About Tonya
Painting a New Future!
Artist finds new hope and passion following tragic auto accident!
Just one month after high school graduation, Tonya’s whole life lay ahead. Already enrolled in paramedic school, she inaugurated the first phase of her master plan - become a paramedic and use the income while she worked her way through medical school. Ultimate goal - doctor - emergency room physician.
But plans change - sometimes whether you want them to or not.
On a deserted stretch of Highway 71 just North of Alexandria, Louisiana, as eighteen-year old Tonya drove her younger brother home from summer church camp, the unthinkable happened. Her mother, following behind in a van with friends watched as Tonya’s car quickly veered off the right edge of the pavement and began to flip end over end.
With the first flip of the car, Tonya’s driver’s door window popped out. The second ejected her from the hurling mass of steel and catapulted her now unconscious body more than one hundred feet. Finally, after a third roll, the car came to rest nearby with her brother, virtually uninjured, still in his seat.
On that fateful day, as Tonya’s body lay motionless in the grass beside the road, everything changed.
Hours of surgery, days in intensive care, weeks in the hospital, and months in rehabilitation would all contribute to Tonya’s return into daily living. Strong-willed, she refused to let the paralysis and loss of use in her lower legs prevent her from pursuing life. But what life?
The hospital experience dramatically curbed Tonya’s desire to pursue medicine as a career. The experience stole her passion to use her hands for the artistry of healing others.
More than a decade passed before Tonya discovered a new, consuming zeal that would make use of her hands - one that would gave her an outlet for her creativity.
On another fateful day, Tonya wondered into an art supply store in Tyler, Texas where she now lived with husband, JP, and infant daughter, Karlista. And once again, everything changed.
JP describes the unexpected discovery. “I came home from my office and found Tonya sitting in front of an easel, brush in hand, paint and other ’suspicious artist things’ spread around our breakfast room. I was surprised because the last time she attempted ‘art’ was nearly 12 years earlier, before we met, when she was a college sophomore Shreveport, Louisiana. And, to hear her tell it - she was NOT very good at all.”
But something magical materialized as Tonya discovered a new way to express her emotions, feelings and interests. She found herself almost magnetically pulled to the canvas.
Instinctively, she painted. And as the pictures immerged on the canvas, a new image formed in her mind of what the opportunity could hold. Brush stroke by brush stroke, Tonya painted a new future.
As a self-taught artist, Tonya’s work knows no boundaries. Unconfined by conventional techniques, unfettered by preconceived ideas of what can or cannot be achieved, she captures beauty, color and emotion in incomparable pieces of fine art.
Artists - the truly exceptional ones like Tonya Maroney - rarely conform to other people’s expectations. They resist commonly accepted techniques, and usually find joy, passion and fulfillment in breaking the rules and creating their own way.
This independence usually causes headaches for parents, teachers and peers - but dramatically and positively affects their results. And, it creates beauty to be enjoyed by those who love the artists’ work.
After all, who wants to collect something that can be obtained anywhere? Instead, one wants something beautiful, unique and special - something of value that will only appreciate over time.
Today, Tonya Maroney continues to paint her own future. And in the process she’s discovered an alternative for her previous passion of healing others through medicine.
Through her artwork she’s revealed a way to bring beauty, and perhaps healing, to others. And at the same time, in a unique way, she’s brought healing to her own life.
