Meet Renée

Artist Biography

I am Renée and I am an artist. I am an amalgamation of colors and lights and sounds and divine energy. I am inspired by the world around me and seek to imbue the spirit of the heavenly in the art I create.

I am only human.

I am (happily) human.

I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and consider myself to be a global nomad. As a child, the moves were based around my father’s work but as an adult they were the calling of a wandering heart. I was, and still am, thirsty to experience the world around me. In high school, I got my first real taste of independent travel as an exchange student but I settled into a rather predictable career trajectory once I reached my college years. I was a teacher and had the chance for a bright future along the administrative and management track but I walked away because something wasn't right. Something wasn't me.

Business Biography

Mother Mary’s Journeys LLC was founded in 2013 as a way for me, Renée, to connect with others during my own spiritual journey. My path to the divine began with a calling that initially frightened me, but it was only by embracing this call that I could start to unravel my own misconceptions of life. Mother Mary is in all of us and as I explored my relationship with her, I felt a divine connection to the world of art. Joie de Vivre Press is an affiliate of Mother Mary’s Journeys LLC and came to fruition in late 2016.

I originally planned to focus on Mother Mary's Journeys LLC but after leading a successful tour to the Marian shrine of Lourdes in France in 2015, my art starting to speak to me on a new level. I learned that my art holds a healing the same vibration as an energy healing with me and I learned that this is unique to my collage. Of course, I believe that all art stems from the divine spirit, but it was this unique source of supreme energy that elevated my work. It needed to be focused and refined. By pairing prayers with my art, I can lighten others with grace, faith, humility, and humanity.

When the idea began to really percolate for a greeting card line made from my collages, I wondered what to call the line. My art is divinely inspired, but what does divine inspiration look like and what do you call it? I called it Joie de Vivire! It is the delight in being alive, keen, carefree, and a cheerful enjoyment of life. It is an exultation of the spirit. My art is about creating color, fun, and playfulness with mixed media elements. I am drawn to certain components and the story they tell unfolds only as my hands work with the media. My art is meant to offer energetic transmissions of love, calm, peace, and serenity to the hearts of my viewers and is the silent communication of souls.