The big change is upon us

It may not look like it from outside appearances, but life has quieted down. It’s good. It feels like when I’m cross country skiing and find myself working overly hard to keep my skis parallel, so I scoot over to groomed tracks and click in. Forward, smooth motions combined with a little kick uphill here and there keep me gliding, and I can just enjoy that feeling of my body heating up and working while my eyes take in the view.

Given what’s happened, what’s underway, and what’s coming up I would think I would feel more scattered, stressed, anxious, pensive, or uncertain. But I don’t. I feel calm and content most of the time.

It’s March in Alaska, the sun is blazing warm in the afternoons before plunging back into a cool, blue cold overnight. 

So: what is it? What’s the big announcement?

It likely won’t be a big surprise. But I’m going to recap of the inevitabilities that led here, as a reminder (for you and me) of context.

It started when Alaska captured my imagination as an east coast suburbia kid. After visiting three times, I moved.

Then, I met Wes at a conference. Wes lived in Reno, NV. All I knew about Nevada was that it was full of casinos, aliens, and nuclear waste but I gave it and him a shot anyway. I moved to Reno, after falling into a shocking and complete love with the desert (and him. And his daughter, Reesa, who quickly and efficiently wing-manned her Dad by informing me they had a real nice pool at the condo complex and that fall, my favorite season, was a fine time of year in northern NV).

Within a few years, due to a change in custody prompted by Reesa’s mom moving out of state, Wes and I decided to move to Alaska. 

We shared amazing, often extreme (because Alaska) times here with Reesa. We bought a beautiful log home in Palmer, with a stunning backdrop of Pioneer Peak and a cozy wood stove. My sister called our house Narnia. She wasn’t wrong.

I opened my first art studio and started focusing on painting more, officially spending a quarter of my “professional” hours (a standard 40-hour workweek) on art. 

We grew in our careers. We sustained our mortgage and bills, travel expenses, and the other costs associated with a comfortable life as it expands and entrenches.

Then, during the Covid 19 lockdown our lives suddenly ground to a halt. 

Fortunately, at that time I had plenty to throw myself into even as I was reeling. I spent the majority of my energy on consulting. Facilitating is meaningful and engaging in a different, complementary to art, way.

But in 2020, facilitation entailed staring at Zoom for hours on end. 

This extrovert went from organizing elaborate hike and cocktail hour Friday social gatherings and other events, to flatlining. Consulting offered purpose and meaning at a time when I sorely needed it, and I gladly gave it my all. When I wasn’t working, I felt exhausted, set back, frustrated, and powerless. Here I had been taking steps to build toward doing art more, and now I was trapped at home and shuttering my art studio.

(I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating that I also felt weirdly very fortunate, at that moment in the world, to have these problems.)

Oddly, though, I began to realize that I didn’t miss the constant organizing of social stuff that I’d so enjoyed. I had a whole lot of space and time now that I was unable to plan. I wondered what would happen if I retained some of that space, in the “after” – whenever, at that point pre-vaccines, that would be.

I became more keenly attuned to my energy levels, especially after spending a full day of listening to and supporting clients. When I felt drained after an activity or conversation, I noted it. I made it okay to focus on those things that filled me up: long solo walks or runs, reading and writing, gardening. I joked that I became an introvert, although my husband (actually an introvert) wasn’t having it.

At some point I realized that while I wouldn’t have wished for a pandemic to spur it, I also didn’t want to “go back” to what my life had been like before. (I say this like it was a decision I made, and although it sort of was, there is also never any “going back” in life, exactly. Maybe asserting this helped me resolve cognitive dissonance and feel some semblance of power in my life at a time when I felt little).

Then, Wes and I painstakingly planned and took a Covid-cation in late summer 2020. When I say “planned”, I mean we researched where we could pick up curbside ice and groceries for our cooler, campgrounds, and – in our most calculated gamble – outdoor access to and sanitation practices at the lodge we booked. Our level of caution may seem over the top or politically informed, but the only lingering remnant of my childhood asthma are my lungs that are eager to turn any common cold into a respiratory infection. I needed a novel virus targeting my lungs like the proverbial hole in my head.

Still, that August, we bike packed Resurrection Pass, enduring a terrifying and moving thunderstorm that power-washed our bikes as we were huddled in our tent. At the end, we stayed in Homer in dreamy, balmy, warm late summer sun over sparkling Kachemak Bay. On our porch in the evenings, we ate take out Fat Olives pizza, drank golden-hued wine, and dreamed and schemed about our future.

This “visioning” was an official part of our vacation. We’d waited until we were out of the confines of our home, whose contours we were overly familiar with at that point.

We asked ourselves big questions. What did we want? More outdoors, more flexibility. What did this mean? Fewer material possessions to uphold and maintain; less economic encumbrance. Put in simple terms: we envisioned a time with no mortgage. No debt. Far less or no Zoom.

We didn’t get any more specific than that, but we had officially started to shift our shared focus from what was right in front of us to what we wanted to create.

Back in Palmer, we were out hiking in the lush, late summer green of the Government Peak trails when we first talked about the concept of the Mobile Art Studio. I’d begun to move beyond grieving my closed-down gallery to considering alternatives. I told Wes I had been thinking about a studio and display setup that would enable social distancing, like an RV or a van, but not something with prayer-flag vibes. We chatted about it a little as we walked, then moved on to other topics.

Then, on a friend’s covered front porch, “socially distanced” drinking wine as it rained, I shared that I was researching Airstream trailers as the mode for my mobile studio concept. My friends’ enthusiastic response told me I was onto something. 

But, then a big question: would Wes and I actually like living a mobile lifestyle? I’ve lived long enough to know that some ideas are better on paper than in practice. We soon had our opportunity to find out.

In 2021 as our first act post vaccines, we went to Reesa’s high school graduation in Las Vegas and organized a reconnaissance “van life” trip. I get chills thinking about getting to see my stepdaughter graduate: I am so so proud of her. I also get chills thinking about how readily Wes and I clicked into living from the van, and my deep reluctance even at that point to fly back home to my home.

Back in Alaska, I enjoyed the feel of my king sized bed and soft, smooth sheets. And I knew even in that moment that I would have immediately swapped that for the bulky, uncomfortable setup in the van if it meant rolling out the door into sunrises. We doubled down on the Mobile Studio concept. 

What daunted me was the Mobile Studio price tag. This was the most expensive thing I’d ever tried to purchase, a house notwithstanding (after all, that mostly belongs to the bank). 

So, I started planning, telling everyone I knew about the idea by way of accountability to myself, and Wes and I started saving. Aggressively.

And, I fundraised. This means I asked for help and you kicked in. I was overwhelmed and moved by the many people who generously gave, affirming that yes, you were as enthusiastic and behind this idea as I was. I felt the votes of confidence viscerally as donations and messages came in, and with that steady support came the sobering and empowering responsibility to follow through.

We rented out our house on Airbnb for extra income, sleeping in the back of our leaky truck bed for much of late summer ‘21. We put ourselves on an aggressive savings plan, culling as much from our salaries as we could to throw at the Mobile Studio. As it dumped rain on us, as we felt particularly strained for cash, or when it was deep dark winter, we talked ourselves through it with the hope and belief that this was temporary tightening and discomfort in service of something greater.

When I felt stress, which was often, I’d think back to those big picture vision conversations during our Covid-cation in Homer, drenched in languid, late Alaska summer sunlight over shimmering Kachemak Bay, imagining a different life for ourselves. We were mired in the steps to get there. This time would ultimately collapse into memory when we actually had brought the change about. I knew this intellectually, but it didn’t make those periods feel shorter – just worth grinding through.

I painted, painted, and painted from my kitchen table; selling as much artwork and merchandise as I could reasonably create.

In 2022, I learned to drive a trailer. We bought a truck worthy of the journey. We locked in the final financing and set up one more summer of Airbnb-ing the house as backup extra income for whatever the final price tag of the Mobile Studio and the pickup journey ultimately cost. On April 25th, I pointed the truck south with my friend Bailey riding shotgun.

It wasn’t actually sunny the entire trip down, but that’s how I remember it journeying every day closer to Mobile Studio pickup.

In early May, I “met” the studio for the first time. I cried. How many times in life can you say what you imagined aligns with reality? It is a testament to the designer and fabricator team and both their communication and also implementation that it did.

I loved the look and feel of it. I loved how clean and spacious it felt; the shining silver walls and calming neutral tones of the built interior. I spent a lot of hours just staring, enjoying, and taking it in; experiencing a level of disbelief that I still get a little jolt of when I set foot in the studio. 

I still remember that first night in the studio. I pinch myself. I remember painting for the first time: I cried (again. There were a lot of good tears).

We took the Mobile Art Studio across the country, and over the course of a couple of months, back to Alaska.

But that’s not the end of the story. 

Wes and I originally envisioned spending more time outside, beholden to fewer economic constraints. 

Back in Alaska, we still had a mortgage to pay, and all of the associated bills that come with a home. And now we had an Airstream loan to boot.

So, first we got rid of our mortgage. Late last year we sold our house, making the most of the seller’s market at what may be the (an) end. We then paid off the Airstream, effectively losing the majority of our debt in one fell swoop.

We traveled, feeling light and free. We rented an adorable tiny home at the foot of Hatcher Pass. Life was good.

That brings us to now.

My art business is growing. I’ve made cautious steps to test how steady and reliable this income is: I still consult, but more and more energy is going toward art. I’m selling more paintings that I can currently create with my current schedule. It is an increasingly reliable trend that the more time and energy I invest, the more art and writing opportunities arise.

So, the big change:

In early May, Wes and I are packing up the Mobile Art Studio once again and pointing it south. This time, we’re leaving Alaska for the foreseeable future.

He has accepted a new position as a backpacking guide with a company that has national and international itineraries. We’ll start with his stint based out of St. George, Utah. This means he’s leaving his full time, secure and salaried position that has him doing meaningful work, but primarily from an office and behind a screen.

Similarly, I’ll be shifting to consulting on a project-by-project basis. This means much more flexibility for both consulting projects and art: instead of the routine that I currently have, allotting art to Mondays and Fridays, it will be woven throughout my weeks. Facilitation will still play a role in my life, but not on a fixed-hours-per-week basis. 

With this decision comes a release of stability that, again, in retrospect we’ve been building toward for a long time. But it is still the end of a huge era of our lives, leading to a new beginning.

It brings us full circle to our 2020 Covid-cation life conversation. What do we want? More time outside. How? Less economic responsibility; more freedom.

The questions that often come up: but, Alli and Wes, where will you live? The answer: at first, St. George. Then, who knows? We want a period of our life where we’re not settled down in any one place. If (likely when) we want to do that again, we can and will. But for now we want to explore.

Alli and Wes, are you permanently leaving Alaska? Maybe. Maybe not. Intellectually, I know this place well enough to know how deeply (insidiously?) it gets under my skin. There is truly no place like it. When it is beautiful, it is spectacular. And when it is brutal, it is punishing. That is, honestly, part of the appeal. But as the years have grinded on, and then pounded in by the Covid lockdown, the brutality has been harder and harder for me. I see less of the novelty, and more of the difficulty.

It’s not you, Alaska. It’s me. (Okay, it’s a little you.)

What does it take to change a life? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I keep returning back to the concept of a lot of luck, and a lot of sweat equity. Wes and I have made enormous, foundational changes in our lives over the past few years, and it is culminating in what’s happening now. It has felt both discouraging and stressful in moments, and incredible and empowering others. Many stars aligned for us. We couldn’t have done any of it alone. And, we also worked to make it a reality.

That’s it, that’s the big change.

Amidst the inevitable mayhem that will come as we approach our departure date, I’m going to organize one last (for now) Alli Harvey Art in Alaska hurrah! I will keep you posted on a Farewell Mobile Art Studio event here in Palmer in late April or early May.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. My gratitude for all of the amazing people, moments, and places that have brought me and us here is profound. Even and especially through change, life is long and I look forward to the surprises, opportunities, and connections – familiar and new – ahead.

I did a podcast!

Okay, you caught me: this is not actually a blog post.

But it’s LIKE a blog post – just an audio version!

Amidst the wilderness that is the Internet and especially the world of podcasts, there is now an hour+ of me gabbing. I talk about what originally got me into painting, the profound impact outgrowing my asthma at the same time as I happened to land at the Sudbury Valley School had on me, learning to love hiking up hills and being outdoors, the story behind/evolution of the Mobile Art Studio, and more.

You can stream this in full wherever you are from here.

A huge thank you to co-hosts Steve Dudrow and Linda Harris for the opportunity to share some background, stories, and debts of gratitude that I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time. It was a spacious and roaming conversation where I had time to breathe and think, deliberate in what I wanted to say without feeling any sense of pressure. I can’t wait to visit the Mesquite Fine Arts Center next time I’m in that other favorite corner of the world of mine, wild Nevada.

To a new life

Thinking about the patterns that form my now 37-year-old self, I can see that I’ve always enjoyed periods of big, bold change. I decided to leave my comfortable, low-lying suburban upbringing for chaotic, sky-scraping, and often (especially early on) brutally lonely NYC. I drove cross country and subleased a room in Seattle for a few months while saving for a quick trip up to Alaska, even though the plan required me to work three jobs. One summer in Alaska, I moved temporarily into a school bus to save some money gearing up to my self-imposed career demotion as I picked up my life to move to Reno for “true love” (and work a retail gig, combined with WWOOFing). I said “true love” tongue in cheek at the time; insurance in case it didn’t work out – but happily, sweetly, it did.

Marriage, and especially stepparent-dom, required me to stabilize some. The periods of major change became fewer. Ultimately, we bought a house. Career moves were something to be carefully negotiated and orchestrated because, the mortgage. There were many, many other considerations that play into orchestrating and nurturing family, especially across distance – the airfare, PTO, generally keeping the lights on and feeding our (discerning) faces.

Wes and I joke that our most bitter arguments are about how to load a dishwasher (spoiler: it’s not actually about that), whereas when it comes to life’s big stuff we navigate together with good, sometimes gallows humor and dance-like mutual support. This is true. 

But coordinating proactive life change between two people isn’t just doubly challenging as it is for one. Creating change together is first multiplied by the number of factors in both of our lives (family, personal, career, hobbies, commitments), and then magnified again by both of our desires and fears.

As my stepdaughter started college, I felt that urge rise in me pretty fiercely: all of our lives had and were changing, and it was time for my husband and me to follow suit. After ten years of being together and me taking my considerable, but also wild and and often intense, energy and sinking it in, down, in one place, I needed freedom and possibility.

I needed to no longer be tethered to a mortgage. I needed to take risks in order to explore and grow my ability to focus on art and writing, more.

My husband was there, too, in spirit. But he grew up in one place, and stayed there for a long time. His life experience wasn’t about fecklessly moving temporarily into a school bus for a summer. His adventures were many, but more local.

So I could see the steps where he couldn’t as easily believe in them. As we started taking these steps, he caught up quickly and often outpaced me. Example: I did the bulk of driving us in planning our month in New Mexico in January. But once there, I had a difficult time adapting to my new environment. I felt like I was catching up with myself as I took tentative walks through the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Wes found and ran up multiple mountains in the first week. (That’s not an exaggeration).

What does it take to change a life? The answer is a lot, and it’s incredibly complicated. There is no safe bet. But I can tell you, stepping into this new chapter as we are right now – mortgage-less, renting a tiny home at the foot of beautiful and world-class Hatcher Pass, continuing to grow Alli Harvey Art and I am painting/writing more and more – I feel an electric sense of possibility and excitement. I have this tell-tale chest expanding feeling that points at something big on the horizon.

It is. I have big plans for Alli Harvey Art, friends! Looking forward to sharing more soon.

Meanwhile, here are some photos from recent times:

It’s cool to be cringe?

Two moments from the last 24 hours:

• I felt the familiar build, build, build behind my eyes followed by tears. I turned my head to look out the truck window at the tan, mountainous landscape of the high desert rolling under a January cool blue sky. I was surprised and relieved by my involuntary reaction. I smiled at it even as I felt hot tears roll down from behind my sunglasses and hit the upturned corner of my mouth. I realized I’d only have a couple moments before Wes realized I was crying, if he didn’t already. My breathing had changed and I’d have to wipe off my face. (Why was I embarrassed about crying in front of my lawfully wedded?! Well…it was a strong reaction, and one that I wanted to experience for myself, more on that in a minute.)

• I didn’t mean to lie down as long as I did on the bright orange little sofa in the (new, to us) cute, modern Airbnb living room in downtown Albuquerque. But I was tired from our day of driving, the edible was starting to kick in, and I got sucked into the little universe behind my phone screen and stayed there for a while. What really hit me? An article about embracing “cringe” in 2023. 

I thought, not for the first time: is what they are talking about earnestness? Also, is this me?! This seems like me. I think I have been cringe, enthusiastic, sincere, extra, earnest – whatever you want to call it – since the dawn of me, and if it’s becoming a Thing, well, great. This also relates back to the first moment: why I was crying in the car.

It started here:

“Everything in the natural world is so amazing, but because we’re used to seeing it in one way we take it for granted…The montage is about taking pieces of reality and rearranging them– creating new frames to make you have to stop and look at things in a fresh way. It’s basically taking pieces of everyday reality and rearranging them to show people the magic that is inherent in all of these things already.”

I turned to look at Wes, wide eyed. I said: “He’s talking about why I paint.”

We were on hour three of a 4-hour podcast unpacking the music and origin story of Neutral Milk Hotel, a band whose music is anthemic for me. In his book of short essays, “Songbook”, author Nick Hornby described songs that you listen to so many times over the course of your life that they transcend specific time periods or references. That, for me, is Neutral Milk Hotel.

The interview they were referencing was with the band’s fabled lead, Jeff Mangum. As obsessed as I’d been with the music when I was younger, and for as many times as I’d reverently re-listened to their two full albums (in order, in full) since and vaguely tracked the rumors swirling around the band, I’d never really learned about the main artist or the music until listening to this episode. 

It so easily could have felt gross, exploitative, or insincere. But the podcasters, and the fans they invited on at the very end of the episode to share why they love the band, were earnest and as articulate as one can be about something as ephemeral as music. Listening to them describe the music and the people behind it, I felt more connected to and understanding of it. They said things that I hadn’t thought of, but “fit”; and they shared awe and appreciation for fragments of songs or lyrics that also struck me. 

They were also respectful of Jeff Mangum as a person and an artist; vs the center of what became a cult phenomenon. They shared snippets of interviews with him but still underscored what he himself did: he is and was a human like any of us, changing and evolving, and part of what he had contributed to the world was this music. It had a space in time and his life for him, and then he kept living and growing however it is that people and artists grow – and that wasn’t toward any growing expectation or indebtedness that some of the fans clamored for or claimed he owed.

Hearing him describe, in an interview, an underlying reason for why he creates his art that is so similar to why I create mine? Eerie and beautiful. Younger me, connecting so deeply with the music, had no idea.

What finally pushed me to cry was when, at the very, very end of the podcast, they played Two-Headed Boy Part 2, the last song on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Not only is it the perfect final song on an album and for the emotional ride that was absorbing all that was shared and resonated on the podcast, but getting back to Nick Hornby’s point – that song and all that precedes and builds to it has been in my life now for over twenty years. There are too many layers of memory to count. It has a life-ness quality to it that is moving; it is perfectly and deeply bittersweet. I wasn’t crying out of happiness or sadness. I was just feeling, so much that it wasn’t one thing. 

I was grateful for it; I felt so fully present. The desert landscape rolled by. Everything in me came up and spilled over.

Finally, to tie this back with “cringe”, because of course: the podcast host, Yasi Salek, pointed out multiple times that Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel were creating their music and playing their early live shows at a time when what they were doing was simply not cool. Case in point: Jeff Mangum was scream-singing the lyrics, “I love you Jesus Christ” (if you know, you know) during Nirvana’s heyday. The earnestness and depth of the band, from their dream-like lyrics that at once cut and also did not form a cohesive narrative but instead formed a theme or a feeling of a song, and then the raw delivery, did not, at the time, have a place in irony and anti culture.

(Related: I remember when I was fully into Neutral Milk Hotel as a teenager I had to make an official declaration with my friend group that it was time to retire the word “pretentious” about me. I liked this music because I liked it. To their credit, they stopped, and my best friend even told me later on that she’d finally actually listened to the band on her own, and got it.)

For me, on this same day during this era of life where I feel myself coming into my own in an ever-fumbling but also clearer and sharper (even with all the cutting edges connoted by “sharper”, it’s true, it’s emotional!) way was both affirming and a huge relief. It felt like something pierced a balloon that had been stretching in me. It gave a part of me permission to come out, and out and out.

It was yet another nod to earnestness. Yet another push to keep living life, in all of its messy, cutting, beautiful glory in the light and darkness of it all. Another push to keep being and to keep creating. 

If you haven’t listened, I love and recommend the music of this band. I can’t and won’t critically engage with it. For me, it means something much bigger and deeper than that. Their albums are best listened to with attention, in full, in sequential order (the songs feed into each other), and multiple times.

We made it. Wherever “it” is.

It just so happens that the selling of our home of five years neatly aligned with ringing in a new year. 

We had time to adjust to the idea, and plenty to do. Picture a time lapse video of December, the camera hovering a respectful distance away from my every move, Sims-like. You would see:

• My husband and me shoveling nearly on the daily as more and more snow fell on Palmer, AK.
• The two of us continuously pulling items from the corners of our home more and more into the middle, setting them in piles, moving them from pile to pile as we made our decisions about their fate, and ultimately ferrying them away day by day.
• Wiping down windows, cleaning tubs, vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing, fixing, installing and re-installing.
• [The lights in the house turn brighter as it becomes less a place the place we live; more a fresh, blank slate for the next owner].

• Movers coming to take our core belongings over to a storage unit (which, in the time lapse version of things, is a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it moment that taught me I will now be a “hire movers they are worth every cent” person).
• At that point, nearly everything is out of the house save for some cleaning supplies in the center of the kitchen floor. Lights are bright. Wood stove is off.

• Loading up our little blue Prius with wood one subzero, alpenglow lit snowy late afternoon; locking the door behind us as we drove to our temporary abode at a friend’s empty, graciously loaned home.

The day of the official move-out wasn’t closing but when the movers came, because suddenly we didn’t have a bed to sleep in in the house anymore. 

We arrived at our friends’ lovely home in a flurry of Arctic cold air swept in the door behind us, bags of random goods from our kitchen cabinet (nutritional yeast? Sure, we’ll keep that), and random, meaningful items we’d decided to hang onto. We unloaded the wood into a new stack in their driveway so we could fire up the wood stove and, eventually, the sauna.

That first Friday night we realized: hey. Tomorrow, we could do whatever we want. Yes, there’s still a little left to do at the house to get it ready for the new owners, but it’s minimal. We could have an entire day of just…fun.

I curled up on my friends’ cozy couch under a blanket in the glow of a Christmas tree with a new book, and felt relief and airiness, lighter and warmer than I had been earlier in the day or at any time that month. If there’s a visceral moment where I could tell we’d finally turned the page on this last chapter of our life, it was then. 

The house we’d left was empty and in every sense except legally, not ours. Our belongings were 95% sorted. We were going to sleep in a new environment. We were less encumbered than ever before in our relationship: very little bound us, except those things we are personally committed to.

This month we’re in New Mexico. That’s right: month! I brought my consulting “kit” down south with me – a laptop, notepad, pen, mouse, and headphones; honestly it’s pretty simple – and my tabletop painting setup. The Mobile Art Studio is still in Alaska, deep in its cold storage slumber for the winter and settled in under aforementioned piles of snow. Come spring, we’ll get to hitch it up again.

But until then, I’m easing into a new chapter of life. It feels like a descent, with a view ahead that’s beautiful and promising, but remote and still coming into focus. 

Still. It’s sunny where I am now. There is so much to see and explore. I’m thrilled that now that we’ve “arrived” in this new season of our lives, whatever “arrival” means in a life that just keeps on going moment by moment day by day, the overall feel and cadence of it is exactly what I wanted.

Don’t stare down the driveway

I was shoveling the driveway early this morning for the second time this week. The snow keeps coming down.

Far from complaining about it, I’m enjoying its silence and brightness settled in all over everything. I’m pulled into the core of our home, which as we prepare for closing in less than a week, is ever-shrinking. 

There’s nowhere to go when it snows like this. It relieves some of the pressure of doing, because we’re limited to what we can do in the house. The task list is shrinking quickly along with the volume of our stuff, so it’s a calm kind of puttering pace of getting ready to move.

The wood stove is blazing away in the living room. It’s cozy. 

It’s temporary.

As I was hoisting yet another eight inches of snow off to the side of our driveway, one shovel-full at a time in the bright white glow of my headlamp, I willed myself not to turn my head up to see how much was still left to shovel. We don’t have a giant driveway, but it’s big enough that the job takes one person about two hours. 

Longer if I stare too much at how far I have to go.

As I move through the house, I keep having intense flashes of memory, coupled with a feeling of longing, and then letting go. It happens room by room as I’m focusing on one. Bear in mind, that we’re not just moving all of our earthly belongings somewhere. We’re majorly downsizing. We are shrinking what we have to what we really want and need. 

(And discovering that the adage about filling up the space you have with stuff is very, very true. Five years turns out to be a lot of years of accumulation – and that’s having culled out quite a bit for Airbnb-ing!).

It is hard to actively dismantle objects which, cumulatively, have come to fit together in a representation of home. I say that very carefully, because this place has been home, but so many other places are too: friends’ dinner tables, my childhood home, the high desert, the Mobile Art Studio.

When those memories are really hitting me as I’m dismantling and dispersing our belongings, I don’t need the consolation that “home” is, for me, a multitude. But it’s a good reminder of the long term aim. Moment by moment, working on closing out the house is more like shoveling. I let myself feel. I focus on good form as I hoist snow. I am aware of but not daunted by the effort. I enjoy the ability to feel, at all.

I don’t look down the driveway. I don’t dwell on “what if’s”.

It’s all moments. We have been very lucky to have been afforded so many amazing moments in our time in this house. And, by making this decision, we’re opening ourselves up for many more. In the meantime, I’m truly enjoying these snowed in last days here.

On the edge of leaving home

For the longest time I felt confined to our house and neighborhood. But now that we’re getting ready to leave, I’m seeing things differently.

The snow swirls on the pure white street ahead of me. Mountains loom daunting and impressive. Light filters through trees. The homes, including mine, look magically warm and cozy against the austere, blue-toned beauty of an Alaska winter morning.

I woke up last night on the couch, disoriented from jet lag and confused about where I was. Then I remembered – I am in my home in Alaska, not in New York City, or Massachusetts, or on an airplane somewhere. I felt an immediate pang of regret. It’s so comfortable here, I thought. Why do we have to leave?

Maybe it’s just my own stubbornness of going with the choices I’ve made, combined with a fear of what it would be like to have regrets, but I am sure we are making the right decision by moving. Our house is, indeed, very comfortable.

But you know what’s not? What’s not comfortable is feeling tied to a particular income level to sustain it; meaning actually having to work a certain number of hours and at a certain level to follow through on mortgage payments, bills, and the many fun unknowns of homeownership.

On one level, “we’ve made it”, but on another level we have to make it every single day in order to sustain it. That to me is confining and limiting in that it eliminates an enormous element of choice in what we do with our time. Let me say that again: being beholden to what is essentially debt makes it so that I get less of a say in what I do with my own finite life.

That is terrifying enough to me to propel away from the comfort of this very beautiful home with its many wonderful memories.

I’m going through the strange exercise of walking through the house and taking pictures of furniture we either need to sell or store. I’m advocating for a big sell-off. Stuff comes with convenience and comfort, yes, but it’s also just more to maintain when we have to stick it in storage and pay on it every month. 

As I feel the waves of sadness and uncertainty about the fact that we’re actually doing it; we’re actually in the process of leaving this phase of our lives, I think about how this setting and these pieces of furniture weren’t ever really permanent. Even the memories here just leave feelings, relationships, moments, and overall the glowing and ephemeral haziness of an era characterized in part by these things, but mostly the experiences they assisted in curating. 

We were the ones, with friends and family, who brought those experiences to life.

And we’ll continue to do that.

I know the feeling of trying to hang onto something too tight. And that’s what I’m experiencing right now. That’s okay, it’s part of the hugging before letting go. It’s certainly laced with sadness, but another part of me is grateful to have these final weeks pining for the place in which I still live. It means I have experienced something important and valuable; something that’s worth missing even while I still have it. It’s a sign that the memories from here will be good, and both support and propel us into whatever this next phase in our lives will bring.

Mishaps and learning from mistakes: a commission story

There was a crappy misunderstanding about ten years ago with a commission I did for a friend. It was a gift for his girlfriend, featuring women strolling down a street (presumably her and a couple friends). 

It all started smoothly and routinely enough. He indicated interest, I asked for a photo reference, he sent one, we negotiated price and timeline. The one request: could I include another friend, who had taken the reference photo? He sent an additional photo of her for reference.

This was unusual. I paint from photo references, and am typically a stickler with the origination photo, not wanting to deviate too much. But I scrutinized the original photo and the addition and decided, sure, I can swap out one of those women with this new one without too much trouble.

Oops. I did the math on what would make it work for me artistically, but didn’t clarify with him what he wanted. Looking back, it’s super obvious: he wanted the additional woman added to the picture. But what I did was essentially erase one of the women from the painting in lieu of adding the new one in.

I wondered why, when he picked it up, he was less effusive than someone normally is upon seeing a commission. I figured it was maybe something he was going through, and as he darted out the door I moved on with my life.

Some time later, I found out what happened. OH, the sinking feeling!

But I learned from it, and changed.

Now, if you commission me, it’s still an easy but more formalized process. It starts the same: you send me a photo reference and a description of what you’d like, including size range and if you have a timeline in mind. We discuss as needed. Then, I fill out a form. This includes a written description of the commission, a process for checking on progress on the piece (so you can see if, somehow, something was miscommunicated and needs to be adapted), pricing and timeline, and payment methods. We both review, negotiate and clarify as needed, and sign. Then, voila, I’m off to the races.

A recent commission is an excellent example of this.

We went through the above process and arrived on timing and price. I printed the photo reference and picked up canvas, and got to work.

Oh, and in this case I also picked up neon green paint. This is my first aurora painting, but not my last!

I painted and sent periodic progress photos along the way. Then, I arrived at a decision point that I hadn’t thought of earlier in the process.

In this photo, there were smokestacks from the boat in the foreground (from where the person taking the original photo was standing). From a purely visual perspective, I was inclined not to include them. But they might mean something to the client.

I consulted him. After soliciting some opinions he decided, yes, go ahead and add the smokestacks! He also advised me that even though they appeared brown in the photo reference, in real life they’re grey.

I added them in and using his guidance, focused on cool, grey/blue and purple tones instead of the warmer yellows, reds, and browns as they appeared in the photo (likely a result of warm light cast against the darkness). 

In the end, he was absolutely right. It was the right move, and adding the smokestacks completed the painting to something original and immersive. From the viewer’s perspective, it was like being on the boat witnessing the scene.

He was as happy as I was!

I share this story both as a piece about lessons learned and growth, both in communications and art (several years ago I would have been uncomfortable changing the tone of the smokestack). But it’s also a call for commissions! I have two more I am slated to complete this fall, and then I have openings starting early December and into 2023.

If you’ve been thinking about commissioning a piece, now is a great time to hop on the dance card. For more information and to get the process started, check out details on my website and fill out the contact form.

Commissions are one of my favorite parts of sustaining myself via art, because I get to see new perspectives, connect with cool people, and learn. To everyone who has commissioned me in the past or thought about it for the future, thank you! I love getting to work with you to bring your vision and memories to life.

One last sleep ’til home, and we are ready

Last night, I ran through lemon yellow, early evening woods with cool air on my cheeks and my heart beating steadily. It was hard uphill running, but not too hard on a nicely graded single track trail in Palmer’s beautiful Government Peak Recreation Area. 

Not one to normally run in the evenings because I prefer running in the morning, my husband and Aktive Soles, a local running shop, and Valley Mountain Bikers and Hikers Association conspired to get me out on the trails for a locally organized race that benefits VMBaH. 

I’m never sorry I went for a run, even though and especially because it’s work. Getting my heart going inevitably gives me a full body rush and sparks fleeting moments of elation. They fire up and die off just as quickly, like a fire spitting embers into the night.

I don’t want to say that we’re getting to the end of the hard part of Mobile Studio Pickup. I think we’re getting to the end of one, rather remarkably hard part. There will be more, because that’s life. But this phase pushed me to my max.

The concept with the Mobile Art Studio is to enable my husband and I to live a life that is more geographically mobile. In this life we will have significantly reduced financial commitments, thereby reducing the pressure on our incomes and freeing us up to be more choosy with how we spend our time on earth. For me, that means spending more time on art, writing, and being outdoors.

Right now, we are in transition. We are on our way to our vision with the Mobile Studio in hand, but we’re still firmly rooted in one way of being even as we try something new. 

What Wes and I have done these past couple of months is inhabit multiple worlds simultaneously. These are worlds that are somewhat at odds with each other, and require intense communication and logisticizing for both of us individually and together.

On the one hand, we still have a home and a mortgage. But we put it up on Airbnb this summer to produce additional income to help offset the cost of the Mobile Art Studio and the pickup journey. So, while we “pay” on our mortgage every month, in reality it’s mostly covered by rental revenue.

Still, this is our house with its brick and mortar walls. While our home has been rented and unavailable to us, we’ve inhabited the Mobile Art Studio, because of course. But, the design of the Mobile Art Studio is to be mobile, when what we’ve really been is quite stationary in our own community, because:

Wes is working full time, and I’m consulting part time. We both need to be professionally and physically present, which tacks some boundary around use of the Airstream, like where we can take it and when. That means that the Airstream has temporarily not been an instrument of freedom, but instead been a moving home base as we continue to live our lives the way we always have. That wasn’t the design of the Mobile Art Studio in our vision, although it is functioning much better at this than the back of our truck did last year when we did our trial Airbnb run. 

Since we’re trying to make money on renting on the house and don’t want to negate this effort by shacking up at expensive RV parks, we’ve sourced various driveways of very, incredibly gracious friends who see what we’re trying to do here and are supporting us. My gratitude for this is profound. My level of “over” this – the constant looking ahead, moving around, backing in, monitoring tanks so we know when it’s time to move, being cognizant of and doing our best to not overstay our welcome, coordinating cars, pulling into various RV parks over the weekend so we can fill on water and dump our tanks – is also high. It’s time to stay put somewhere for a while.

I’m not sorry we did this. We have a level of financial stability as a result of what we’ve done this summer that is, frankly, a relief. I also know it takes significant effort to make a change in life, particularly one of this magnitude that we’re implementing over a relatively short period of time. I am VERY proud of us for identifying where we want to go and taking bold and difficult steps to get there, asking for and accepting incredible support from our people, but also maxing ourselves on sweat equity in order to realize our dreams. We didn’t do this alone, but we did do it. I’ll take this over being bored, stagnant, or stuck.

But, I’ve hit my max. I’m sitting here thinking about what it means to be on this final day of living full time in the trailer (during this phase of life), and I’m in the middle of this extreme calm that feels sort of like being suspended in water. I hit peak stress sometime in the last couple of weeks, and it’s now spitting me out to a kind of flat-line, eerie placidity. I have heard about this crash after intense stress. I have cautioned others about it. But this is the first time I’ve experienced it myself, and I will say, it feels terrible. I can get to a relaxed state, but usually small triggers (an email, an indecipherable text, a missing item at the grocery store, an emotional tv show) spike an outsized physical response.

I need rest. I need a reset.

What I need to do right now is take really good care of myself. For me, that means being extremely careful about planning, erring on the side of not, so as to have enough recovery. It means focusing deeply on things I care about and am committed to, like some exciting upcoming client work through consulting, and commissions. I’m training for a speedy 10K in November, and it feels excellent to be back out on my feet running in a consistent, structured way.

It means finding ways to give back, big and small, so as to feel part of something bigger especially in this crazy and often heartbreaking world. I have to feel like I’m contributing.

This period of my life will reap amazing memories and insights. It’s already taught me exactly where my max is, which frankly I didn’t know before. I have no regret about it, but it is time for this to come to a close. I’m ready.

The big pivot and my summer of stunned

I can see the pattern in my life now. When a big change is underway, even a good change, I go deep. I’ve spent entire summers brooding and moody.

This late, raining, cool summer in Alaska is, apparently, no different. I just completed my annual Fall Mix playlist, and the tracks on this one go hard – some of them (including the kickoff song) upbeat and earnest; others achingly sad. That’s how I’m feeling right now: a lot.

What’s happening is that I’m selling paintings faster than I can create them. Commission work is steady. I’m honored (truly) to speak at various events and even a conference; I have a lineup of fun events this fall (I’ll update my website as those details are locked in!). I’m almost sold out of greeting cards and am currently printing a new round. The more connections I make, the more the business side of my art grows, which sustains my ability to financially support myself while doing something I love. To be blunt about it, soon I will be in a position to sustain myself on art revenue. It’s increasingly steady and I can’t and won’t ignore that trend, or chalk it up to fluke.

Is it work? Yes, of course. Do I feel incredibly lucky for it? Also, yes.

So, what – this whole write up is a version of me pinching myself out loud that my dreams and plans are steadily turning into reality. Shouldn’t I be out celebrating? Am I just here to brag; to say, look everyone I did it? I’m doing it?

Truth is, I’m stunned. I’m actually gobsmacked. Sincerely, really. And I’m realizing that change and growth necessitates more decision points. If what I really want to continue to do is art, and if art – by way of you, reading this, and everyone I am fortunate to connect with through painting – is increasingly supporting me as part of a positive feedback loop, I also need to make more time and energy for it. 

I’m learning that the more I put in, the more it grows.

Hence the broodiness, the looking around me and zooming out from my life and figuring out what levers need to be shifted where, to accomodate yet more change. Where to go from here? What are my immediate next steps, and what about longer term? What do I want – no, what do I really want?

I’m going deep so I can be bold and true. I’m asking myself hard questions, and getting on the phone with my besties. It’s one life. I’m lucky to have a whole hell of a lot that matters to me in this one, and a lot of worthy demands on my attention. I’m figuring out both how to balance those, but also where to shift.

It’s safe to say that this moment in time balloons in front of me, that lifting feeling in my chest when it feels so good I just let my mind wander around it until comprehension hits (and that feels good too); and I’m also trying on the different facets of next steps to take from here.

All from the Mobile Art Studio, as my husband and I live out of it while renting out our home this summer! 

Put in that context, it’s not surprising that I’m feeling big things.

P.S. – Here’s one thing I’m working on where I need help! Palmer-area people: I am looking for a good spot to park the Mobile Studio from October – April. Ideally, I’ll find an enclosed, heated (not toasty, but above freezing) open air storage spot where I can plug in for nominal electric use, so I can continue to paint from the Studio through the winter. The studio is 10′ tall and 19′ long. Will gladly pay either cash and/or in kind with art, and would love a means of being a value-add to a community need or ongoing project. Please comment on this post or message me any leads or ideas!

Learning the great unclench

Saying that I’m “self taught” as an artist feels obnoxious to me, and it’s only semi-true. 

Did I ever take any formal classes on technique and composition? No. I feel conflicted about that – I wish I had some shared language and knowledge about basic painting techniques so I could connect with other artists and understand the nuts and bolts a little better and more formally. But, I don’t wish it enough to take a painting class, at least not right now. 

“Self taught” invokes that kind of solo it alone, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, sickness is a state of mind type of very western mindset that I think has partial value in terms of personal responsibility but is also grossly incomplete. While I by and large learned painting technique through painstaking trial and error, my parents bought me my notebooks and pencils when I was a kid and encouraged my drawing. My friend and art mentor suggested I try my hand at painting since I seemed to like drawing so much. My school gave me supplies and time to focus on painting. Many peers, friends, and strangers took time to examine my art, give me feedback, and even buy my work. 

I’m always learning, both from the paintings themselves and from my community at large. Recently, I’ve been thinking about a friend’s practice of “unclenching”. Yep, think butt cheeks and fists: that squeezing, holding on tight, tense feeling that also seems to settle in my shoulders.

Deep in a painting, especially during that “murky middle”, I get tense easily. It’s the fear talking. The fear of not being able to complete this painting, or this part looking wrong. I’ll get exposed for the non-artist I really am: not schooled, no real skills.

(That’s the tension-causing clench voice in the back of my mind talking).

In these moments, I have to remind myself to relax. No, really: physically take a deep breath and bring my shoulders down from my ears. Feel my belly breathing in and out. Wiggle my legs and arms; roll my head. It all comes down to that breath; feeling it and breathing it slowly and relaxed.

It helps the process of painting feel better. And, I think it makes for better paintings: there is better flow when I relax. I trust myself to take the right steps, even if on canvas the brushstroke marks I’m leaving don’t look quite right yet. I can feel that there is a bigger picture and I just have to keep going along and trying to feel good moment to moment, versus stressing about what’s just happened or what’s next.

So, yes, in a way I’m self taught. But also, absolutely not. This “unclenching” comment, completely unrelated to painting and dropped casually by a friend, has stuck with me and helped make me a better (and happier) artist.

Epiphany – the mobile studio is changing how I paint

You know how with an idea or plan that hasn’t happened yet, often there’s a snapshot somewhere in the back of your mind that represents it? Maybe you can articulate it, maybe you can’t. Often, I don’t know what I subconsciously envisioned until I see the real deal and say something along the lines of, “I pictured…”.

In retrospect, my snapshot summarizing the Mobile Art Studio concept was me, with the studio, down on the wide gravel bar by the Knik River in Palmer, mountains jutting in every direction.

This is a stone’s throw from my house, but also someplace I probably otherwise wouldn’t paint because with my setup it takes too much to schlep all the supplies out there – and then, for what? I’m not a plein air painter (yet).

But with the studio, all supplies would be on board. I could paint indoors or out. I could chat with people.

As I imagined this I was, of course, seated at the kitchen table in my very non-mobile home, with my table easel set up, maybe with a podcast going. I was imagining a different future and trying to paint my way into it.

What surprised me this morning is realizing that I won’t just bring my painting to the places I visit and pick up a brush exactly the same as I would anyplace else. These places will inform how I paint, and likely change my art.

The very idea of the mobile studio is that somedays are sunny; some are rainy. I might set up outside or in. Or, like this morning, the wind blew so persistently – as it does in the high desert – that by the time I arrived outside at a park picnic table where I’d set up to paint, my water had tipped over and (lidded) palette with all the paint colors had flipped. Red mixed with black mixed with yellow and pink.

I used to have a controlled environment that enabled me to create and recreate almost the same context for paintings every day. There was no breeze. The lighting was consistent. I controlled the temperature.

This was both reassuring for the part of me that loves reliability and organization, and soul killing for the part that needs challenge and change.

Well, a flipped palette to start a painting session is certainly challenge and change. I decided to roll with it and have fun with the painting, feeling a little looser – like the wind still roiling around as I held down my palette with my palm, painting with the other hand – than I usually would.

The paint flowed easily. I didn’t allow myself to stop and inspect as often as I otherwise might. I just kept it moving. Even at points where I wasn’t sure what I was doing was adding up, I just kept on fluidly working.

The painting itself isn’t done yet, as the epiphany isn’t. But it is dawning on me that alongside my life circumstances changing, my approach to painting itself and thus my art is changing and growing. I am down on that gravel bar now, but I can actually feel the breeze on my face and the light shifting as the clouds skid around. The dream is alive, and it – somehow shockingly – very much is real life in all of its sensations and challenges. I love it, but differently than I subconsciously imagined.