MEET A SCIENTOLOGIST: LIVING THE CREATIVE LIFE—PAINTER PAMELA HOLL HUNT
The exuberant canvases of abstract expressionist Pamela Holl Hunt are a key to her personality.
Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, in 1945, Pam received classical training in the 1960s and 70s in Paris, London and Brussels. But, swept up in the drug culture of the era, she nearly lost the very thing she thought drugs would provide.
“Drugs completely destroyed my creativity,” she says. “It is very ironic, because in the beginning they seemed to give me a surge. But in the end I lost the attitude of ‘What can I create?’ I kept taking more because I hoped that surge would come back. It never did. They took the love of life and painting out of me. It was just a trap.”
Pam met future husband Philip when she was studying painting in Brussels. In 1975, to distance themselves from the drug scene, they moved to Canada.
“We drove cross-country from Ontario to British Columbia. In Vancouver we saw a sign offering a personality test at the Scientology Mission,” she says. “I remember it was raining, and we were drenched. We walked up to the door and I saw something so welcoming in the eyes of the man who opened it, I instantly felt like I had come home. I was always very spiritual. I had been looking for something without really knowing what I was looking for. I was so glad I was able to recognize it when I found it.”
With Scientology, she not only strengthened her decision to stay away from drugs, she also rehabilitated her interest in the world around her.
“I got back all the reasons for living that I lost along the way,” she says.
Pam and Philip married in 1976 and continued their studies in Scientology. They raised two sons, now 33 and 34, and have three grandchildren—two girls and a boy.
“We never shoved our beliefs down our boys’ throats, but we lived by the principles of Scientology,” says Pam. “When one of my sons was six he came home from a friend’s house and asked me why we were so different from his friend’s family. I asked him ‘In what way?’ He said at his friend’s they were always arguing. I told him we used what we learned in Scientology—that’s why it’s calm and peaceful in our home.”
Hunt talks, paints and lives her life with a youthful energy and enthusiasm. She loves her family, her friends, animals (especially her two cats), meeting new people, and being an artist.
“Artists create out of love,” says Hunt, “and I’m so glad I got my love of life and creativity back.”
Labels: drug abuse, human rights, Scientologist, Scientology, video
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