About Me
I was born
in Czechoslovakia during the "RED regime" (yes, with Stalin's
portrait displayed in the front of my classroom) to two very free spirited
individuals who strived for perfection in all their actions and fought
for honor and freedom. My parents were willing to risk it all. My father
led an anticommunist band which was rapidly growing in popularity. So
with one foot in a prison cell, my father knew we had to leave. This
leads us to the story of the two year long escape. Trainbound out of
our homeland, my father destroyed our passports so that noeone would
know where we were running away from and could not send us back. He
told us not to speak Czech arround any officials as not to give us away
and he spoke to them only in German insisting that we want to go to
West Germany. So we, the "political refuges" (dad, mom, sitter
and I) embarked on our journey by train from Czechoslovakia, through
Hungary to a (5 star) immigration camp in Italy. Two weeks later, not
impressed with the options given to us, we continued by foot. Crouching
in tall grass and crawling on red soldier sand over the Monte Carlo
Mountain border (hoping not to get shot during the 24hr adventure) down
into France. Then, by luck or the pure kindness and pity of an old French
train conductor we took a train to semi freedom of an immigration camp
in Donaueshingen West Germany (it was actually an old concentration
camp) Not feeling quite free enough, two years later we got on a plane
(destination, Sunny San Diego) Ten years later "The Velvet Revolution"
called for a costume change from red to blue. And so the government
who denied their people of self improvement and achievement of excellence
and deprived them of pride, was much obliged to take the money they
had stolen from one of the richest countries in Europe and engage it on their
own behalf in a new democratic system. Needless to say, we were forgiven
for our treason against that government and given amnesty. This meant
that we were allowed to return back home and not be imprisoned or prosecuted.
And so in 1992 we did just that, we went home. I attended a Fine Arts
University in Usti Nad Labem, Czechoslovakia for six months. But with
new politics that arose during the "Change", which were not
in favor of a Czech girl returning home after 10 years in "America",
I decided to leave once again. This time, leaving everyone I loved,
I went to Vancouver B.C. Two years later (married) I traced my footsteps
back to San Diego for a few years. But in 1997 I came to Las Vegas,
and have been here since, going home every few years to be with family.
And YES I have felt TORN. And the words "Gde Domov Muj" from
the Czech national anthem, meaning "where is my home?" have
haunted me all these years. It has only been in the last five years,
after a heart braking and almost life blanching ten year marriage which
obvioulsy from my tone ended in divorce, that I have started to regain
my taste for life. Starting the "In Search Of Me Campaign"
(just humor me), I dove back into my arts. Hungry for expression which
I had stifled for so long, I rediscovered my lost passions. Hoping to
reconnect with my experiences and this time not let them smother me
in a corner, but let them lead me down a path of incredible memories
and lessons of LIFE. And this is how I came to be HERE, with YOU, sharing
the things most dear to me. The highest goal I have for my work is,
TO INSPIRE the way that I have been INSPIRED TO GROW.
! ! THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME ! ! !
