Yes, I paint. Can you believe it?!

You might be thinking, WHAT? Since when does she paint?! How does she have time?!

The short answer- I used to paint until I had my second child and a lot of my creative free time evaporated. A full decade passed. I hired a designer to renovate a little living room area in my home and she showed me a rendering for that space: it featured two large abstract paintings. My first reaction: “I should paint those.”

To my surprise, I had said the words out loud. My designed looked at me and said, “You paint?!” I said, “Well, I used to. And I’d like to try to paint these.”

I did not have a studio and my collection of brushes and paints were dried up and covered in dust. I ordered a new easel, gessobords, acrylics, and and brushes and got to work. I had to paint in a dark corner of my basement, wait for the material to dry, drag the enormous art upstairs to view it in ‘good light’ and then head back to my basemen to tweak. It took forever.

Here I am with the initial rendering from my designer:

And here is what that room looks like now, with my paintings:

I did not give up painting after this project concluded. In fact, I paused my usual writer-in-residence and fellowship applications to go for an ‘artist-in-residence’ opportunity last year when I spent two weeks in Paducah, Kentucky at A.I.R. Studio. I wrote scripts and painted the entire time. When I came home, I made a promise to treat the art like ‘real art’ and get it framed. My amazing framer, Signature of Art in Glencoe, encouraged me to keep going and keep exploring the medium. So I did.

By then I had a lot of framed art up piling up in my house. But what to do? Where could I pitch it? I was deeply intimidated but reached out to a few places and landed on the amazing folks at Central Station Coffee + Tea in Wilmette (a connection made through a dear friend that is an extraordinary artist).

I will be the featured artist at Central Station for the month of November, and I would LOVE to share my work with you (no pressure to purchase anything; just come by, peruse, drink something warm and delicious, and enjoy!). My collection is titled ‘A Moment For Nostalgia’ and features my deep connection to memories- cotton candy summers at baseball games, hydrangea bushes lining driveways, the first golf course where I learned to play, the lakes of Minocqua that raised me, and so much more! The colors are soothing, summery, and stirring, and I hope you find a little nostalgia for yourself in the brushstrokes.

Artist Reception: (think cozy, casual hang among the art): Sunday, Nov. 1st from 3:30pm-5pm at Central Station (1150 Central Ave., Wilmette, IL). My family and friends will be in attendance and complimentary coffees, teas, and seasonal drinks will be offered.

Artist Exhibition: My paintings will be up in the coffee shop from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th. Visit any time during business hours, 7am-5pm.

P.S. If you take away nothing else from this story, know that it’s perfectly fine to pick up an old hobby or refine a new one, no matter how much time has passed. There is joy in rediscovery. Embrace the risk of putting art into the world and having people judge it. Create something for the love of doing it. I tell stories through pages, movie scripts, poems, performances, and paintings. The stories keep going!

(photo from my time painting at A.I.R. Studio Paducah, Summer 2025)