A note on who I am, how I got here, and why I do what I do
The beginning.
I have been a few different things in my life.
I started with archaeology. Yes, really. I got my degree and spent several summers on an excavation in northern Greece, which was exactly as extraordinary as it sounds. Ancient things, layers of earth, the quiet patience of uncovering what has been buried. Looking back, it turns out that was the beginning of a theme.
From Greece I found my way to Toronto, where I opened a photography studio. For several years I photographed publicity shots for actors, models, comedians, and musicians. I was working inside a world of performance and image-making, and I loved it.
Then I became a mom. And as a single mom, I needed to make a fairly significant pivot. I needed consistent income, and I needed to be home for my children in the evenings, on weekends, and through the holidays. Teaching was the perfect fit. So I went back to school, got my Bachelor of Education, and stepped onto a teaching path that would last about fifteen years.
To get my start as a teacher, I had to move my young family to a remote fly-in reserve on James Bay in Northern Ontario. It was a giant leap of faith, the kind where you say yes before you've had time to think too carefully. And it turned out to be one of the most special experiences of my life. I am genuinely grateful for it, for the community, and for everything it taught me.
From James Bay, I followed a job posting to a place I had never been. The interview was over the phone. I rented a house without seeing it. In 2009 I arrived in Burk's Falls, in the Muskoka region of Northern Ontario, with my three children and a quiet promise to myself: make this work. Stop moving us. Put down roots.
I'm still here. Muskoka got into me in the way that landscapes do when you stop just passing through them. The trees, the lakes, the long winters, the particular quality of light in every season. It all found its way into who I became, and eventually into the art I make.
The door.
In 2010, a friend invited me to a mixed media art workshop being held right here in the village where I live, upstairs in the barn behind a shop on the main street.
I had always been a creative person, moving between different forms of expression throughout my life. But I had never painted on a canvas before that night. Not once. I didn't think of myself as that kind of artist at all.
Walking into that workshop felt like opening a door I hadn't known was there. And I ran through it willingly.
This is the painting I made at the mixed media class that got it all started.
What I love about mixed media is its complete lack of rules. There are no real mistakes. You can cover things up. You can take things off. You can use anything, vintage papers, textiles, paint, ink, found materials, pieces of things that were once something else. For someone who had spent fifteen years inside the careful structure of a classroom, that kind of freedom was extraordinary.
What followed was years of just making things. Different mediums, different materials, canvases far bigger than I had any business starting. I wasn't trying to produce anything. I was trying to understand the process. And somewhere inside all of that, a voice of my own started to show up. My own colours. My own way of building a layer. You can't really plan for that. You can only keep going until it arrives.
I have never looked back.
The hard years.
A few years in, life brought something I was not prepared for. My daughter was taken by opioid addiction. The grief and stress of that time forced me to step away from teaching, to try and find my way back to myself from something that felt unsurvivable.
Art became my lifeline. Immersing myself in creating gave me a purpose and a rhythm to my days when I had very little else to hold onto. It helped me focus. It kept me in the present moment when the present moment was the only place I could safely be. And it helped me find small pieces of joy on days when joy felt very far away.
I don't think I fully understood the healing power of art until I needed it completely.
My faith is grounded in nature, and in the human spirit. In the knowledge that yes, there are incredibly hard times in life, but there are also incredibly beautiful times. In the hard seasons, we need to stay centred, trusting that good things are still ahead. And in the beautiful ones, we need to cherish every moment. Because we can save them. Hold them. Call on them when the hard times come again.
Art taught me that. Layering beauty, one piece at a time, even on the difficult days.
Where I am now.
The teaching came back almost without my deciding it.
I had spent fifteen years in front of a classroom, and that instinct doesn't really leave you. When something helps you the way art helped me, the next thought is simply how do I show someone else. So I began sharing what I had found. Not as a therapist and not as an expert, but as a person who had used paper and glue and paint to get through a stretch of life I didn't think I would get through, and who knew by then that it worked.
That is how Creative Delight Studio came to be. Not from a business plan, but from a genuine need, and from an old habit of turning around to see who else might want to come along.
I now teach mixed media art both in person across the Muskoka region and online through self-paced workshops and live sessions. I make my own art. I am part of a really special artist collective here in Muskoka. I practice yoga, spend time in nature, and keep exploring the somatic practices that help me continue to heal.
Much later, once the studio was up and running and I was teaching online, I went and trained in art therapy. Not to become a therapist. I wanted to understand what was actually happening at the table. I had watched it too many times by then to leave it alone, women arriving unsure of themselves and leaving lighter, and I knew what collage had done for me. I wanted to know why. The training gave me language for something I had only known by living it.
Over 10,000 students have found their way into Creative Delight Studio, many of them people who didn't think they were artists, who needed a way back to themselves, who just wanted to make something beautiful with their hands. Watching that happen is the most meaningful work I have ever done.
I believe creativity belongs to everyone. I believe making art can hold us when other things cannot. And I believe it is a very special privilege to share that with other people.
If you are new here, I'm so glad you found this place.
Most of what I have learned about mixed media art and healing lives inside a workshop called Soulful Stories. Layers, memory, a story that builds slowly without needing a plan. I have opened part of it up as a free taster, so you can sit at your own table and work through a few of the lessons with me before you decide anything else.
Try the Soulful Stories Creative Taster
Then come in, have a look around, and make something with me.
Delight Rogers is a mixed media collage artist, art therapy practitioner, and the founder of Creative Delight Studio. She teaches from her studio in Burk's Falls, Ontario, Canada and online at creativedelightstudio.com
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