The List

One simple exercise that changed my life and made me realize I wanted to be a professional artist

There I was, in the words of Stevie Wonder, “living just enough for the city.” 

At twenty-six years old, I was on my fourth job since graduation: head of marketing for a textile design company. Before that, I’d been a yacht delivery captain, a beer salesman, and a marketing associate for a wind turbine start-up that had since shuttered its doors. I knew I’d never be passionate about marketing textiles, but the company was established and the job was steady. I could finally see an upward career trajectory. 

And yet…I felt as if my life was an uptown train that decided to go express and skip all my viable stops. I was the passenger; fate accepted; nothing to do except find a seat for the ride.

Eventually, something of an existential/quarter life crisis led me to a therapist, Jen. Jen helped me in a bunch of ways, although there’s one exercise in particular that I still refer to.

I call it The List. 

The List is what helped me realize that I wanted to be a full-time artist. It helped me realize that I was unhappy not just in my job, but my entire career path. The List helped me realize that what I really wanted to do was go back to art school and dedicate my life to becoming an artist. 

I redo The List anytime I’m at a crossroads, or stuck, anytime I have painter’s block, or can’t figure out what my purpose is. 

The road toward where I am today–a full-time landscape and portrait artist–is complicated and not at all straightforward, nor is it easy (I still routinely question what the hell it is I’m doing). But I wouldn’t have had the courage to step off the subway, onto that road, if it weren’t for The List. So I share it today in the hopes that maybe, it can help you, too.

THE LIST

Here’s how it works:

Make a list of everything you like to do, how you like to spend your time. Eating? Put it on the list. Singing, gardening, solving problems, connecting people? Put it on the list, no matter how insignificant you think it may be to your ultimate goal. 

Put the list on your refrigerator and live with it for a while. Keep a copy on your phone.

Every time you think of something that you enjoy (“I love teaching people how to do things”) add it to the list. 

Whenever you reread the list and come across a bullet point that feels wrong, take it off.

You can add and delete and add and delete as much as you want. I erased “art” then put it back on my list over and over.

You will have random moments of introspection and clarity and conversations with friends and family that will help you hone your list.

Be honest with yourself. That’s the most important part. Don’t put or keep anything on the list just because you feel like you should. If you don’t actually enjoy marketing textiles to interior designers, get that off your list.

As time and The List goes on, try to make each point as specific as possible. Watch it whittle itself down. Is there a hierarchy of importance? Change the order. Are there common themes? Try to identify them. Group things together. Try to distill that list into a few key things.

And then…then you wait for something to click. I assure you, it will.

Working on a chalk & charcoal cast drawing at The Florence Academy of Art

MY LIST

After a few revisions, my list looked something like this:

-Sales

-Marketing

-Start a business 

-Build a brand

-Have ownership in my work

-Boats

-Art

Sales & Marketing: I knew I was good at sales and marketing. These two were safe, in retrospect, but The List has to start somewhere.

Boats: Boats made the list because I love boats, and because I spent my first year after college delivering yachts up and down the east coast, I knew I could make a career on the water.

Build a Brand: It had always been my dream to start a business and build a brand. Coming up with brand ideas and writing out business plans was my version of a crossword puzzle. Some of those plans were pretty good, but none felt worthy of laying my neck out on the line. 

Start a Business: To have ownership in my work: now we’re getting somewhere. I wanted to have a direct connection to both my successes and failures. Maybe it was a somewhat romantic notion. It had the potential to be the beginning of something great…and the potential to get me into trouble. (This is where some level of naivety helped.)

Art: Art made the list because I knew I liked making art, but it was hard to see how that would contribute to my career goals. Almost as an afterthought, I added it to the list to lighten it up.

I had been making art most of my life, but always for myself. I never considered it as a viable career. When I worked on The List mentioned here, I lived in an apartment so small you could touch the front door, kitchen, bed and chair without moving your feet. I had crammed a small easel into this space and was teaching myself to paint. It was just for fun, a hobby that I barely had time for, yet it was the single thing that made me feel like myself.

THEN “THE LIST” CLICKED

It all came together during a business trip to the Hamptons in January. I sat in a rental car in a beach parking lot eating lunch between meetings. I was miserable, tired and lonely. The air was frigid, and the wind gusts shook the car, peppering it with sand and spray from the surf. 

I urged my eyes to scan the words on my list again. I had looked at them so many times they were almost meaningless. But for whatever reason, in that moment, it struck me: Art was not a garnish, but the key to it all.

I did some rearranging, organizing it into a hierarchy of that which felt urgent and meaningful, until it looked like this:

ART

- Start a business & build a brand: Why couldn’t I approach being an artist as I would if I were starting my own company?

- Have ownership in my work: an immediate connection to my successes and failures.

- Which means doing sales and marketing for myself

- Boats: Why couldn’t I paint land, sky and seascapes from a maritime perspective? 

I wrote a business plan for myself that night. I applied to art school shortly after. I’m hitting fast forward on the chaos that ensued (and continues to ensue) but ultimately, here we are. I am a full-time artist. My art is my small business that I’m trying to grow. I suppose we can count this newsletter as marketing? …If anyone’s still reading?

Making The List is daunting but worth it. It helped clarify what I truly valued. My inbox is open if you happen to be working on yours and want to talk about it.

Otherwise, I’ll leave you with some links that are influencing my work (or my avoidance of it) right now:

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These days…

I’m looking at:

The maritime paintings of Montague Dawson. Specifically, I’m interested in his water.

‘The Sapphire’, Montague Dawson, F.R.S.A., R.S.M.A. (British, 1895-1973)

Detail of ‘The Sapphire’

I’m listening to:

Just up the road from my childhood home in New Hampshire lived my mom’s friend, Tricia Rose Burt. She is an artist and an incredible storyteller. Recently, she has been a creative sounding board and mentor. 

Tricia has been a storyteller on the prestigious show The Moth Radio Hour.

Last year, Tricia started a podcast called No Time To Be Timid. Here she interviews her artist friends about their lives, work, process and what it means to be an artist. It’s full of humor and wisdom. Give it a listen – it might get the gears turning about processes or problem solving in your own life. 

I’m working on:

This week, I am working on a commissioned triptych. The three panels are 24” tall by 12” wide, oil primed linen mounted to panels. I have been through several iterations of compositions but here we are, roughing it in.

This triptych illustrates a prominent lighthouse on Nantucket, Sankaty Light, in three periods of recent history. The left panel depicts the light and keepers house as it stood in the 1940s: critical to domestic navigation as well as a lookout station for submarines, fleets and bombers during the second World War. The center panel shows Sankaty lighthouse as it was moved in 2007 by the Sconset Trust to avoid falling into the sea due to severe erosion. The right panel is of the lighthouse as it stands today.

I recently made a series of limited edition prints of the three lighthouses on Nantucket. Check them out!