Max Gimblett, Cassandra Gaisford and inspiration

Max Gimblett and I in Maui, Hawaii, 2008

There’s nothing more inspiring than being with like-minded people and studying with the greats.

I entered an art award once, just for the fun. When they told me I won the Supreme Award and thousands of dollars, I said, “That can’t be right. You’ve made a mistake. That other painting was better. That artist should have won.”

The painting I referred to was very realistic, almost photographic in depicting Leda and The Swan. Whereas my painting, a tiny triptych I entitled Love Stain, after the lyrics in a song referring to someone as a love strain on their heart, was an abstract sumi ink painting.

No, they said, “The judges were unanimous, they loved yours. It was different.” I used my winnings to join Max Gimblett for a never-to-be-repeated Sumi ink painting class he held in Maui, Hawaii.

Love Stain, Cassandra Gaisford, 2008

Persevere with your mid-life; bring into consciousness your childhood dreams, for they will become your living realities.

As Max, wrote in the forward to my book Mid-life Career Rescue, “Persevere with your mid-life; bring into consciousness your childhood dreams, for they will become your living realities.” As an adult now in midlife, I have waved goodbye to my corporate career and made child-like joy my passion and purpose.

As an adult now in midlife, I have waved goodbye to my corporate career and made child-like joy my passion and purpose.

My mission is to share beauty, joy and happiness with my clients and collectors. As an artist (and Libran ruled by Venus, the planet of love), the best words I can ever hear are: I love…I love… the painting. . .I love…your work. . .I love…your effervescence. . .I love…the workshop. . .I love…you. It’s validation that when I show up for love, beauty and joy it matters to others too.

It’s with Max Gimblett that I learned the art of flow.

Flow, Cassandra Gaisford, circa 2001

Acrylic on canvas, 1190mm x 1800mm

This painting is for sale from my website

My trip to Maui and my time with Max remains one of the most treasured times of my life. I am so thankful for the opportunity and that I seized the moment and went with the flow. The other day I came across a photographic album with memories of this time.

As I share in my book, The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos: Insights and Inspiration to Spark and Sustain Your Creative Life and, Landscapes of My Mind: Colour, Light & Beauty.

Flow is one of my most joyous creations and, at the time, one of the first large colour field paintings I ever created. It was some 20 years ago now. I still remember painting this outside on the grass at the farm where my grandmother and later my father lived until he died.

My paternal grandmother bred horses for a living, and I recall around six of them standing around the painting as I washed the canvas in fields of colour. It was a magical time, a memory I still hold in my heart. I reached out to my friend and muse, Max Gimblett, for some wisdom when embarking on this new fluid style.

“Don’t overwork it,” he said, “The painting will tell you. You’ll feel it in your heart.”

Max is a Zen Buddhist Monk and fellow artist and one of the only New Zealander artists to have exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York.

I asked him, “How do you know when you’re finished?”

“Don’t overwork it,” he said, “The painting will tell you. You’ll feel it in your heart.”

And that is how my painting flowed. There was a moment, a joyous moment, when I just knew the painting was finished. Twenty years later, this painting hangs in my home and still evokes joy.

Jumping with Joy

Title: Jouissance (2008)
Medium: Sumi Ink on Paper
Artists: Cassandra Gaisford and Max Gimblett
Year: 2008

I painted this piece during an unforgettable Sumi ink workshop with Max Gimblett in Maui, 2008. It was a time of profound creative awakening for me, just after winning the Wai Supreme Art Award. The prize money made this journey possible, allowing me to immerse myself in the wild, untamed energy of the islands and the deeply spiritual practice of Sumi ink painting.

In this piece, I let go completely, allowing the ink to flow freely, carving its own path across the handmade paper. Each stroke captures a moment of surrender, a release of control, and an embrace of the unknown. The marks range from deliberate, heavy gestures to light, playful flickers, echoing the chaotic dance of creative energy.

The essence of Jouissance — a deep, unrestrained, and often chaotic pleasure — pulses through this work. It’s about the freedom to create without constraint, to lose oneself in the act of making, and to find clarity in the chaos. It is a piece born from that sacred space where the mind quiets and the spirit takes over, where brush meets paper in a dance of intention and instinct.

During one of those intense, meditative moments, Max spontaneously added the face, the dollar sign, and the word “Help” — instinctive, unplanned gestures that broke through the abstraction with a hint of the human struggle for meaning. It was a raw, unfiltered expression, capturing the tension between creation and commerce, freedom and constraint, self and society.

Looking at it now, I see the energy of that moment still alive on the paper — the urgency, the uncertainty, the electric charge of being fully present, fully alive, fully free.

Background:
Created during an immersive, life-changing art retreat in Maui, this piece stands as a testament to the power of collaboration, the raw beauty of spontaneous expression, and the transformative power of artistic surrender.

Joy has phenomenal energy and incredible versatility. In The Book of Joy the Dalai Lama shares that Paul Ekman, a longtime friend and famed emotions researcher, has written that joy is associated with feelings as varied as:

• Pleasure (of the five senses)

• Amusement (from a chuckle to a belly laugh)

• Contentment (a calmer kind of satisfaction)

• Excitement (in response to novelty or challenge)

• Relief (following upon another emotion, such as fear, anxiety, and even pleasure)

• Wonder (before something astonishing and admirable)

• Ecstasy or bliss (transporting us outside ourselves)

• Exultation (at having accomplished a difficult or daring task)

• Radiant pride (when our children earn a special honour)

• Elevation (from having witnessed an act of kindness, generosity, or compassion)

• Gratitude (the appreciation of a selfless act of which one is the beneficiary)

Buddhist scholar and former scientist Matthieu Ricard has added three other more exalted states of joy: rejoicing (in someone else’s happiness, what Buddhists call mudita), delight or enchantment (a shining kind of contentment), spiritual radiance (a serene joy born from deep well-being and benevolence).

When you tap into your joy, you tap into an unlimited reservoir of energy and enthusiasm.

The French take it further—of course! Jouissance literally means orgasmic joy. It’s derived from the word from jouir (“to enjoy”). Jouissance is to enjoy something a lot!

One of my favourite creativity experts, Mihaly Czikszentmihaly, refers to this as a state of “flow.”

In a popular YouTube talk, he asks, “What makes a life worth living? Money cannot make us happy,” he says. Instead, he encourages us to learn from individuals who derive pleasure and lasting satisfaction from activities that induce this state of transcendent flow.

On the cover

I used one of the enso sumi ink paintings l created with Max as the cover for one of my most popular and life-changing books, How to Find Your Passion and Purpose: Four Easy Steps to Discover A Job You Want And Live the Life You Love.

I hope you enjoy this excerpt from my Midlife Career Rescue series,
Available in eBook and audio

What Were Your Childhood dreams?

“Persevere with your mid-life, bring into consciousness your childhood dreams for they will become your living realities.”

~Max Gimblett, Artist and Zen Buddhist Monk

At the age of eight, Donna Hay skipped into a kitchen, picked up a mixing bowl and never looked back. She later moved into the world of magazine test kitchens and publishing, where she established her signature style of simple, smart and seasonal recipes—all beautifully photographed.

Her unique style turned her into one of the first celebrity chefs—an international food-publishing phenomenon and best-selling author. Like many passionate business people Donna has many outlets all unified by her abiding passion for food. Along with publishing cookbooks and producing her own magazine, she’s created a line of homewares, a food range, and at the time of print, now has her own general store.

Many experts say that your passion reveals itself early on in your life. If you’re lucky, someone close to you will have noticed your natural inclination and encouraged you towards your true vocation.

Chances are, you weren’t that lucky. Many baby-boomers weren’t encouraged to follow their childhood bliss. Pay it no mind. It’s not too late to follow it now.

Action Questions: What did you love as a child?

What were your childhood dreams? What did you love to do as a child? What steps can you take to make these your living reality? Perhaps a hobby could be a stepping-stone toward a new career.

As you contemplate making changes in your life, how can you maintain a spirit of curiosity, and allow yourself to be childlike?

Never Grow Up

“…stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.”

~ Jean Piaget, Educational Psychologist

“When will you grow up?” asks Jenny Regels’ husband, affectionately. While visiting Russell in the astoundingly beautiful Bay Of Islands in New Zealand, I had the great fortune of wandering into Jenny’s crystal and spiritual haven—aptly named ‘Peace and Plenty.’

We immediately connected and I had a great time ‘playing’ with one of the many pendulums she has for sale. I gained confirmation from Spirit that the choices I was considering were right.

When Jenny, then a youthful 69-year-old, shared with me the great joy she feels everyday being childlike I asked her if she’d share a few words of wisdom with those of us, who at times, take life too seriously.

“It’s really, really important not to grow up, and to keep a young mind and be interested in everything going on around you. And keep your inner child active the whole time. Really active. And keep a positive outlook on life. Don’t be the glass half empty person. Be the one half full. Always.”

I left feeling uplifted, reaffirmed in the knowledge that I want what Jenny’s got—ageless grace, peace and plenty.

Surf The Net

Take a peek inside Jenny’s crystal haven and listen to this delightful, ageless lady here https://vimeo.com/147984220

Tune Into Your Body Barometer

As Neale Walsch, the author of Conversations With God, says, “Judge not about which you feel passionate. Simply notice it, then see if it serves you, given who and what you wish to be.”

Notice the times you feel a sense of excitement, a state of arousal, a feeling of limitless energy, a burning desire, a strong gut feeling, a feeling of contentment, strong emotions or determination. Notice these feelings and record them in your passion journal.

During my time in the United States I was very lucky to have been able to stay in New York and to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was even luckier because while I was there I unexpectedly rediscovered a passion I had forgotten.

I share the following excerpt from my passion journal at that time (which incidentally was bright red!), in the hope that it illustrates some of the strategies I am encouraging you to try.

“To see these paintings makes my heart sing, my eyes sparkle and a smile settle upon my lips. I feel a shortness of breath and my heart rate quickens. I want to take them all in and love the ones with texture so rich you can almost feel the paint. I have to stop myself from reaching out to touch them. I am flushed with excitement and a thirst that cannot be quenched.”

And so it was that my ‘body barometer’ reminded me of the deep joy and love I feel when I paint with oil. I had traded my passion for the convenience of acrylic, but I found it joyless and plastic.

I thought it was a great confirmation of the power of passion when an art gallery owner, who bought some of my paintings not long after I returned from New York, said to me, “You have a rare ability to capture an emotion.”

I later won the Supreme Art Award for an oil painting I did of my grandmother. It was the first portrait I had ever painted. I’m not a formally trained artist, more of a dabbler. So yes, magic can happen when you follow your passion.

“You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want.”

~ Margaret Young, Singer and Comedienne

What You’ve Learned So Far

• Passion is energy. It is emotion, zest, intensity, enthusiasm and excitement. Passion is love.

• Do what inspires you! Pursuing your passion, not your pension, can be a liberating and clarifying catalyst to your true calling and best-fit career.

• A healthy obsession can lead to many things. Not only will your passion lead you to your path with heart, it will also help fuel the fires of determination, courage and self-belief. You’ll be fully alive, stand out from the crowd and gain a competitive edge.

• If you don’t know where to look passion can be difficult to find. Tune into your body barometer and notice the times when you feel most alive, inspired or fulfilled.

• Start a passion journal – keep track of the times when you notice clues to your passion, such as a feeling of inspiration or any of the other signs discussed in this chapter. Record these moments in an inspirational journal so that they don’t get lost or forgotten.

• Adding quotes, pictures or any other insights will really make your journal come alive. Gain greater awareness of what drives your passion by asking yourself, “Why am I passionate about this?” Look for the themes and patterns that build up over time.

• Keep your passion alive by updating your journal and referring to it regularly. Actively look for jobs and examples of people who have made the things you are passionate about into a rewarding career and life. Keep generating ideas about how you could add more passion into your life.

What’s next?

In the next chapter you’ll discover how joyous, and exciting work and life is when you’re following your obsessions and doing what interests and inspires you.

“I believe the greatest tool I developed was an unwavering decision to commit my full energy to my Heart’s desire. I learned to organize my life around my dream, rather than try and force my dream into my chaotic life.”

~ Sonia Choquette, Psychic Intuitive and Author