I have worked a lot with high risk kids in the juvenile justice system. Sometimes these kids have qualities that you can’t see right away.

The Piece of Mind Kids series of images show what you might see when you take the time to look . . . Check them out on the next page. Click here for the Piece of Mind Kids

My memory of  this dream is still vivid, and it has created a whole series of images that I have been working with since 2005.

The dream -

I was in a vast dark space hanging from a thin silk thread, and I was a spider – luminous and white, long legged and light of body. I remember the ease in which my body ascended and descended the sliver of rope, and how comfortable I was just hanging there.  My mind was unencumbered by human thought, I was the spider. The dream was timeless.

Titled “Ascending” dry media on paper 28″x 48″

When I awoke from the dream I felt strangely free, like I had somehow shape shifted and left the world of human fear and concerns. I don’t recall how long that lasted.

I wanted to explore that dream further, through imagery, through my art. I replaced the spider with a human and the silk thread with a rope, and the dream space began to be filled with light and shadow and other happenings. I am still exploring the dream.

Title of 1st piece is “Stillness” 28′ x 48″ and the 2nd piece is “Birth Root” 30″ x38″ both Dry media on paper – all pieces are framed and showing currently at Grey McGear Gallery at the Bergamont Satation in Santa Monica California.

GREY McGEAR GALLERY. 2525 Michigan Ave
Building G-7 (Bergamot Station)
Santa Monica 90404
(310) 315-0925

Spiritual traditions world wide speak about longings – the longing to be one with the source of  love. Like a bamboo reed growing in a still pond that dreams of being a flute played in the hands of a virtuoso, the bamboo flute that longs to be a reed in a still pond, and like our own longing to connect to the source of our existence.

There is a clear connection for me between the creative process that makes art and the creative process that is love.

My late Japanese grandmother – Obaasan, Noe, saw that I had a passion for drawing. I was three perhaps four years old living in Japan, and we (my mother, father, sister and I) were staying with Obaasan.

I remember the many coloring books, and crayons she gave me. The many days spent coloring with her. One day in particular stands out above all the rest. I remember that day clearly – feeling this enormous frustration as she tried to keep me coloring within the lines.  It was quite an advanced coloring book with pages upon pages of Japanese letters and Kanji. I would naturally continue to spill out and color all over the whole book, and even onto the floor. She eventually replaced the book with these huge pieces of blank paper. I remember the enormous joy and freedom I felt when she did that. Eventually I got too expressive for these large sheets of paper on the floor, so she then began to tape the paper together all over the floor, and even onto the walls!

We were both set free that day. Free to love. Free to create!

Unconditional love frees us from the limitations of our conditioned love, informs us to go beyond the boundary conditions of our thinking, and reconnects us to our creativity. Michele Benzamin-Miki

All things splendid have been achieved by those who dared to believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances. Bruce Barton

The image above is Dry Media 11×14 inches, titled ‘Longing,’ all works are for sale and prints are available. Contact me if you’re interested.
I can also be contacted for Creative Coaching and Hypnotherapy.

Oil painting is a very sensual experience. Beyond the ideas and concepts of how to fill the empty space of ‘canvas’ – there is the full sensory process of painting. The paints texture, it’s smell, the laying out of the palette of colors and mixing them with the mediums, the contact of brush with paint and paint to canvas, and then knowing when the painting is complete. This whole process is translated to the viewer – somehow, felt, perceived, sensed, known.

In the winter of 1989, I did my first oil painting, and titled it “Watashi no Inouchi” (translates as ‘My Life’). The word Inouchi means more than Life – it is life with the awareness of death, informing us in how to live fully, in the moment, here and now. It is the image above, and it has a wonderful story of how I first came to painting in oils.

I had a showing in an art gallery in Venice, California. It was the shows reception and It was there that I met this Latino man with the soulful eyes, named Alberto. He approached me and introduced himself as a fashion photographer – He did high fashion photography and was interested in my art. He wanted me to paint his models faces like the figures in my paintings – the paintings were Acrylic and Airbrushed images of Japanese theater – Kabuki combined with Geisha ( I was making the connection between the two worlds of artistic expression ). He was disillusioned with the fashion world and wanted to create his own photographic images. After talking awhile he asked me to be one of his models. I had modeled before for fashion shows and photo shoots, so I was open to this, but I wanted to make sure he was legitimate so I challenged him by saying – the only way I am to be photographed is with my sword – I am a highly trained martial artist and one of my expressions is ‘Iaido’ – a Japanese sword form. He was pleased by this, and so I said yes.

Together we visited several of his fashion designer friends, picking out whimsical and fantastic dresses and costumes. The location of the shoot was the Malibu Pier. He lived at the end of the pier in a studio space overlooking the ocean. I brought my make-up, kimonos and my sword.

It was wild, executing my trained traditional sword movements in these high fashioned outfits, not to mention the high, high heels. Then it was time to wear my own kimonos, more traditional, and more of a match for the sword. Alberto then asked me to use the sword in some way I never explored before, forgetting all traditional forms and my relationships to them.

Wow. I immediately cradled the sword like a baby, and placed its sharp blade near my ear, as if listening to what it was saying to me. It was an extraordinarily beautiful moment.

This experience transformed me in so many ways that I decided to continue to stretch myself and paint this very image in a medium I had never explored before – oils !

The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which is filled with as many images as there are things placed before him/her.   Leonardo da Vinci

People can’t live with change if there is not a changeless core inside of them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about, and what you value.   Stephen Covey

This piece is titled ‘Birth root’ 22″x 30″

I use imagery purposefully, visioning my future, re-visioning my past, looking at the present with greater possibilities. This engagement shapes my artwork, my healing work whether teaching meditation, martial arts, my coaching and hypnotherapy work and my inner core sense of self.

Imagery is a flow of thoughts you can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. An image is an inner representation of your experience of your fantasies – a way your mind codes, stores and express information. Imagery is the currency of dreams and daydreams, memories and a reminiscence: plans, projections and possibilities. It is the language of the arts, the emotions, and most important of the deeper self. Dr. Rossman

Let us exercise our imaginary powers. Take responsibility for our inner world. Spend time intentionally guiding how we see our life, and future.  This is not spending time in a wishful state, it is much deeper. It brings to light our potential for healing physically and mentally and living on purpose, with purpose.

DR. Martin Rosaman wrote in his book, ‘Healing Yourself’ – Imagery is a window on your inner world; a way of viewing your own ideas, feelings and interpretations. But it is more than a mere window – it is a means of transformation and liberation from distortions in this realm that may unconsciously direct your life and shape your health.

Art moves both the artist and the observer to see beyond the known and mundane resources inside and around them, gives the imagination flight, and access to uncharted territory. Where some may say that there is nothing new under the sun, art says, stand still, look, until you really see. Everything is new! renewed!

Try this exercise: Art follows Heart. The heart, a wise and faithful organ, keeps its rhythmic beat, reminding us of our actual time here on earth. When I get lost in the notion of artists block, I stop what I am doing and quiet myself long enough to simply listen, till I can hear and feel the beat of my heart in my chest – and then I listen some more – however long it takes. What comes of this, is true Magic. Try it.

In coaching clients whether they be adults or young people this is how I start. There is a time to abandon what you are doing (when blocked) and take action in some other creative way, and there is a time to just sit still and listen to what the heart is saying to you. You may find that not listening, may be all that the block is about. Begin to listen and the block will dissolve.

The dry media painting shown here is called ‘Flight’.
All original paintings and their prints, displayed on the blog, are for sale.
Contact me at mbm@fivechanges.org


I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affection and the truth of the imagination.   John Keats



We spend most of our days imagining all manner of things, so why not take hold of our imagination and direct it purposefully and artfully? Memories can also lend themselves to our purpose when we reflect back. I make it a daily practice to take care of what I imagine so that it is congruent with my purpose.

Today I imagine this, a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time, the shimmer of a dragonfly’s wings, the early morning light on Mount Fuji, the sun setting in the South of France over fields of sunflowers as far as the eye can see, biting into a crisp apple just picked, the smell of jasmine at night, the final note written on Beethoven’s fifth symphony, the final stroke of the brush in the Mona Lisa’s smile, the fourth primary color, and what a world with an economy based on peace would look like.

Even if none of these imaginings makes it to canvas or paper, It is a necessary thing to imagine all this, and much more. It is a necessary thing for us to spend some part of our day to stretch the imaginative muscles with intention and direction.

Our purpose is a process, as alive as we are, It lives through us and along-side us. My purpose is to be an Artist in all aspects of my life, to inspire and coach others to be compassionate, generous, celebrate life, and to actively work for a peaceful society.

This drawing is titled ‘Stillness.’ Be still, listen, see, observe and feel in the vast space of that stillness, and all that is possible emerges.

Yes, paintings have changed my life, painting them and looking at paintings.

Did you ever have a dream that you knew was a dream, yet lives with you in your waking hours as if it wasn’t a dream at at all ? It was such a short, simple dream, powerful and timeless, and lives in my body, as memory, retrievable and real.

I was this white, luminous, long legged spider, suspended from my own silken thread, in the midst of vast dark space, completely at home, free from fear.

This dream inspired a series of images that I produced for a solo exhibit at the Infusion Gallery in downtown Los Angeles, in Sept. of 2006 titled “Backbone.”

I replaced the spider with a woman and the silken thread with a rope, and began to explore my comfort zone with this image. This work was all dry media and I am currently reworking the theme in oil on canvas. This time I am including the original dream image of the spider, in this new series of paintings.