180 degree turns

Alex Meade is an artist, not a painter.

Painters put paint on a canvas. Often with great detail.

Artist, on the other hand, use emotional labor to make a connection.

The first time Alex painted a human being was when she graduated from college.

She didn’t have any formal training. She didn’t spend years copying the pictures of other greats. She didn’t even use a canvas.

Instead, she took a chance. With one foot out the door for Capitol Hill, she changed her plans:

She followed the work, not knowing what was going to happen next.

Could Alex bring joy and meaning to her live and those around her behind a desk in government work?

Perhaps. But I suspect we would have never heard of her if she did. I don’t think her impact would have been as wide-spread.

Now, her contributions inspire us to challenge the status-quo.

Anyone could have decided to put paint on a human, it was right there all along. But no one had. And she did what only she could.

180 degree turns are not easy. Sometimes the opportunity presented isn’t the path we intended.

It takes guts to turn around, to admit we were wrong, to venture into the unknown…can you?

[The field for becoming a professional painter (or an office manager or a coder…) is shrinking. The good news is that the world is in short supply of artists–those who are willing to bridge the gap of how things are and what could be.]