Today we have an interview with Debbie and Peter Thorpe of Aurora Crystals. Debbie and Peter attend the BSSK shows with their wonderful selection of crystals, jewellery and examples of Debbies' artwork. Many thanks to them for taking the time to do this for us and we look forward to seeing them at the shows next year.
To start with, could you tell us a bit more about yourselves?
Peter is a semi-retired Chartered Accountant, formerly Finance Head of Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, now consultant on a further Wildlife project "The Coastal Grazing Marshes in Lincolnshire". Having worked for conservation for the last 20 years of his life, his main passions are watching wildlife, especially in the wild places of Scotland, walking and working with crystals on our stall.
Debbie has been an artist since she was old enough to hold a pencil, has always drawn from imagination from being very young, was destined for art school but had to choose a "sensible" career of becoming a secretary and working in a well-known High Street bank, but then raising a family of 3 amongst a menagerie of animals, from domestic dogs and cats, to goats, chickens, sheep and horses and then moving on to her true spiritual path of being a healer and spiritual artist. For many years painted as a professional Wildlife artist whilst still working with horses, but then hung up her grooms boots to become a Crystal Healer and work at the MBS shows. Trained in the Crystal Diploma by the SVA, she is also a Reiki practitioner, has studied Aura Soma, Master Colour Healing and Quantum Touch. In the 45 years we have spent together, Peter has been the one who has enabled all these passions to come to fruition.
What treasures can we find on your stalls?
Everything, from natural specimens and clusters to beautiful Hekimer Diamonds, Master Crystals, working crystals for healers, beautiful carvings of animals and crystal skulls, polished specimen peices, spheres and a wide range of tumblestones to suit all tastes and purposes with written explanations prepared by Debbie from her long experience of working with them. Crystal jewellery from pendants to bracelets and original artwork as examples of what Debbie produces on a commission basis.
How do you source your crystals?
Crystals are sourced from a very wide range of suppliers in the UK, many specialists in their own fields and are all personally chosen by ourselves. We aim to carry a wide range of different crystals so that customers can choose something that is very personally pleasing , whether to work with or to place in their environment, to wear or just carry if they feel it will help empower their well being. If advise is sought then Debbie has prepared many explanations customers may take free of charge so that they may make a choice based on their own intuition.
What inspires your artwork and how do you feel you have evolved creatively?
My artwork is inspired intuitively on a spiritual level for each individual client and is drawn from my love of portraiture and animals. It has evolved from working as a professional Wildlife artist for many years to a deep intuitive/spiritual level. I owe much to my early training in "A" level art to my wonderful teacher Miss Oyler, who insisted on many hours spent life drawing and sitting outside drawing scenes around Lincoln Cathedral (the school being very close by) I feel honoured and privileged to work on commissions for customers and hope that what I bring forward both makes them happy and empowered in their own spirituality.
Which writer/thinker has influenced you the most?
Debbie: As an avid reader from childhood, the list would be too long, but it ranges from Tolkiens' Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit read many, many years ago, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Keats, Tennyson, W.B. Yeats, R.D. Blackmores Lorna Doone, Bomber by Len Deighton, to Kenneth Grahames Wind in the Willows.
Later on my spiritual path it would be Lao Tzu (Chinese mystic) Sue and Simon Lilley on the Crystals, the life of Frank Fools Crow by Thomas E Mails, Caroline Myss, Harry Edwards and Melody - Love is in the Earth.
What is the best advice you've been given?
First crystal teacher, Cassie "Many answer, few are called." From that I tried to learn to listen so that I may perhaps help someone find, through their own intuition, the path their inner teacher is trying to tell them to follow.
Lao Tzu "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."
W B Yeats from Cloths of Heaven "...tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
Can you name your Desert Island books/films?
Debbie:
Moulin Rouge
Dark Crystal
Anya Seton Katherine
Standing with Stones DVD - a Journey Through Megalithic Britain Rupert Soskin
Lord of the Rings Trilogy Tolkien
Portrait of the Master (St Francis of Assisi) James Twyman.
No comments:
Post a Comment