Return of the Renaissance Woman

Four years ago (a whole Olympiad) I wrote a blog post titled Embracing My Inner Renaissance Woman. This was after five years trying (& failing) to “niche down” and choose one creative career. All of the business classes said that would lead to success. But I wasn’t successful. I was depressed and burned out.

Stifling my curiosity had also suffocated my art. 

When I began embracing my inner Renaissance Woman I let curiosity take the lead. I carved block prints, made autumnal crowns, learned to crochet, shot self portraits, gardened, cross stitched, painted, bought a kiln, and taught myself stop motion animation.

But it didn’t last.

The next year I was so hyperfocused on the podcast Kindle Curiosity that I overcommitted to a recording and upload schedule that left no time for the other projects. 

The niching wasn’t intentional this time, but it happened all the same.

I spent hours and hours each week editing, writing show notes, and creating audio teasers. Interviews started in February and continued every other week through October which was a huge drain on this introverted and autistic soul. But all of the amazing people I invited said yes so I kept on recording.

Six months into podcasting I was expecting David. Burnout quickly became prenatal depression. My body and mental health deteriorated to the point I all I could do was prepare for the baby. I looked around at other expectant mothers who continued to work or create and I felt broken. 

When David was born I had an amazing jolt of energy. (That’s when I drafted my book, founded NW Arkansas Mother Artists, and designed my Kindle Deck.) But as we locked down for COVID (when he was 10 months) my depressive symptoms came back with a vengeance.

But this time it wasn’t depression at all. It was autistic burnout caused by overstimulation and continuing to ignore my limits.

I finally realized I could not push through everything with sheer force of will.

It was becoming clear that COVID was not a short term situation so we ordered a shed to become my backyard studio & quiet place. That was a brilliant idea, but it took six months before it was finished (during which time my mental health continued to tailspin.)

When it was finally done in January there was all the promise of a fresh start. I would have mornings to myself while David went to half days at Montessori school. But we weren’t prepared for him to bring home every single strain of cold and flu in NW Arkansas. Because we are an immunocompromised household we caught everything. I really struggled with the decision to keep sending David to school, but we persevered. One of us was sick for 2-3 weeks out of each month from January to May.

It felt like it would never end.

During this time I was lucky to use my studio one morning a week. When Davy was in the studio with me I worked incrementally on a large weaving. When he was at school I plugged away at turning my first book chapter into a creative retreat.

Progress was so slow it felt nonexistent.

When I finally finished Mother, Interrupted in June it felt like a huge milestone. 

In the time that followed I began to feel like myself again. I made pottery, started a soft sculpture, recorded podcasts & YouTube videos, carved a studio sign, learned to shoot 360 VR, started art therapy, launched a creative retreat, and discovered the Messy Middle. 

Around this time my artist mother friend Jocelyn Mathewes commented, “You are doing all the things!”

And I realized I was back!

This is me.

Embracing my inner Renaissance Woman.

This is the creative ecosystem that I thrive in.

My neurodivergent synapses love making connections between multiple projects and weaving them together. Starting projects and letting them simmer away on a back burner.

I want to start talking about this again! About being multipassionate artists. A lot of us feel guilty if we jump between projects. But having multiple passions doesn’t mean that you’re shiftless or uncommitted to your art. 

And here’s the proof:

Six months of inconsistent weaving, writing, and haphazardly throwing literal seeds into my garden ultimately led to a finished weaving, a creative retreat, and a billowing wave of Cosmos blowing among the weeds in my garden bed.

Having multiple projects on the go actually enabled me to pursue my creativity in the tiny pockets of time that I had.

If I had instead tried to write (or weave) consistently each & every day I would have felt like a giant failure and probably given up altogether.

Let’s make space for multidisciplinary magic. ✨

Let’s be Renaissance Women.

P.S. If you have a Renaissance Woman spirit, but are finding it hard to create at the moment I see you. Don’t give up. Make when you can & take care of yourself. 💕

P.P.S. Men too obviously, but men are often given permission to pursue their interests in a way that women are not. There’s a reason you’ve only heard of a Renaissance MAN. 🙄

A year of making… January

When I started my year of making I had intentions for writing weekly updates for my blog or newsletter. Then the month unraveled, our whole family got sick, and I shifted into survival mode.

So I’m giving myself some Brownie points for being flexible (not easy for an Autie) and picking up the pieces to write monthly check ins instead.

The month started by easing in with baking and journaling and photos for Davy’s first (half) day of Montessori school.

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Then I tried to calibrate my new Cricut. (It was a hate-hate relationship… in the end I returned it and used the money to buy electroforming supplies instead.)

And the second week we came down sick. First Davy, then the whole family. It was his first time having a fever for anything besides teething. The first few days I kept track of making soup and tea and macaroni out of a box. Then my own fever went up and it was all I could do to just keep us going.

It’s a tribute to what I’ve learned through motherhood that I was able to let that go and look back with empathy instead of self judgement. It was hard.

A couple days out from February we started coming alive again and I resumed my making quest. The final day of January was my first proper day making art in my new studio. I returned to an art project I started in February 2, 2020 and had been on the shelf ever since.

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My takeaways from this month?

Sometimes you honor your inner artist by resting and healing. Sometimes making what you need for survival is enough. Other times you have the energy to pick up a long lost project and you stitch two timelines together through the metaphysical magic of time travel.

UPDATE: September 2021

I hid this blog post when I stopped writing monthly updates. At the time I was discouraged because we were sick every month from January - May and my year looked nothing like I had imagined. Looking back I can see how I did keep making (in small and simple ways), but I didn’t have the time or energy to document. Then in June (the first month none of us fell sick) my creative world expanded. If you’re finding it hard to create at the moment I see you. Don’t give up. Take the small moments you can. They count even if no one else is seeing them.

Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes of my shed to studio conversion.

Shed to Studio DIY

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Since my last update we’ve been hard at work. We “finished” the studio right before we were hit with a winter wonderland. Once the snow melts I can finally begin moving in!

After the insulation was put in we went to work on the shiplap walls. I love how it looks, but it can be very time consuming. I chose MDF because it is cost effective and the boards don’t bow like pine sometimes does. They were also available prepainted which saved so much time!

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I painted the floor before the walls went up because I wanted a spatter painted effect.
It did get a bit scratched and scraped during all the woodwork so I’m not sure I’d recommend that (although I can’t imagine slinging paint after the white walls went up!)

I was researching painted floors and learned that spatter painting was historically used on floors of seaside cottages in Cape Cod. It’s a technique I learned for scenic painting during my theatre training and I loved the idea right away. (Spatter is small dots where a splatter with is more Jackson Pollock.)

I used two coats of light grey porch paint directly on the particle board as a base. Then I watered down white and green paints for spatter.

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When the walls were done we added corner and ceiling trim to hide the mess. It was particularly tricky around the dormer windows because there were weird slopes and angles up there, but trim can cover a multitude of sins!

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We used beadboard for the ceilings. Originally I planned for shiplap, but we began to realize we would need a second ladder to manage that. The switch to beadboard made it much easier (and faster!)

One thing I hadn’t considered was window trim. Nathan did it very simply in something between a Mission and Craftsman style.

Next we had Lowe’s mix up a gallon of paint to match the shiplap and went to work painting all the bare wood. (You can also spot a tiny pegboard wall behind the door!)

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Suddenly, after feeling like the project would never end, its practically done! So excited to move in and decorate.

If you’re converting your own shed I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions!