Purpose
My work is to explore joy through color, image, and word. What is joy? How do I experience it? Life is a balancing endeavor. In difficult times like now, finding balance amid great change and transition seems important, if not imperative. What role does joy play in helping me to achieve balance? In what ways can I share joy with others?
Inspiration
The Chronicles of Ms. Joy Coach
The character of Ms. Joy Coach first emerged in 2021 when I was engrossed in drawing mandalas. These mandalas, circles on paper, contained a variety of symbols depicting a host of subjects including beautiful images as well as difficult issues: climate change; gun violence; nuclear annihilation; environmental degradation; social injustice; and food insecurity to name a few.
Late in that mandala creative process, Ms. Joy Coach emerged. At the time I drew her, I was somewhat embarrassed by her appearance, and I did not name her. She was nothing like any of the other mandalas I had drawn. All those before her were more representational; she was cartoonish. I remember thinking as I tucked her away, “where did this six-year old’s drawing come from?” I continued working with the mandalas until I exhausted myself. The process of immersing myself in color and design as I created the mandalas was joyous. However, some of the images featured symbols that triggered a lot of residual, emotional pain—fear, regret, guilt, anger, doubt, and above all, sadness, and grief.
In the Spring of 2022 when I realized how much joy I felt was missing from my life and wondered how to reclaim it, the mandala that reminded me of my six-year-old self popped back into my awareness. At the time I was taking an Emerge and See class and was focused on trusting my inner self more in the creative process. That’s when I decided that a drawing that initially embarrassed me might just be an invitation to free myself up more, to en-joy life more. Then, Ms. Joy Coach began to come into being.
Ms. Joy Coach is a vehicle for exploring what brings joy in my life. I consistently post new episodes in her Chronicles. In the first episodes her character is introduced. In subsequent episodes she reveals the fundamentals of Joy in her life: breathing deeply; sky gazing and hammock resting; enjoying the colors of the natural world through her tool kit of magic wands. She lives, breathes, and moves with the humor and gentle poignancy of life.
I hope she inspires you to explore your joy, how you experience it, and ways in which you might live and grow more joyously amidst deeply troubling times. Being aware of and grateful for all the joy—past and present— I have experienced in life and am experiencing seems essential now to peace.
Lucia in her art studio
Read the Chronicles of
Ms. Joy Coach Series
Biography
History
I was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. I received a B.A. in English Literature at Rollins College, and an M.A. in Education Administration at Michigan State University. In 1974, I moved to Washington, D.C. and used my writing skills in policy work on science and technology issues for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). This experience at OTA taught me to examine the big picture, i.e., the impacts—positive and negative—existing and emerging technologies can have across society.
While working at OTA, I participated in an experiential learning process at a place called the Center for Study of Human Systems. Within that framework, I began to explore how my family’s history and dynamics had shaped the person I was becoming.
Evolution as an Artist
At mid-career I wanted to focus on a different part of my life and interests. I went back to school to study art and became a stoneware potter while continuing to consult for several federal agencies—the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In the early 1990’s Bill, my husband, and I bought our home in the Shenandoah Valley near Shenandoah National Park where we now live. Here I set up a pottery studio and immersed myself in the wonder of working with clay, water, and fire to bring form into being. For eight years, I participated on the woodfire team at Tye River Pottery. It was also in the Valley that I fully engaged in my lifelong love of gardening and hiking. As Bill has said, “you inherited the gardening gene.” After throwing pots for over fifteen years, I returned to painting to explore the energy of color within and all around me.
Science, Art, and Spirit
Because of my previous work in science policy, I became very concerned about climate change. In the early 2000’s along with a friend, we formed a climate change study group in the rural area where I live. I also volunteered at the Virginia Wind Energy Collaborative at James Madison University. My intensive involvement in trying to address the climate crisis resulted in a sense of deep despair about the future.
Eventually I turned to meditation, completing the two-and-a-half-year Academy Program with The 3 Doors. For the last two years I have been participating in an online creative arts program, “Emerge n See,” through Donna Iona Drozda’s Wren House Studio. Donna’s program encourages creativity coupled with personal reflection. The issues of our times and in my life brought me to my knees, so to speak. Along with the love and support of my family and friends, it is this combination of meditation, being outside in nature, and my creative endeavors with color that give me the courage, resiliency, and joy to live as fully as I can in the present and to face the unknowns which lie ahead.
"Mandalas of the
Witnessing Eye"
Recent works on paper by Lucia king
In addition to Ms. Joy Coach, Lucia King creates fine art images that reflect her meditations on nature, the environment, and the state of the world as she experiences it.
