Artfully Lived

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Painting Murals in All Conditions

Painting in the Dark at Levant in Raleigh

Back when postal carriers delivered mail door to door there was a commonly known phrase that summed up their determination. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” - (unofficial motto often attributed to the USPS). Would you believe there are times when the same words can be applied to the mural artist?

The truth is that painting murals is physically demanding and can require long hours in all conditions. The project schedule often requires the coordination of various contractors, so I may work several 12+ hour days in a row. That’s a lot of hours on your feet, so proper running shoes are a must. I may be sweating away in the heat and humidity of summer or losing feeling in my toes during the cold of winter painting an exterior mural. I may find myself on a job site without functional air conditioning or heat. Lighting may be inadequate or completely absent. There may be chaos and noise from contractors, an audience of onlookers and passersby, bees and other biting insects, and heights that requires scary climbs on scaffolding and ladders.

On my most recent job in Wilmington, NC, we were under an extreme heat advisory all week with “feels like” temperatures over 100 degrees. Due to a tight construction schedule and a quickly approaching opening date, I couldn’t postpone in hopes of lower temperatures. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot and uncomfortable. I gulped liters of gatorade, doused my hat in cold water every twenty minutes, and was forced to take frequent breaks. Passersby would say that I picked the wrong week to work. No kidding. If it were up to me, I’d have picked October rather than August.

While I’m complaining, I don’t want to forget to mention the almost complete lack of shade or protection from the unrelenting rays of the sun and the swarms of mosquitoes that attacked at dawn and dusk. I was sunburned, sore, exhausted and covered in bites at the end of the week, but I did get that job done on time. The client had an expectation, and I didn’t want to disappoint. If I say I’ll do it, I’ll do it!

In spite of some of the images posted by various muralists on social media, the work is often not glamorous. You won’t see many selfies of me, because I’m usually wearing paint-spattered old t-shirts, a faded baseball cap, and didn’t bother with make-up. Well, truth be told, I simply don’t really like selfies anyway. Even with all of that being said, there’s almost nothing I’d rather be doing. When I am painting, time stops and worries fade away. I’m filled with a pleasant emptiness while all of my focus goes into the project. I really believe artwork helps to enliven spaces and add to the experience the owner is trying to create. If someone sees my work and it makes them feel happy or inspired, then that is an extra bonus. I feel so grateful and fortunate to have the work.

-Arianne

Sky High Mural Scaffolding at Opa in Wilmington, NC

If you enjoyed this post, consider purchasing my books, Solo Car Camping Across America, An Adventure in Courage, Solitude, and Questionable Bathrooms in America’s Most Beautiful Places, available on Amazon Books. 235 pages with full color images. Itinerary, packing list, helpful tips, and do’s and don’ts included. Free shipping for Amazon Prime members. Kindle edition also available.

Approaching the Blank Canvas, Real Talk on Fear, Inspiration and Not Giving Up in Art and Life. It’s full of true tales and tips from my 20+ years of making art for a living. It’s available on Amazon Books and you can also find the link to it and my other books on my DesignsbyArianne website.

Monday, June 1, 2026

Pressing the Okay Button with the Help of Norman Vincent Peale

"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.”

"What the mind profoundly expects it tends to receive.”

"When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge — every adversity — contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.” - all quotes from The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Recently I was having a bad day. I was dealing with a situation outside of my control which was causing a lot of apprehension. While driving down the road, I found myself mindlessly rubbing a button on my steering wheel. I realized that I did this quite often while driving. The action seemed to offer a degree of comfort. This was the first time I noticed that the button said “OK".

For my particular car make and model the “OK" button is pressed to dismiss warning alerts and to access and select further options. If you “long press” it, you can reset. In essence, press the button to say "I'm okay with that". Wouldn’t that be something if pressing the OK button in my car would magically make me feel okay like rubbing a magic lantern? What if it was that easy? What if I sinply entertained the idea that such a thing was possible. Could it affect my day positively. I supposed it might.

I am someone who loves the idea of the power of positive thinking. On my bedside table, you will find Norman Vincent Peale’s book by that exact title: The Power of Positive Thinking. My journal is titled “Think Happy Thoughts”. Does it work? I don’t know.

What I do know is that optimism tends to make me expect good outcomes and act differently with the goal of achieving them. I do know that on days where I apply all of my positive thinking tools, I experience greater happiness and more hope. So I guess I’ll continue applying Mr. Peale’s principles, and every once in a while I’m going to press that OK button in my car and see what happens.

- Arianne

Purveyor of Positivity

Sunday, March 8, 2026

Something Beautiful Everyday: The Fogbow

“It takes sunshine and rain to make a rainbow. There would be no rainbows without sunshine and rain.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

This morning at dawn, I ran along the ocean on a barrier island near my house just as I have almost every day for the past year. There’s only two directions to go in - to the right or to the left. You might think it would be tedious to travel the same route every day. In fact, If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said the prospect sounded limiting and boring, but there aren’t a lot of options in the area.

After traveling the same route hundreds of times, I’ve learned that the beach, ocean, and sky never look the same from one day to the next.

Each morning, I set out with an intention of seeing something wondrous, and this wish is almost always fulfilled. Why? Because I set an expectation. Because I am actively aware and curiously looking for wonder. Because the world is full of remarkable animals, plants, people and phenomena.

This morning a dense blanket of fog crept in from the ocean obscuring the distant horizon and creating a mystical atmosphere. As the heat of the rising sun began to burn off the cloud cover a double white rainbow formed before me arching from the ocean to the first row of houses on the beach. According to Wikipedia, “A fog bow, sometimes called a white rainbow,^] is a phenomenon similar to a rainbow; however, as its name suggests, it appears as a bow in fog rather than rain."

I was in awe. I tried to run to the place where it appeared to emerge from the ocean, but of course I could never quite get there. The fogbow remained out of reach.

People often ask me how I happen to see so many interesting things, and I say…

because I am out there, and I am looking. Try it.

Fog Bow on the Beach

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

I’m Wearing My Rose-Colored Glasses Darn It!

“She chose the rose colored glasses not because she was naïve, but because she knew the power of positive focus.”― Christina Sutra

Seeing the World through Rose-Colored Glasses

According to Wikipedia, Rose-colored glasses or rose-tinted glasses may refer to:

Optimism, the tendency to see things in a positive light

Rosy retrospection, the tendency to view past events in a positive (often unrealistic) light

One crisp November morning deep in peak fall color season, I was driving along a country road I’ve traveled countless times. I was awestruck by the beauty of the surrounding landscape, the warm shades of golden grasses in the fields and the toasty brown of the leaves in the trees against the pink glow of the morning sunrise. I was filled with joy at the sight.

Then I realized I was wearing a new pair of sunglasses with rose-tinted lenses. I took them off and found that the lenses had definitely boosted the beauty of the scene, adding a luminous, warm filter.

I put those glasses right back on and continued to bask in the joyful feeling of being surrounded by the beauty of nature. You might object that I was fooling myself - that I was not accepting the reality of the situation.

I would argue that I was just making a choice to see everything in the best possible light. No harm was done by throwing a warm filter over my world for the length of my drive. I wasn’t putting castles where there were mobile homes or mountains where there were billboards. I couldn’t hide the trash cans and broken-down jalopies littering a yard, but even the junk and the signs looked prettier in the lovely glow of my glasses. The unsightly parts simply became part of a beautiful whole, and the end result was joy.

Couldn’t we all use a little more of that? The world is full of beauty and growth as well as the grotesque and decaying. If a dose of rose-colored perspective helps me to feel more hopeful and positive in that chaotic world, I’m going to wear them, darn it

With Rose-Colored Lenses

Without Rose-Colored Lenses

Arianne
If you enjoyed this post, consider purchasing my books, Solo Car Camping Across America, An Adventure in Courage, Solitude, and Questionable Bathrooms in America’s Most Beautiful Places, available on Amazon Books. 235 pages with full color images. Itinerary, packing list, helpful tips, and do’s and don’ts included. Free shipping for Amazon Prime members. Kindle edition also available.

Approaching the Blank Canvas, Real Talk on Fear, Inspiration and Not Giving Up in Art and Life. It’s full of true tales and tips from my 20+ years of making art for a living. It’s available on Amazon Books and you can also find the link to it and my other books on my DesignsbyArianne website.

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Me and a Bird on the Beach: The Wingspan Effect

“He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all”
― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I was running on the beach this morning but the tide was high and rising; and the sand was soft and unstable. I slowed to a walk and noticed a shorebird to the left keeping pace with me, his small gray body balanced on absurdly long thin legs. He darted along hurriedly, giving me the side eye occasionally with a toss of his pointy beak. I began to feel as if the bird and I were taking a stroll together.

Eventually I swung my arm a little too enthusiastically and frightened him into flight. He sailed away over the ocean chirping loudly only to return moments later a few yards up the beach, striding forward while glancing back at me.

I might not have noticed him if I’d hurried with my mind lost in my daily to-do list. But I did notice and experienced this small moment of communion in my busy day.

I’m also convinced it wouldn’t have happened without Wingspan. Wingspan is a board game my kids and I discovered years ago. I never imagined that a game about the characteristics, nesting habits and preferred food sources of birds would be entertaining, mentally challenging, and informative at the same time, but we truly enjoy it. I have to say that ever since I started playing, Ive noticed birds in a way that I never have before. Birds began to enter into my awareness on a daily basis. Of course they had always been around, but now they had become part of my focus.

Which makes me wonder how easy it is to alter my everyday perception based on input. It emphasizes the importance of steering my brain towards beauty and connection; and of slowing down, so I’ll notice.

Arianne

p.s. this was not meant to be an ad for Wingspan, but it is a cool game.

Friday, November 21, 2025

Finding The MST Trail in the Outer Banks, The Space Between Comfort and the Thrill of Change

Just west of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse near the town of Frisco on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, sits a national park campground nestled among the dunes. I picked this spot for a 24-hour escape from the everyday. Highway 12 led me down a narrow ribbon of sand running between the Pamlico Sound on one side with white swans calmly floating on the flat reflective surface and the shifting sand dunes and wild fury of the Atlantic on the other; threading the needle between calm and calamity, safety and the unknown.

To me the Outer Banks retains an aspect of the untamed wilderness where we are constantly reminded of the power of nature over the plans of men - 130 miles of remote barrier islands connected to the mainland by only three widely-spaced bridges as a means of escape when the weather turns.

Don’t be fooled by the images of sedate Charleston, SC masquerading as The Outer Banks in the popular Netflix show by the same name. The geography is not the only thing misrepresented in the show. A streaming series would be hard-pressed to depict the feelings of isolation and remoteness you can’t help but experience on these beaches. The sand sweeping across and making impassable the one major highway connecting the outer banks to civilization during every major storm is one obvious reason for the atmosphere here. The viral videos of houses collapsing into the surf due to storm surge and natural beach erosion is another.

The Frisco Campground, operated by the National Park Service, in the off-season further adds to the feeling of an escape from civilization. The campsites are tucked in among the live oaks and sable palms, protected from the strong offshore winds by a row of tall dunes studded with sea oats. I was only one of a handful of intrepid campers in the middle of November.

On a walk around the campground loop at sunrise the next morning, a metal signpost caught my eye. It turned out to be a trail sign for the MST. For those who aren’t familiar, the MST is the Mountains to Sea Trail - an ambitious project aimed at creating a recreational trail system running the entire 1200 miles from the North Carolina mountains to the sea, thus the name.

I had run my first long distance endurance run back in 2015 (50K or around 31.7 miles) on the MST from Pilot Mountain SP to Hanging Rock SP in the central Peidmont section of North Carolina. Back then the trail was somewhat hard to follow and not well marked, sometimes running down a driveway and through someone’s yard past a farmhouse or two. I assumed this particular segment of the trail had to be near the very end consider the sea was only steps away. Actually the terminus is at Jockey’s Ridge State Park another 60 miles north in Nags Head. I had no idea the trail was here. Of course I needed to check it out.

After winding around between sand dunes, the pine-straw littered trail straightened out in a shaded tunnel created by arching Loblolly and Live Oak trees forty feet tall. I was surprised to find this secret pocket of maritime forest secreted between the sound and the ocean behind a campground. It was silent here aside from the muffled sound of the waves washing on the shore off to my left, blocked from sight by 20 foot high natural sand dunes hidden amongst the trees.

This was a sheltered place where time stood still, a space between the quiet stagnation of comfort and the stirring adrenaline laced thrill of the potential for abrupt change and sudden upheaval of the mighty ocean - the tides of change.

This "space between" is where I hope to live my life - threading the fine line, veering off occasionally for a stretch of comfort or a shot of thrill. I’m not meant to live fully on one side or the other. The Outer Banks were a nice reminder of the exquisite and seemingly precarious balance of life.

If you enjoyed this post, consider purchasing my books, Solo Car Camping Across America, An Adventure in Courage, Solitude, and Questionable Bathrooms in America’s Most Beautiful Places, available on Amazon Books. 235 pages with full color images. Itinerary, packing list, helpful tips, and do’s and don’ts included. Free shipping for Amazon Prime members. Kindle edition also available.

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Exposed as an Introverted Sign Painter by Myers Briggs Test

Outed as an Introverted Sign Painter by Myers Briggs

Sign Painter at Work

Upon graduation from UNC with a much sought-after (haha) degree in English, I decided to temporarily parlay my part-time sales associate position in the bridal registry department at a Chapel Hill department store into a full-time position as Head Cashier/Customer Service Manager while looking for more suitable and lucrative employment. During a team building event, the whole management team including me was asked to complete the Myers Briggs personality assessment. Fun!

I remember feeling uncomfortable. The questions were very personal, and I was a private person. According to the test, I was revealed to be an INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving).

Much to my surprise, our personality types were shared with the team. Next I was required to have a one-on-one with the store manager, who noted to my discomfort that INFP’s weren’t usually found in management positions, especially customer service. I wondered if this was grounds for termination. I felt at the time like a dark, dirty secret had been revealed - my hidden introversion.

It’s possible that introversion is better understood and appreciated now, but back when I took the test, there was a clear bias against introverts, particularly in management. Being a “people person” was touted as a most desirable trait. I’ve always said that I’m an extroverted introvert. I actually enjoy social situations and have been known to initiate conversations with random strangers at the drop of a hat. Without question through, I charge my battery with time alone.

After discussing the personality traits associated with my assessment - notably not being a "team player”was indicated as a potential characteristic, I was provided with a booklet listing suitable jobs for someone with my particular makeup. While the job listings for other personality types, especially those with a big “E” for extroversion, took up many pages, I remember there only being a few pages for mine. On my personalized final assessment which was reviewed by the store manager, the most suitable occupation for someone like me was listed as “sign painter” as well as graphic designer and artist. At the time I felt mortified. My parents had always cautioned me never to consider making a living as an artist.

Sadly, I could not appreciate at the time all of the positive traits associated with "my type" such as empathy, creativity, strong personal values, and the desire to make the world a better place. I wish I had.
As you might have surmised, the experience had quite an impact on me as I’m writing about it now many years later. Being older and wiser (I hope), I understand that the test was not meant as a tool to box me into a narrow definition of potential or a particular role. Rather, it should have been used as a tool to provide insight and a degree of self-awareness to me, not others in charge of my fate. It never should have been shared with management at my place of employment in my opinion. Judge me by the job I am doing, not by trying to see inside my mind.

I had a number of different jobs over the years including a very extroverted recruiter position at a major financial firm. Was I suited for that job? Maybe not, but I was darn good at it. My life took an interesting turn after my marriage ended when I started my career as an artist painting portraits, commissioned work, and murals. The people at Myers Briggs would have smiled smugly, thinking “I told you so”.

One day years later, I was painting a logo and sign on the exterior of a building when it hit me. I was a sign painter after all. There was no shame in it at all. I was proud of the occupation I had built from nothing. I was doing exactly what I was meant to be doing all along. Maybe we can’t fight our nature after all.