone early in their journey, or even those who may be starting a new venture later in their journey, keep doing what you love. Too often we compare our journeys to others’ and believe if we aren’t as far along as another person is that we aren’t doing enough or we don’t have enough skill to make our dreams come true. I’ve heard many times other artists with different styles say how they can’t do the technical level that I’m doing with my art. But I just remind them that skill development as many things comes with time, and ultimately it doesn’t matter so much about one’s technical abilities (especially in the art world) as it does to love what you’re doing and creating and what you’re doing with it. No matter what it is you love, never give up on your dreams. Find your passion and purpose, and everything else will fall into place in the time it’s meant to.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I believe it’s important to be balanced with both our strengths and our weaknesses. One of the ways we become stronger is to work on our weaknesses. And, it’s important to be proud of our successes and strengths, but working on our weaknesses can help keep us humble.
When we focus on only one aspect, we lose balance in our journeys, leading us into darkness instead of light. And, when we focus on both, we find our inner light we often hide within, but by being strong, yet humble, we show others how to be brave and find courage even when in new or uncertain circumstances, and most importantly share our light with others and help brighten their journeys as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kathycopsey.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathycopsey/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whitebearnativeart/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathycopsey/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekathycopsey
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@whitebearnativeart
- Other: http://tiktok.com/@kathycopsey Etsy: WhiteBearNativeArt.com
