Poet, visual artist, yoga teacher, playwright, devoted mother, and wife: Lakewood resident Isabella Russell-Ides finds karmic magic in many aspects of life. She believes wholeheartedly in Leonard Cohen's statement about human imperfection and the enlightenment it can foster.

Her resonance as an artist began early and has buoyed her life. As a 5-year-old student at the Blessed Sacrament School in Hollywood, Calif., she fell in love with language's imagery and the theatrical aspects of Catholic ritual.

Through the Baltimore Catechism ("an outward sign of an inward grace"), she found an expressive voice and started creating fantasy worlds with scripture. She grew up in a conflicted household, with a depressed World War II veteran father repressing highly creative tendencies, dominated by a wife determined to live by the post-war era's status quo.

She attended the University of California at Santa Barbara in the heyday of the rebellious ‘60s but delved further into visual art and intellectual inquiry, earning a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy and comparative religion.

Russell-Ides said she found the political expression of the time overly emotional and threatening, while it was comfortable and rewarding to explore her personal creativity through intellectual analysis.