When the Pandemic Took My Job, I Played with Paint and Became a Self-taught Acrylic Painter
It was July 2021 in the middle of the pandemic. I had lost my job as an adjunct professor of theology and religion studies to the pandemic. The pandemic and the loss of my job propelled me to retire early.
Twelve years prior, I gifted my husband Jon a set of canvases, brushes, acrylic paints, and an easel because he said he wanted to start painting. He never did. I am not one to sit idle and let things go to waste. When I lost my job, I gave the acrylic paints, canvases, brushes, and the easel new life.
Almost two years ago one July Saturday afternoon, I began playing with paint and brushes on canvas under the canopy in our backyard. Almost two years later, I have created forty-six acrylic paintings. Before teaching myself how to paint, I had never painted anything except walls, our picket fence, and chairs I had rescued from people’s curbside trash during my training runs (I’m also an ultrarunner; I run ultramarathons).
This is a collage of some of my paintings. They are memories of nature in the national parks my husband and I have hiked in, in places where I have run ultramarathons, and in our backyard.
