In a recent post, I shared a video of a piece of art I created on a whiteboard at my old job. It was the height of the pandemic, and I was one of the few people who had to come into work. I spent days alone in the newsroom. No question, the loneliness and the stress of the pandemic made things really hard.

I’m not sure what inspired me at the moment, but one day during lunch, I picked up a marker and just started drawing on the board.

That was a pivotal moment in my life, and I didn’t even realize that at the time. To understand what I’m saying, I have to go back a little bit, actually, about 30 years.

I entered college in 1991 as an art student. Why not art school? Well, I did check out one art school, Ringling. But that idea fell off quickly after a visit to the campus. The cost (even back then) was too much, and I didn’t feel as if I fit in. I was an art student for three semesters before changing majors and throwing my life in a totally different direction. After graduating from college, I put all my energy toward launching my broadcasting and journalism career. But I was always drawing, at least here and there.

Over time, I drew less and less. Art was rapidly becoming an afterthought. And at some point in the early 2000s, I had pretty much given up on it. That was until I started working in public broadcasting.

Public media and the arts go together better than hot fudge on a sundae.

For twenty years, I met artists, some famous and many not yet known. I attended hundreds of art shows at festivals, galleries, and museums. There were even more conversations with artists, some of whom received schooling and many who were self-taught. I met gallery owners, museum curators, and very wealthy art collectors. It didn’t dawn on me all those years of working in radio, I was getting an education in art that no school could sell me.

Something also happened to me while covering art as a journalist. A small seed was planted, and I hadn’t noticed it right away.

With every story, every interview, every art show, I started asking myself the same question. What if? What if I had remained an art student? Where would I be?

Thinking of the past like that is wasteful. That’s why I don’t do it anymore. Besides, dropping out of art back at the age of nineteen was perhaps what I needed. If not, I wouldn’t be working in radio, and I wouldn’t have had that real-world education I mentioned. So anyway, as time passed, I kept asking the question ‘What if I had stayed in art as a student?’ to ‘Why not become an artist now?’ I had gone decades without really creating any art.

That was until the pandemic.

You may have a similar story during the pandemic. Did your days pass slowly, doused in loneliness? I had to be in the office, and there were only two other people in the building, whom I wasn’t allowed to be near. Like you, it took its toll on me. One day, eating my lunch in that lonely newsroom, I felt an urge to go to the whiteboard and start drawing.

And over the next couple of months, every day at lunch, I would draw, regardless of the limitations of only having six colored erasable markers. I made three large pieces during that time. I didn’t care.

What I quickly realized was the peace of mind that drawing was giving me. It healed me. It gave me a sense of purpose. At one point, I sat back and looked at the board, then realized I had missed this. I needed this. I need to create art.

I wish I could tell you that I started drawing and painting regularly after that. Unfortunately, I did not. The next couple of years were hectic as the pandemic and the election that followed took a lot of energy out of me. But I was doodling at least a little more than usual.

I eventually left Miami to arrive at my current home in Rhode Island. That voice from the back of my mind was getting louder, telling me to go pick up a damn pencil and start drawing again. The challenge for me, though, was the fact that I had fallen into a depression again, which led to a great deal of anxiety. It’s the anxiety I talked about early on in this podcast that ended with me making seven trips to the emergency room.

Over the past year or so, I have been watching video after video made by artists on social media, especially YouTube. Some of them were personal stories, while most were tutorials on drawing, sketching, and painting. I have been building up the urge, the desire within me to no longer just talk about it, but do it.

Recently, I finally took a trip to the art store to buy some supplies. I finally got myself to actually do more than just watch videos, and now I was painting along with the artist. My first two paintings were nothing to write home about, except that they were paintings of two small houses. The works are not special, except that they represent a step into a new world.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is a process that will take time.

For now, I am taking it in baby steps. My goal is to draw every day. I have a small sketchbook that I carry with me in my work bag. I even created a curriculum as if I were in school again, just a list of things I need to do to sharpen my skills. In some ways, I need to rebuild the skills that I once had, but in many ways, I have to learn things I never knew.

I don’t regret dropping out of the art program all those years ago. At 19, I wasn’t ready to be an artist. I didn’t know what I was doing it for, except that I knew I was good and the professors liked me. I didn’t have a sense of direction, nor did I have the discipline to do it every day.

At this stage, I know that art doesn’t have to be the center of my life. I know that I can do this while I am working. I’d argue that my work could actually enhance my art. Mostly because I don’t want to be the starving artist either.

I also know why I’m doing it. For me. I draw and paint because the act of creating art is a meditation for me. It brings me peace and makes me feel connected to something higher than myself. I’m finding that all those years of life and experiences have given me an abundance of ideas to choose from. There’s no question in my mind that at this stage of life, I am more ready to be an artist than I ever was back in college. So, it’s a good thing I dropped out back then because over the last 30 years, I discovered the true art and the artist within me.