It’s my twelfth birthday. The doorbell rings as family and friends arrive for coffee and cake. I wear my new purple-blue faux-silk shirt and jeans that my mom sewed. Each ring adds to the growing heap of presents on the dining room table.
A close friend of my father, an artist, gives me a carefully wrapped parcel. I tear off the paper to find a box of colorful pastel crayons. I grab the pink one and it stains my fingers, but I don’t care. Next are a sketchbook and a book about drawing with pastels. I’m thrilled. I’ve always loved drawing, but I’d get frustrated when my work didn’t match what I saw in my head.
After our guests leave, I sprint upstairs to my room. Sitting at my desk I grab the instruction book, sketchbook, and precious box of pastels. The pastels are slippery and messy as I try to mix colors. I keep trying night after night. The neat pastels become shattered stumps, and my drawings never look like the book’s examples. Each attempt leaves me a little more disappointed.
I feel frustrated that my hands cannot make what my mind imagines. There is a sting of envy when I flip through the instruction book, wishing my work could look even half as polished. Eventually, the hope I felt at first gives way to a dull sense of frustration and resignation. One night, with heavy hands I dump the remaining pastels and “how to” book into my desk’s bottom drawer, adding it to my pile of frustrations.
Sixteen years later, I find myself in Amsterdam. I am 28 years old. The rain splatters down from the awning of the US Embassy entrance. I’ve just submitted paperwork to renew my work permit as a fashion model. I have hours to kill before I can pick it up. I wander toward Museum Square, searching for shelter from the wind that renders my umbrella useless.
As I make my way through the square, I notice a woman with a pretty face surrounded by roses and honeysuckle. She’s holding an arrow and staring at me. I walk over for a closer look. The poster announces an exhibition of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s artwork at the Van Gogh Museum. When I enter the first room, which is filled with Rossetti’s paintings, the colors burst from the walls. Many dreamy faces look at me, including the woman surrounded by flowers. It’s Venus, and she must have asked Cupid to shoot me straight through the heart.
For hours, in a trance, I drift from room to room. Symbolism drips from each painting. I want to know every story behind each face. The urge to paint and draw returns powerfully. Painting has always been my calling, but I never received any training. Goosebumps run along my arms, my muscles tense with desire and regret. I sit on a bench, memories rushing in, as tears sting my eyes. I ask myself, why did I ever stop drawing?
When I was 16 and it was time to choose post-high school options, the idea of attending art school briefly crossed my mind. But the school I visited lacked instruction in figurative painting and charged high tuition. Disappointed, I stopped pursuing it. Still, the dream remained.
I’m sitting on the bench surrounded by Rosetti’s paintings and reading a plaque about his life. Suddenly, butterflies flutter in my stomach. I know what I must do: find a school to learn to draw and paint the way I want to, without worrying about degrees or high tuition. I just need to find the right place.
After months of research, I found the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design in NYC. I considered several schools. I was looking for strong technical training and an encouraging community. Some programs were very conceptual. Others were rigid or expensive. The National Academy’s long history and status as one of the first US art academies interested me the most.
When I learned that Sam Adoquei teaches painting and drawing there using the Atelier approach, I was inspired. This practical hands-on method allows every student to learn at their own pace, regardless of background or experience. That appealed to me. I wanted to build fundamentals and grow freely, free from pressure to conform. So I moved from Paris to NYC and continued modeling while attending art school. Soon, I was packing heels next to paintbrushes. I’d rush to fashion castings on my lunch breaks, ignoring the paint on my pants.
On my first day of class in New York, I showed up with all my tools from the supply list. I packed every paintbrush and paint tube in my new bag. With my fancy new sketch book of thick expensive paper placed under my arm, I enter class. Sam has posed a model and told me to draw her.
With a piece of charcoal staining my fingers black, I painstakingly try to draw the model during the first 20-minute pose. She’s about 4 inches tall and floats lost in the middle of my 24-by-36-inch drawing paper. Sam walks over, takes one glance, and knows I’m a blank canvas. He smiles and asks me what I plan to do with the rest of the empty space on the paper. I don’t know.
He suggests that I start with the outlines of the “big basic shapes” and fill in the paper. Oh, and switch paper after each 20-minute pose. He also recommends I get a thick block of cheap newsprint, unless I have unlimited funds and can afford to throw away a piece of that high-quality paper every 20 minutes. I give my goofy laugh, feeling stupid and green as grass, but eager.
At lunch, I run to the art store and pick up a pad of the cheap paper needed for my big basic shapes.
I didn’t realize it then, but those basic shapes started a years long quest to balance the fashion world, my art, and motherhood. My first year at the academy was intense; I spent six to eight hours a day in the studio. My technique improved quickly. After a year I won first place in the student portrait category of the Student Exhibition and competition. At the start of 2006 I received a full scholarship for the next year, and that same month, I learned I was pregnant.
I was excited to become a mother and hopeful about continuing my art. I stayed at the Academy until summer break, fully intending to return in the fall. I did not realize how much your life changes with motherhood. An art school is not a place to bring a newborn, and I still needed to work on fashion assignments to provide for my daughter.
I refused to give up art, but couldn’t continue at the Academy. Instead, I practiced drawing during breaks on long days on set. I’d pick a simple object, like an apple from the fruit bowl, and draw it. The many hours I spent at airports turned into an opportunity to practice perspective and capture moving figures. People sleeping in chairs were my steady models I could secretly draw. I had a small pochade box with paints that I used to turn my hotel rooms into a temporary art studio. With my art supplies packed alongside my clothes in my suitcase, it was a constant challenge to stay under the luggage weight limit. I had to accept progress in baby steps, building patience and persistence.
About ten days after my daughter’s birth, I bought my first home in the Catskill Mountains. Why I bought that home is part of this story but also part of another story for another day. So, for several years I split time between the Catskills, New York City, and the rest of the world. I felt as if I were living a double life, constantly swapping between my roles as a fashion model, a mother, and an artist. The traveling and transitions wore me down.
Even though the four-inch figures floating in the middle of my paper had grown to their proper size, and my charcoal-stained fingers now mostly held paint brushes, I needed more room to breathe. I wanted to spend more time with my daughter. I longed to live full-time in a landscape that matched the scale of the changes I felt inside. I knew the Catskill Mountains were that landscape.
In 2012, after six frustrating years of trying to balance motherhood, modeling, and art, I directed my focus away from my sixteen-year modeling career. I began searching for a way to live full-time in the Catskills. Living in this rural area offered few job opportunities, so I struggled to figure out how to work and live in the Catskills. I asked other moms in the area what they did for a living when they moved here.
One of the moms suggested I speak with a local real estate broker whom she worked for. She loved working in real estate because it gave her flexible scheduling, so she could be home when her daughters came home from school. This gave me hope that I could make this change work. With intention, I worked toward a career in real estate, trading runways for ridges. It took four more years of juggling to create a home where I could be present daily for my daughter and art. I also found a new partner, a painter and a passionate art lover who wanted to live the way I did.
Today, the paint and charcoal still stain my fingers. But now they capture the lines of these mountains, and there is only this life, no double life.
An arrow shot from a bow can have a long trajectory. Following your authentic path can take a long time. But if you feel the urge to create, honor it. Even a small start, or a significant detour, can ultimately guide you back to what you love. Trust your curiosity. Be patient with your progress and allow yourself to start again, as many times as it takes.
That box of pastels stayed with me throughout the years. It lived in Paris, New York City, and the Canary Islands, then returned to New York and the Catskills. I don’t use pastels for my art, but I keep this box to remind me to never give up on my dreams.
What a beautiful journey 🍃 I love how you kept the pastels box.
Inspired. And so glad to know you. ❤️