More stuff about me

I was born in Montreal during the Summer of Love to a Acadian painter and an actor of Irish descent. Despite my grandmother’s efforts to stop it, my parents formed a home that wrapped us kids up in love and chaos. Security was not financial but based in faith - the support, nurturing and creative example I got from mom and dad gave me the confidence to seek out my own path in the arts. As a kid I was an actor with small parts on classic Canadian TV shows like Gordon Pinsent’s “A Gift to Last” and the “Littlest Hobo”. As a teenager I wrote songs and dreamed of going to art school in New York. Somehow my curiosity and attraction to smart people landed me at the University of Toronto where I majored in Cinema Studies and English. It was there I realized I wanted to be an Auteur. Armed with a Bolex, I shot my first film - a stop-motion animation about dinosaurs and the Virgin Mary. After graduation I headed off to Europe to find my roots - several adventures and a major break-up later I found myself in the psych ward of the Merlin Park Hospital in Galway, Ireland. Beside my bed they had laid out my shampoo, my toothbrush and my Camel cigarettes. Then, miraculously, 5000 miles from home, my father walked into the room, “Hey Mariesie…” Out of the messiness of my 20s I was able to forge a better foundation for my adult life. With spiritual guidance from 12-Step philosophy and creative inspiration from Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” I wove my personal and professional creativity into a rewarding career making tv for kids at TVO and CBC.