"Embracing the Artist Life"
Embracing the Artist Life
My journey to success
So, you dream of being an artist?
Commitment to your vision will make it happen.
But you probably already knew that.
Something you may not realize, is that it’s equally important to release expectations.
Embracing the unexpected has been the key to my artistic success.
How do you cultivate commitment and flexibility?
Be specific about your goal and open-minded about how you get there.
Here’s how I’ve lived this advice:
At 18, “being an artist” looked like a one-way ticket to Fiji with just my backpack and a sketchbook.
After 12 years of rigid public schooling, knew I wanted freedom and space to explore my true creative voice. While my friends were starting college, I was backpacking through foreign countries, recording everything I discovered inside a leather-bound journal.
It was an unusual and formative time of life:
I drew portraits of Fijian chiefs and apprenticed with an Italian master oil painter. There were 3, wild years spent as a vagabond sidewalk chalk artist, busking for tips across the streets of Europe.
Working as a professional “Madonnara” (chalk artist) in Florence Italy
Along the way, I had a spiritual awakening that propelled me through a Yoga teacher training, Reiki training and an intensive Vipassana meditation course.
Embrace the unknown: it may bring success beyond your wildest dreams.
When I set out from Seattle at 18 years old, I never imagined the places I would go. I literally didn’t know they existed! I’d never heard of oil painting apprenticeships, sidewalk chalk art or Vipassana Meditation.
I did know that I loved making art and wanted my lifestyle to prioritize daily communion with my passion. I wanted to “be an artist.” This knowledge was my guiding light as I picked my way down a very uncertain path.
Painting a mural for “Center Camp Cafe” at the 2019 Burning Man Gathering.
Ask yourself: What is best for your creativity?
When I came to a fork in the road, I would ask myself “What is best for my artistic practice?” I knew that if I followed that answer I’d end up somewhere satisfying.
Sometimes, the “best thing for my practice” was to get a job and free myself from financial stress (stress is terrible for your creativity!) I worked as a waitress, on and off, from age 15 to 30.
Other times, I needed the structure of an academic program. There were years where I only made small, private watercolors in my bedroom, and years where I painted giant murals on the sides of buildings.
As I write this, I’m currently identified as a “muralist, art professor and feminist watercolorist.” I never expected to become any of these things. I don’t know if these labels will carry into my future, or if I’ll become a new type of artist I can’t imagine yet. Whatever happens, I will keep asking myself, “where does my practice want to go?” And I will listen to the answers.
As you progress on the path toward your dreams, you’ll find yourself looking out at the world from a new perspective.
Your inner flexibility will determine whether you can integrate the new viewpoint, or not.
Integration is growth, and without growth, there is no progress.
Simultaneously: progress without direction is disjointed and slow.
