To what extent for your art

[Sharon Knettell]

PS.

About 25 years ago, I was pondering just such a move, not to Atlanta, but from Providence, Rhode Island to Boston or New York.

I felt I was stuck in an insufferable backwater, all the cognoscenti and opportunity was elsewhere and I only had to move to achieve my goals.

My dreams have immeasurably changed from those desperate and uncertain days.

I have stayed, and I wince at the thought of having left. However that is my story. Your situation and dreams are yours, so listen carefully to your heart.

[Cindy Procious]

Above all, Patty, I think you should feel confident that your colleagues are here for your moral support, and that you should never feel alone.

Best of luck to you.

[Debra Norton]

My husband and I left our grown children and extended family in Washington state to live in Minnesota so I can go to school. I'm almost finished with the third of four years. Has it been good? Yes! Has it been lonely? Yes, especially at the first, but now I can see it would be easy to live the rest of our lives here if we didn't have such strong commitments to draw us back home. We've made friends through school, my husband's work, church, and neighbors.

About failure, you won't know if you don't try.

Financially, I think we may end up in better shape because selling our house allowed us to invest in property we can subdivide and sell when we return. Plus we have a house here we'll sell.

This has been an adventure for us, and it will still be one when we get back home, I will be trying to start a business as a painter and my husband will be working on his second career - he's still contemplating what he'll do. One drawback is that we'll be in a rural area but I'm not too worried about it because of the internet. That's it up to this point, you'll have to wait with me for "the rest of the story."

[Steven Sweeney]

I was hoping you'd post in this thread, Debra, since I know what a leap of faith you took to change longitudes for a few years in order to get the art training you wanted.

Preliminarily, references to

[Michele Rushworth]

...just to see if you can live off conch stew and sea slugs in an abandoned boathouse in some coastal village, without any health benefits. Unless you really, really want to find out, say, what it would be like to paint maritime scenes in that venue for two years.

That actually sounds like a LOT of fun to me, but then that's maybe just my own crazy approach to the idea of change and trying new things.

As Steven says, it depends on how you feel about new situations.

[Steven Sweeney]

Originally Posted by Michele Rushworth

That actually sounds like a LOT of fun to me, but then that's maybe just my own crazy approach to the idea of change and trying new things.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't going to make too much of that, but I nearly had a case of wanderlust kick in as I typed out that scenario. But then, I'm comfortable living out of a tent or a boat anyway.

And in fact, I'm looking at tonight's storm forecast (6-10 inches of new snow in the Twin Cities, 25-35 mph winds) and thinking about tomorrow morning's snarled commute to my cubicle far away in another galaxy. A few seasons' worth of tides, beach scavenging and painting in salt air might be just the kind of character-building experience I need to sign on for. Maybe even meet a real Irish mermaid who'll be my Muse.

As the travel folks say, you won't know if you don't go.

[Patricia Joyce]