BIO

Flora Bowley (pronounced bowl-lee) is an artist, author, and gentle guide whose soulful approach to the creative process has transformed thousands of lives.

Blending over twenty years of professional painting experience with her background as a yoga instructor, healer, and lifelong truth seeker, Flora’s intimate in-person workshops and popular online courses have empowered a global network of brave painters, while creating a new holistic movement in the intuitive art world.

Her first book, Brave Intuitive Painting, provides a luminous documentation of this innovative approach, while Creative Revolution dives even deeper into the transformational potential inherent in this way of creating. Flora’s own vibrant collection of paintings can be found in galleries, shops, and printed on unique products around the world.

Flora believes that creative expression is waiting to unfold within every person who is brave enough to trust, let go, and explore, and it is through this kind of heartfelt expression that truths are revealed, lives transform, and new worlds are born.

Flora lives with her partner, Jonathan, his son, Miles, and their spirit dog, Pearl, in Portland, OR.

PURPOSE

♦ To give permission to wildly and truthfully create.

♦ To invite others to embrace the mystery … to trust, allow and release.

♦ To share my artistic approach with clarity, generousity, compassion and authenticity.

♦ To experience the creative process as a crucial part of my holistic well-being.

♦ To remind everyone in my life: You are infinitely creative.

MILESTONES

For the storybook version, please head over to my Journey page…

Milestones

Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1974.

Raised by dynamic, free-thinking YMCA directors who gave me plenty of space to roam and encouragement to follow my big little heart.

Precariously bridged the “athlete” and “art geek” worlds in high school.

High-tailed it to Italy as an exchange student at 16.

Moved west the minute I turned 18.

Found my tribe among artists, activists, musicians and healers.

Studied art at almost all the colleges in Colorado, with occasional dropouts to study snowboarding.

Hiked hundreds of miles in the Rocky Mountains.

Fell in love. Fell out of love. Repeat.

Sold my first paintings in a coffee shop, and decided to become a full-time painter.

Got rejected from all three MFA programs I applied to.

Decided to paint in my bedroom instead.

Moved to Seattle.

Became a yoga instructor, massage therapist and self-help junkie.

Traveled the world on a shoestring many times over.

Created hundreds of paintings and sold them in cafés, coffee shops, art fairs, galleries and out of the back of my car.

Lived in a van, a tent, my art studio and a storage unit.

Volunteered for six months in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, while living in another tent.

)'(

Went to Burning Man seven years in a row.

Changed my name and started loving myself more.

Moved to Portland.

Realized that being a full-time artist was not my dream job after all.

Fell in love with a man and a dog.

Decided not to travel so much.

Lost my beloved mama to a seven-week battle with cancer.

Started writing another book and created Studio Diaries.

Launched this amazing website.