Social Anxiety and Art

I am often praised for my ability to paint well *quickly.* When I lived in Tennessee, other artists referred to me as the most prolific artist in our area. And it’s true, I am a fast painter. But only because I had to be…

I first started painting in oils when I was 20 years old. I took my time. I hyperfocused. I worked on it from the previous evening until the sun came up the next morning. I can paint for days, if I’m allowed the time.

I was in an abusive relationship with someone whose child I was expected to raise whenever he felt inconvenienced by her. I was allowed time to paint, but only while he was at work. I had an easel set up downstairs–where he kept the heat and a/c at unbearable temperatures, hoping it would keep me there less. I was not allowed to touch the thermostat. If I tried to sneak away and paint while he was at home–usually during a baseball game–his small child was sent downstairs to guilt-trip me.

“Daddy says he’ll play a game with me, but only if you come upstairs to play with us. Please come play,” she’d say with quivers in her voice. Of course, I would oblige. If I were to paint slowly, the canvas would always be empty.

After I left him at 23, a single mom, I didn’t paint again until I was 26.

I had just gotten married to my current Spouse. My first three paintings–nude watercolors–sold within a month. But I still had a toddler to care for and a baby on the way. So, though I would still paint as a hobby, I wasn’t trying to sell a lot and spent most of my time as a young mom managing the household and doing crafts with my kids.

When my littles became toddler and preschool aged, I received some oil paints as a gift and started painting again. I worked on this fantasy oil painting for three months and kept returning it to it’s hanging place in the hallway in between school drop-offs, crafts, and when the youngest would wake up from naps. One day the littles got a little too rambunctious while running down the hall and I returned to my painting to notice that the grass I had spent hours meticulously painting had tiny finger smears from one end of the canvas to the other.

That is when I switched from oils to acrylics.

And from fantasy to pop art.

For a little over ten years.

Every once in a while I would be able to work on an oil painting, but it had to be quickly, it had to be something that could be interrupted easily without ruffling my feathers, and it had to be small enough to be put away at a moment’s notice. At one house I remember working on an oil painting from inside my closet. I still have that painting today. It’s a fucking mess. But… in a good way.

Every time I snuck in an oil painting during naps, or after school drop-off, or while the kids were at a play date or out with their dad, I became a little faster. And over a decade, that can really add up.

TLDR: I paint quickly very well, because I am a mother.

❤ Liz

@socialanxietyandart

The one I painted in a closet. Side note: this painting inspired my work on both Daisies and Celestial Body. I love the idea of a woman as a silhouette, because as women we hold so much of the world around us.