She started painting water colours 10 years ago after attending a painting class with a close friend.

But the retired school teacher says there was a time when she felt incapable of creating any type of art piece.

"I always felt I was not creative and I could never draw a straight line with a ruler," said Parent.

She now spends days in her basement art studio lost inside her paintings.

"I now believe there's creativity in all of us."

Parent has spent the last few years focusing on acrylic, abstract art.

It is what she describes as a process, sometimes very long, but always therapeutic during illness.

"I was a cancer patient and went to Wellspring Niagara, where I took art therapy," she said. "In that setting everything just comes together and you paint exactly what is in your heart at that moment."

What Parent discovered about abstract art was that she very much enjoyed throwing colour onto paper and being lost in the moment.

The artwork also became a healing process.

"It gave me a sense of it's okay and now art has become a way of life," she said.

Since beating cancer, Parent has not wasted any time experimenting with the art form.

Inside the Parent home, a floor-to-ceiling wall featuring every colour of the rainbow displays many of her colourful art pieces.

Among the display, an array of abstract paintings each one with its own meaning.

Parent describes her painting "Breakthrough" as a symbol of creativity that is coming through and knocking down the barriers we all keep within ourselves.

"It got me really thinking and is quite an important painting for me now," she said.

Parent says her sense of vision has changed over the years and now she is very much looking at things differently. By experimenting with abstract art, she can be creative without having a distinct plan of what a piece should look like.

"I find I have a hard time having notion in my mind," she said. "I enjoy the abstract art because it allows me to work freely."

Parent said she would rather just throw the colours onto a canvas and experiment with how they look than have a plan ahead of time.

"That is the beauty of abstract -- not everybody likes it and that's okay, but it's all about being creative."

The Thorold resident appeared at the Pelham Art Festival last weekend for the first time.