As a creative business owner, I often run into people who tell me, “I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.” Invariably they are very practical folks who work with numbers or facts in financial, legal, or technical careers. I always respond, “I don’t believe that for one second.” We all have the potential to be creative, artistic even, it’s simply a matter of honoring that part of yourself and cultivating it. But you don’t need to take my word on this.
Today I’m going to introduce you to some amazing women who blow the idea of creative VS practical or technical VS artistic out of the water! They are the Renaissance women of my art class.
I am continually amazed by these women. By day, they work in medicine, science, and engineering, and every Tuesday night they come together to honor their creative sides in our independent study watercolor class. They are exuberant, passionate, fun-loving ladies, none of whom is a professional artist, but their artwork is wonderful. They’re amazing, I tell you. Simply amazing. And totally inspiring.
Margaret Inokuma, whose begonia is featured above, works as a staff scientist in the biotech industry. As you can see, she is also an accomplished painter who recently sold a painting at a local art show.
Passion Flower (c) Margaret Inokuma
Virginia Weiss is a radiologist. Yeah, that’s a doctor (MD) of radiology. She has been engaged in the arts since childhood, and this beautiful pink hibiscus is the first painting I saw her complete:
Pink hibiscus (c) Virginia Weiss
Virginia seems to really like hibiscuses, but who can blame her? Aren’t they lovely?!
Red hibiscus (c) Virginia Weiss
Barbara Walton is a microbiologist by day and just plain hilarious by night. You can always count on her for leading a round of the chuckles in class. My favorite of her paintings is a tiny orange rose, but I think you’ll enjoy these too:
Echeverria (c) Barbara Walton
Peony (c) Barbara Walton
These are just three of many amazing women in my art class. There are several others that I could have mentioned. And lest you think otherwise, we do paint more than flowers. It’s just that our instructor, the wonderful Guy Magallanes, paints a lot of floral and nature scenes that inspire us.
So, there you have it. Who says you can’t be analytical AND creative, technical AND artistic, science-minded AND an artist? I think that myth has been busted today.
Cheers,
Update, 14 March 2014: Margaret gave me permission to post one of her more recent paintings, a great example of a non-botanical project:
Woody (c) Margaret Inokuma
