Kim Brake says she's into being an "outsider" during a Vancouver festival devoted to such self-identifying artists.

Presented by the Community Arts Council of Vancouver, the annual returns to Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre with goals of raising the profiles of those with "committed art practices but have faced physical, economical or social obstacles to showing their work in mainstream art spaces."

Brake, who created an art studio in the kitchen of her 性视界传媒 home, is new to the festival.

"It's exciting and scary at the same time," Brake admitted, "because I hid behind social media until this spring when I started showing my work in public, at . Since then, opportunities have been happening. It's a phenomenal venue (at the Roundhouse) and it's all about showcasing artists that don't quite fit in the box, and the arts council (of Vancouver) has been such a great help with all of it."

Recent years have been creative for Brake, whose acrylic-on-canvas paintings and poetry helped her heal and express herself during a difficult period, following a second re-occurrence of breast cancer, surgeries, cumulative stress, trauma and, ultimately, a major depressive episode.

Rather than 鈥渃ope,鈥� Brake dove deeply into a life-changing healing journey to discover "the power of time in nature and of self-expression through the arts," a bio explains.

Now, from Oct. 11-13 at VOAF, she'll be featured among 56 performing and visual artists from across Metro Vancouver.

"My world crashed down in January 2021," explained the Newfoundland-raised Brake, who has worked in the criminal justice field.

"I'm not afraid to share that because it's part of my journey. It's been very healing for me, a major shift in how I view the world, how I view myself. I was stuck in a rut 鈥� It was Murphy's Law, that if anything bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to me. I felt trapped and didn't know how to change my life, and my life changed as a result of dealing with depression. It's been interesting to me to find a journey that's connected to nature and discovering goddess energy, and a lot of my work speaks to feminine energy."

is where Brake first started to connect, posting pictures of things she found beautiful and also haiku poems, paintings, photographs of her own.

"That started me on a path of releasing pent-up emotions, seeing the beauty of nature, and it kind of blossomed from there," she said. "I'm very lucky I found that. With my first goddess painting, I had a lot of pent-up anger and released that all on canvas."

At VOAF this week, the public can sign up for workshops to learn about handmade felt objects and Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging). Through a partnership with Culture Days BC, workshops will also be given on Kathak Movement and collaborative character design. .

鈥淰OAF provides a platform to showcase a unique selection of works from those on the margins, including refugees, low or unstable income groups, neurodivergent people and more,鈥� says 性视界传媒 resident Kristin Cheung, executive director of CACV.

鈥淏y involving VOAF alumni in our curatorial process, we鈥檙e committed to building a strong, supportive network of outsider artists and fostering long-term relationships between participants that will grow beyond the festival. Embodying that spirit ourselves, we鈥檙e also thrilled to have even more local organizational partners this year, which allows us to offer visitors a richer community experience.鈥�