How I Learned to Trust my Creative Voice
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
I am writing this after one of those weeks that somehow managed to leave me completely exhausted and deeply restored at the same time. There were studio deadlines, event preparation, travel, a virtual gathering with women interested in our upcoming Joyful Journey Retreat, and several intense summer storms that sent my nerves into overdrive. By the time the weekend arrived, I felt as though every part of me had been stretched.
And then Saturday happened.
My solo exhibition, Through Me: Where Wonder Finds a Way, officially opened at VECCA in Woodstock, Virginia, and somewhere in the middle of that beautiful afternoon, something shifted in me. For the first time in my career, I stood in front of a room to speak about my work and realized that I was no longer trying to prove that I belonged there. I simply knew that I did.
A Week That Tested Everything
Creative work is often romanticized as inspiration, color, freedom, and beautiful finished paintings hanging beneath gallery lights. The reality is usually much messier. There are deadlines, logistics, wrapping artwork, carrying canvases, editing presentations, answering emails, promoting events, making decisions, second-guessing those decisions, and trying to remember whether you actually ate lunch somewhere in the middle of it all.
Last week held all of that. Add several severe summer storms that had me retreating to the basement and trying to calm a nervous system that had quite simply had enough, and I arrived at the weekend feeling depleted. Sometimes the weeks surrounding our biggest moments do not feel particularly glamorous. They simply ask us to keep moving.
From Storms to Connection
Friday evening brought exactly what I needed. My friend and Joyful Journey Retreat co-host Bonnie and I hosted an online edition of Travel Talks for Creative Women. We spent the evening meeting new women, answering questions, laughing, sharing stories, and talking about the kind of creative connection we hope to cultivate during our Charlottesville retreat this fall.
It was a reminder that connection has a way of restoring us. There is something powerful about sitting with people who are curious, open, and willing to imagine something new for themselves. By the time I went to bed Friday night, I still felt physically tired, but emotionally I was beginning to settle. The next morning, I headed to Woodstock.
What Happened at My VECCA Artist Talk
The gallery at VECCA was beautiful. Twenty-three paintings from Through Me: Where Wonder Finds a Way were finally hanging together after months of existing primarily inside the private world of my studio. Seeing them in that space was emotional enough.
Then 2:00 p.m. arrived. It was time for my artist talk.
I have spoken to many groups throughout my career. I spent thirty years teaching. I have presented workshops, led classes, spoken to professional organizations, and stood in front of rooms full of people more times than I could possibly count. Yet speaking about your own work is different because there is a particular kind of vulnerability in saying, “This is what I made. This is what I believe. This is what I discovered.”
For years, some small part of me would remain watchful in those moments. Am I saying this correctly? Do they understand me? Am I talking too much? Am I too enthusiastic? Should I explain this differently? Am I enough of an artist to stand here and say these things with confidence?
On Saturday, that voice was quiet.
I simply spoke.
The Moment I Stopped Second-Guessing Myself
Something remarkable happened during that artist talk. I felt completely relaxed. I trusted the stories I wanted to tell. I trusted my experience. I trusted my knowledge. I trusted my paintings. Most importantly, I trusted myself.
I did not shrink my personality or temper my enthusiasm. I did not try to sound more academic, more sophisticated, or more like whatever version of an “artist” I thought someone else might expect. I was simply me: artist, educator, storyteller, curious human being.
The room responded. People asked thoughtful questions. They shared what they saw in the paintings. Conversations continued after the formal talk ended. Visitors stayed, looked more closely, and allowed their own experiences to become part of the work. It felt less like a presentation and more like a genuine exchange, and that is exactly what I had hoped for.
What It Really Means to Trust Your Creative Voice
We often talk about “finding your voice” as though it is something hidden somewhere outside of us, waiting to be discovered. I am beginning to think that perhaps our voice has been there all along. The harder work is learning to stop drowning it out.
We compare ourselves. We absorb other people’s opinions. We look at what is working for someone else and wonder whether we should become more like them. We edit ourselves before we have even finished expressing the thought. Over time, all that noise can make it difficult to hear what we actually believe.
Learning to trust your creative voice does not mean believing that every idea is brilliant or every decision is correct. It means becoming willing to listen to yourself before immediately searching for outside validation. It means recognizing that your experiences, instincts, curiosity, and perspective have value. It means allowing yourself to take up space without constantly apologizing for being there.
Why Confidence Does Not Mean Having All the Answers
One of the most important things I have learned as both an educator and an artist is that confidence is not certainty. Confidence does not require knowing exactly what will happen next.
In fact, much of my creative process depends on not knowing. Every painting begins with play. I make a mark, respond to it, cover something, reveal something else, change direction, and continue listening until the painting begins to tell me what it needs. That process requires trust.
Not trust that I will never make a mistake, but trust that I will know how to respond when something unexpected happens. The same is true when speaking, teaching, leading, or simply moving through life. We do not need every answer before we begin. We need enough trust in ourselves to remain present when the next question arrives.
How Through Me Reflects This Change
Through Me: Where Wonder Finds a Way could not have emerged from the version of me who needed to control every outcome. This series developed through surrender, curiosity, intuition, and play.
Rather than approaching each canvas with a fixed image of what I wanted it to become, I allowed the paintings to evolve through conversation. Color suggested movement. Texture revealed possibilities. One mark created the need for another. At some point, I realized that the paintings no longer felt as though they were simply being made by me.
They felt as though they were moving through me.
That realization is where the title came from.
Looking back at Saturday’s artist talk, I see that something similar happened there. I stopped trying to manufacture the “right” presentation and allowed the conversation to move through me too. Perhaps that is why it felt so different.
What I Hope You Take From This
You do not need to be an artist to understand what it feels like to question your own voice. Maybe you have held back in a meeting because someone else seemed more confident. Maybe you have softened an idea because you were afraid it would be too different. Maybe you have spent years trying to be everyone’s preferred version of you.
I certainly have.
There is an extraordinary freedom that arrives when we stop asking every room for permission to be ourselves. Trusting your voice does not mean everyone will agree with you, and it does not mean every person will connect with your work, your ideas, or your personality. It means understanding that they do not have to.
You are not meant to be everyone’s cup of tea. Or, as I have been saying lately, everyone’s varietal of wine. Some people may prefer a delicate white. I am increasingly comfortable being the bold red. 🍷
Experience Through Me at VECCA
If you were not able to attend the opening reception, Through Me: Where Wonder Finds a Way remains on view at VECCA through the end of August.
The exhibition includes twenty-three original contemporary mixed media paintings exploring curiosity, intuition, play, surrender, and the mysterious space where creativity begins to feel larger than the person creating it.
VECCA — Valley Educational Center for the Creative Arts
123 South Main StreetWoodstock, Virginia 22664
I hope you will visit the exhibition in person and spend time discovering what the paintings awaken in you. I can tell you what I experienced while creating them, but the moment you stand in front of the work, the conversation becomes yours.
What’s Next
This week also brings another step forward as I visit Springfield Town Center to begin planning an upcoming six-month solo feature running from October through March. Bonnie and I will also host another virtual Travel Talks for Creative Women gathering on Friday, August 14, for anyone curious about joining us for the Joyful Journey Retreat in Charlottesville this fall.
Registration is also open for Layers of Possibility, my six-week online course with Falls Church Arts beginning in September. We will explore intuitive mark-making, layered color, mixed media techniques, experimentation, and the beautiful freedom that comes from releasing perfection.
Each of these opportunities looks different, but they are connected by the same belief that guided me through Saturday’s artist talk: creativity asks us to remain curious, growth asks us to remain open, and eventually, becoming who we are asks us to trust our own voice.
For the first time, I think I truly do. 🩵
With joy and gratitude, Precious
Precious Burger
Contemporary Mixed Media Artist
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