Nourished by Making

The hungry Renaissance soul needs making, not meetings. Process, not permission. Space, not structure.

In the spring of 2023, after decades as a full-time writer and shadow artist, I was juried into a prestigious seaside artist cooperative as a photographer. The other members were watercolorists, potters, fiber artists, woodworkers, jewelers, painters in oils, acrylics, and pastels.

As an art minor in college, I had dabbled in some of these mediums, but never deeply. In the early 1970s, young women became nurses or teachers. I chose high school English because I loved words. Art was the side dish, not the meal. Though my parents never discouraged creativity, I grew up believing there was no future in an art degree.

Membership in the cooperative required a monthly four-hour gallery sit. When I wasn’t ringing up sales or vacuuming floors, I wandered the space studying hanging paintings, sculptures, and glasswork. Something in my Renaissance soul flickered awake. I wanted to try it all.

Over the next six months I enrolled in classes: pastels, watercolor, drawing, alcohol inks, palette knife painting—and finally oil and cold wax. That medium lodged itself in my bones. I reapplied as an abstract oil and cold wax painter and soon added that designation to my membership.

In June of my second year, I was selected as one of two featured artists. I curated a retrospective of my Route 66 photo journey. The show drew local press. Pieces sold. It was a creative high point.

And yet, restlessness set in.

The required gallery hours began to feel like borrowed time from my real work. Hanging committees bristled with opinions. Monthly wine-and-cheese openings exhausted my introverted, sober spirit. Consensus meetings stirred drama I had no appetite for.

I began to feel the squeeze: too many forms, too many structures, too many obligations pressing against the soft inner life where my art is born.

So I resigned, two years after joining.

Not because the cooperative failed me — but because I had outgrown it.

I wanted more field time. More road time. More easel time. More sewing-machine time. More beginner’s mind. More unassigned hours.

For a hungry artist heart, nourishment is found not in committees and calendars —
but in making.

(If my words spoke to you today and you’d like to support my work in a small way, you can leave a token of appreciation below. No obligation, just gratitude.)