Karen Ellsbury: Hi everyone. I'm Karen Elsbury. I'm a local artist. I was born and raised here in this area. I haven't always lived here, but it always calls me back because of the beautiful landscape and all the. creative inspiration that we find here in the four Corners. I'm always. Pleased to speak to people who work in the healthcare industry because I'm so impressed by the seriousness of your jobs and how stressful they must be at so many times.

But also how wonderful it is that you help your community the way you do. And I feel like, I have a little something to give you because your job is so stressful and I'm here to kind of help you. Perhaps find some balance, because you're so left brain in your job. Don't make a mistake. You can't make a mistake.

And in art, you can just create stuff and be free and make mistakes and it's fine. And it helps you balance your whole body and brain. And in that way, I believe that art heals and I have my own little healing and you have yours. and between the two of us, we can create a healthy society.

I feel like we have a very healthy community here as anyway, so, I think most people that use their left brain mostly or are concerned with, healing and having to remember medications, all those things that you have to do, and even just organizing And the skill that it takes to run a business.

You probably don't feel like you do have creativity, but I would submit to you that we all have some creativity and it doesn't have to be that you paint. That's my form of creativity that I use for healing. And I have been through trauma in my life, and I'm sure most of us have. for specifically healing helped me very much when I was widowed at a.

Young age and, my, 40 five-year old husband unexpectedly passed away and I was 49 and It was so stressful, and I felt so out of control. . But the one thing we can control is.

Our reactions And what we do, and if we find a way to let our stress out in a healthy way, which is like maybe painting or singing or cooking or whatever works for you. Then we can face the chaos of the world a little bit better and maybe with, more calmness, with some compassion for our fellow humans.

And we can, make love be the guiding light for us. And I think that the things that you people do that in your jobs are. You're filled with love for humanity, and I am too. And so if we can bring a little beauty into the world with art or music, and even if you create something That is not beautiful, it's the process of creating it That is letting your expression out.

So, It doesn't have to be something that's beautiful, but I do recommend that. There's sort of a joy of sharing that with your fellow humans, with your fellow workers, even if you do some collaborative things, even if they're just little crafty things, they just, bring about a sense of community and partnership and I think that.

we can help make the world better. So we're not without skills, all of us, And we all have something to give. so. I have an art gallery downtown. It's called Heart Gallery. Every first Friday we have an event. This coming, first Friday in April will be an art walk and there will be people all over town, showing their art.

Listening to music. I have students or young people playing music in the back of the gallery. so all of those things create a beautiful part of our community. So please come and visit us. Thanks for taking time to listen to my ideas and go create something.