No Straight Lines: Art Careers, Pauses, & New Beginnings

Get inspired by the stories of SOLA Awardees of how their paths to success weren't linear, and take comfort in how a meaningful art career looks different for everyone.

Creative careers rarely follow a straight path. For many women artists, years—or even decades—may be shaped by caregiving, whether raising children, supporting aging parents, caring for loved ones, building another career, or tending to the many responsibilities life asks of them. For others, the call to pursue art professionally may come later in life, when time, clarity, or circumstance finally makes space for it.

This community call, hosted by SOLA Awardees Gail Grinnell, Jeanne Simmons, and Rene Westbrook, will explore what it means to juggle, begin, return to, or deepen an artistic career on your own timeline. Through honest conversation, awardees can share experiences of restarting a practice, balancing an art practice with other responsibilities, entering the art world later in life, rebuilding momentum…