a little story about me (part 3)

I was in the middle of my final at Johnson and Wales and I just knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I stood up, walked to my professors desk and handed in my papers saying “this just isn’t for me.”

On the way home, I decided I was going to go back to school for elementary art education and become a teacher. A profession that I had never once thought of as a young high school student.

Life is a beautiful teacher if you will be still enough to listen and brave enough to act.

Every class I took at Mass Art to get my teaching license lit me up. I was excited. I was filled with ideas. I finished ready to start my new career with enthusiasm and a bit of naivete for sure. Those first few jobs were tough. They taught me so much about myself, the profession I had chosen and how art specialists are often viewed in the school system. But I was in love with it!

I taught children about color and line and shape, but most often what I was teaching was about listening to your creative voice. Listening to the part of you that whispers. The inner guidance on what to do next.

My career spanned over 20 plus years in public education and then it was time for a shift. I left and began teaching women. I taught them the same concepts.

Listen to your inner voice.

Listen to those whispers.

What is your inner guidance directing you to do?

And above all, how to connect with and encourage play and experimentation.

Often times as we get older we think we no longer have the right to thoe things. That somehow we must be a “serious artist” or nothing at all.

I’ve been the serious artist. I’ve sold my art to collectors.

It didn’t bring me joy. It didn’t fulfill me.

In all actuality, it brought me stress and self doubt.

As a high school student, I thought I could never be a painting major because I wasn’t “serious” enough. I wish I could tell my younger self to just go for it. Just try. Its ok, to NOT be serious.

Its ok to just be you.