My full name is Stephen Brezina, not counting middle names, and I was born and raised in a small city called Lethbridge, in the province of Alberta, Canada. I spent alot of time as a child on my grandparent's farm about half an hour from my hometown. I loved the name of the district they lived in, it was called "Purple Springs". My time there was special to me, as I was free, completely, as my grandparents let me wander around, play and explore all day while they toiled in the fields. They had survived being prisoners of the Nazi's during WW2 and moved to Canada from Poland after the war with just a couple bundles of clothes and a transistor radio.
My grandmother did not want us kids to suffer or know any of the horrors and hard times they had endured and she had a big enough heart to make it so! Hence as I said before I was free, free to roam around the fields for miles with my trusty farm dog "Wolfie", catching frogs, hunting rabbits, playing with imaginary friends, exploring, singing songs I made up, thinking and dreaming dreams...... lots of dreams.
I would also spend occasional weekends with my other Grandparents who lived in my home town but would often go to a lake just across the Canada ,U.S. border where they owned a bit of lake side property with some friends. These grandparents were Hungarian and had also lived through the war although they lived in Canada at the time. My Grandfather fought in Europe and was wounded a few times, while back home, my mom was just a baby with her sister, who was just a few years older. While with my dads parents I was close with my Grandmother with my moms parents I was close with my Grandfather. He would take me out fishing for hours and teach me things like gutting fish and putting the worm on the hook, all when I was very young. When we weren't fishing I was allowed to go off exploring, much like on the farm, and I would again immerse myself in making up songs, fantasizing and of course...dreaming.
My biggest dream was of being limitless, there was nothing that couldn`t be done, all was possible if I could find the right magic. It was the essence of that thinking and dreaming and the freedom I felt during those years that helped me develop the confidence and character to be eclectic and individualistic. It also helped me to accept and explore the artistic talents and gifts I was born with and to know that I was not meant to live an ordinary life in terms of just doing what I was told or "going with the crowd".
Being naturally gifted with the talent to draw and render things I didn`t find it particularly challenging and the attention I got seemed to come too easily, so by my early teens I got into music which scared the hell out of me. I wanted to be a rockstar, and god if you will, and I was determined! I just needed to figure out how, so after thinking about it I came up with the logical assumption that since I was terrified of performing I would be a drummer, then I could hide behind the kit yet still be in the "center".
I loved music and the creative process of writing songs and jamming and living on the edge, there is a flow that feels so right yet so scary at the same time. I never really knew what would happen next and the harder I tried to plan stuff the more I realized that I needed to let go and just be in the moment. It was all very powerful stuff and when mixed with the attention I got from being a musician and the "lifestyle" and privilege that seemed to come with it, I was in my glory.
My dreams continued to grow and soon they outgrew my hometown so just after I turned 21, my two best friends and band mates moved to the "big" city, Toronto, Canada. I spent six years there living, loving, struggling, partying, playing and learning about who I was and wasn't. Creatively I was alive, my confidence had grown over the years and I really enjoyed writing music and still did artwork on the side along with putting together promo for the band and doing logos and stuff for other bands. I was fully immersed, even if it was mostly on the darker more aggressive side it still felt incredible to be so fully engaged in life. It felt like I was on the front lines of something powerful and mysterious, like a big roaring wave and I got to see things first, before all the people who were in the back, still paddling some one else's canoe.
My childhood dream had re-surfaced as I realized by challenging myself to the degree I did and overcoming many fears and finding a degree of success through it all, it seemed that the idea of being limitless might be more than just a childhood fantasy or ideal. Along with that realization came deeper thoughts and questions within myself as to whether I was doing the right thing for myself anymore or had I rode that wave out. As much as a part of me loved what I was doing and could taste the ultimate success that was so close at hand, another part of me was awakening from a long sleep and tugging at my thoughts and my spirit. It was about that time that I was given the news that I was going to be a father, that rang a bell in my head that said it was time to re-evaluate so I left the band and headed out to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
I knew deep down from an earlier visit that Victoria was a good place to hide and heal and think, in fact it turned out to be the perfect place for me to fall apart and be put back together again.
I went through some major transformations in the next few years as did my art and music. I was able to confirm that I was, like many others, able to tap into some great art pool of intelligence, which was there for all to draw ideas from as long as they were open to it. I started studying alot of different philosophies and trying new things and really opening up to other parts of myself. Soon I realized that I was not my thoughts, and every belief I thought I had was simply a perception not a reality. My childhood dream was now being defined and a deeper understanding was emerging, an understanding I had asked for.
I was ready and open to even more challenges and to explore the lighter side of my being, creatively, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. A very powerful experience I had was finding out I could sing and play guitar at the same time. Even though I had taught myself to play guitar by ear years earlier I had only played and sang enough to show the guys in the band my song idea's yet shortly after moving to Victoria I was playing around on a classical acoustic guitar one day when some music and words came flowing out of me that were as foreign as another language. I listened to a voice inside me that said not to judge it but to just let it flow and I really had a breakthrough. Many more songs came in the months and years that followed and I slowly transformed from being hardcore metal drummer to spiritual folk singer song/writer. The songs I was writing were just as real and intense as the stuff I wrote as a metal head just with an opposite ambiance and much more personal tone as they chronicled my discoveries while I was exploring my inner landscape and peeling away the layers of my onion.Playing and performing my stuff was very challenging and I was confronted by one of my biggest fears which was putting myself out there right in front, no drums to hide behind and all my internal critics and demons clawing and gnashing at my feet. I was encouraged when I was introduced to the music of Leonard Cohen and I was relieved to hear that a person could be so personal and simple sounding and that people wanted to hear that and identify with the painful stuff. I didn't and still haven't conquered all my demons and doubts yet I'm working on it and getting closer as I now have the means and most of the know how to get my first CD recorded right in my own home.
Shortly after moving here and while experiencing my musical transition I also explored my visual art side and took a six-week immersion course at the Victoria College of Art. That really opened me up as well and excited me yet when they offered me a scholarship to attend the school full time I turned it down as I was still more hooked into music. However, I did continue to work on my visual art stuff and dip into the art pool from time to time to create unique works and honour my gift. (Some of those works are displayed on this site in the miscellaneous section). Over the years I took several "shortened " art courses from a well known local artist, Bill Porteuos, who was an excellent teacher and who challenged me continuously to step out of my ego and really catch on fire, find my bliss. The abstract works that are diplayed on this site are a direct result of Bill`s influence on me as he taught me a great deal about letting go through the practice of abstact art which he is a master of.
The whole time I was going through the transformation creatively I was experiencing some major changes in my personal life as I had been guided into the field of working with special needs people and troubled youth. My whole life I had grown up never even knowing anyone handi-capped except one kid in high school so it was a huge challenge for me to jump into the field yet it was exactly what I needed. I worked with people with down syndrome, brain injury, autism and many other challenged individuals and they taught me how to really live and have genuine fun and I was able to recognize what an arrogant, egotistical, asshole I had become. I was learning how to serve others instead of just myself and I found an important truth in that which was that it made me feel genuinely happy. It seemed I was successfully letting go of the life I had planned in order to accept the life that was waiting for me the whole time.
In the last five or six years I have studied Herbalism, shamanism, and several other forms of alternative and intuitive healing with another great local teacher, Don Olsin. The two nine month long courses I took with him had a very creative focus which again helped in the development of my art both musically and visually. It also helped me open even wider on a philosophical and spiritual level as I experienced some really wild, magical things and was able to re-connect with the earth as I had done as a child. Don's teachings inspired me to try all sorts of different things from Reiki to hang-gliding to animal tracking and survival training to native american spiritual practices to... and the list goes on!
Just in the last four years I have attended a private college called,"CTI", where I successfully attained a Certificate of Proffesional Counselling and more recently just finished a two year practicum through them and I now have a Diploma of Professional Counselling.
All the stuff I have studied over the years has greatly enriched my life both personally and creatively and I have enjoyed noticing my personal, spiritual, psychological, intellectual and creative evolution.
I now do full time Foster Parenting and have three great young men, who live with me full time as well as a wonderful daughter. I have built a studio in my home for both music and art and I am learning to discipline my time while I blend my creative needs, wants and desires with my practical needs and obligations.
I'm excited to be finally living my bliss and to be taking my artistic side more seriously and finding ways to share it and integrate it with the world.
Most of the art you will see on this site is from the last ten years of my life and stay tuned as I will continue to update the site with both new art and music as it becomes available. Take care SB
" ........and the circle of the wheel goes round and round and the circle of the wheel goes round....."