I have been an artist since I can remember - I spent all possible hours in the art room. I took after-school art classes as a young child. In high school I took math class over the summer so I could take more art electives during the year. I would take the train into the nearest city on the weekends to take art classes at the local university. I would spend hours in museums or looking at books. I went to fine arts school for college. And then… I didn’t touch it for 20 years.

I totally psyched myself out and thought I wasn’t serious enough or that I had nothing to say. But during all of those long years, I felt as if I was missing a big part of who I was. It hurt to tell people I went to art school but didn’t make art anymore. And I would never have called myself an artist - I felt like a fraud.

In those twenty years, I established a corporate career, built a home and a family, and went deep into spirituality and meditation. During the pandemic, I had the idea to take a few art classes- I took one in papier mache during the pandemic which was hilarious and childlike and fun, and then a class in encaustic and one in gouache. I remembered loving gouache in school - if you don’t know, it’s an opaque watercolor that is less “fine art” than other painting mediums. As a bit of a contrarian, I love that.

During the gouache class, I was sitting at the table and was completely paralyzed - I just couldn’t figure out how to start - there was just so much pressure put on only by myself. The teacher saw the state of me and said, “You went to art school, didn’t you?” And then she said - “Look, you’re not gonna be rich and famous with your art, so why don’t you just enjoy it. The only difference between me and you is that I’m doing it.” She was a professional artist (meaning, she funded her live by her art) and seemed to just be happy in who she was and living a fabulous artist life, and sort of didn’t care about “the rules” (like using black in a painting.) I felt embarrassed but so uplifted - she gave me a few ideas to get started and after a few quick sketches in gouache I had made that first start - putting marks on paper.

At home, I really wanted to expose my young kids to creativity as a way of being; we had simple tempera paint sticks and canvases available all the time. It was amazing to me how the kids would just make marks with total confidence, and be 100% done when they felt like it, and just move on. They loved doing this activity together too, like it was a mode of loving each other. I would make paintings with them and being together in that creative zone was so special. Then we started watercolors and I tried really hard not to think - just make shapes and use colors I wasn’t used to, like the kids were doing. That painting surprised me and was another step into just opening back up to that childish love of art.

Those two experiences - the fabulous gouache teacher, and making art with my kids just sort of unlocked me and I started a daily practice at home. I bought some supplies and set up a table. Over time I took over a guest room to have more natural light and more space. Now my studio contains my meditation chair and my “office” for my corporate career, and a workspace for painting right in front of the window; I can access the art any time I have spare moments during the day, and spend hours there each night.

I have redefined for myself what it means to be an artist, let go of old ideas and any pressure, and I’m just doing it. I am an artist. Every day. And I get lost in it - it feels really good to be free to be myself and express all the ways I perceive the world into art. And I’d like to share that. I think there’s an audience for every kind of art, and I hope this art can uplift some of you too.

🙏💕🔥✨

- EA