About
Roxsane K. Tiernan
Roxsane was born and raised in the Greater Vancouver area. She became an international educator, teaching high school and marketing for the district in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Mexico. Wherever she travels she soaks up local colour, customs and cultural influences. The cross-cultural experiences blend with her lively imagination her creativity and her love of the outdoors provide an endless variety of subjects for her art work. Now, she lives in Burnaby.One afternoon in Japan, in 1984, she took a class in Chigiri-e a Japanese torn-paper collage technique. This opened her creative channels.
Now, she enjoys the variety of paper-the feel of it. It can be sturdy or fragile, bright or hazy, fibrous or sheer-gauzy. She loves it all.Recently, she is exploring the vibrant, audacious color of acrylics. Often she combines them with paper to create a mixed media piece. She has been a member of the Burnaby Artists Guild for over twenty years helping with the creation of mosaic murals for the Tommy Douglas Library and BC Children's Hospital.Roxsane is an energetic 83-year-old. She has caring, community-oriented siblings, two wonderful daughters, five grandchildren and a one-year-old great-grandson.
Her wide circle of friends is scattered all over the globe, and at home she has a wonderful man named Bill who makes her life complete.Roxsane's early life was challenging but she completed her teacher's training at UBC, taught in a one-room school on Harrison Lake and married George Dheilly. Together they raised three beautiful daughters. The youngest died of a brain tumour in 1981. Their marriage fell apart in 1983-84. Needing to find more meaning in her life, after the girls left home, she decided to go back to university to complete her Bachelor of Education and get back to the most meaningful career she could find-teaching at the high school level.
Since then she has worked in Mexico for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, traveled extensively and taught International students and immigrants before retiring, becoming a capable author and artist."In my travels and through life, every time I enter a place of worship for the first time, I ask for understanding or wisdom. They are gifts we all need. The content of my poems reflects what I have learned"-Roxsane Tiernan
Why Do I Write?
I write—to provoke.
To prod
To delineate
To develop patterns
To think out loud
To remind
To explain
To teach
To justify
To enlighten
Possibly to elicit a response.
Why Does It Work That Way?
Is it really true if you focus on what you want it will happen?
Why had you been able to get your next-door neighbor to the baby shower
Blocking her friends who unknowingly hesitated to invite her to a concert?
Why had your hunches to turn here, go straight, beep the horn,
And find your cousin’s ex backing out of his friend’s driveway-
At exactly the moment you arrived.
So you would be able to find your cousin.
They had moved, separated and, and-
Since we had been south.
Why do people phone out of the blue;
When there is a tragedy you haven’t had time to share?
Yes, we are all one—like fibrous tree roots that support their kin and other friendly species.
The vibrations, the ether, permeate distances without twitter, facebook, or the 6 o’clock news.
We have the power.
Space
Space that great openness
That comes with no restraints
It is available for use
Your use or mine
It can be filled with positive ions
Encouraging, hopeful, freeing
Letting the true self show
Letting the softer breezes blow
Letting the deeper emotions go
What will you do with this space?
