Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Janelle Douglas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Janelle, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I’ve come to believe that the things we offer others the most freely are often the very things we need or needed most ourselves. Support. Steadiness. Safety. Loyalty. Care. Those were qualities I learned to embody long before I felt anyone could consistently offer them to me.
Growing up, I was the “ear” for so many friends—steady, loyal, the one who wouldn’t abandon them. I became the comfort I didn’t wholly feel I had. I think that’s where the seed of my generosity was planted.
It’s no surprise I became a nurse. Even in high school, I felt a deep desire to care for others, lift them up, and be their champion. Alongside that was a relentless work ethic—not out of defiance, but from an internal compass that says, “If you’re going to do it, do it right.” For 26 years, nursing allowed me to live out that purpose. What depleted me wasn’t the caregiving itself—it was the system. Eventually, that depletion became a turning point, and, ultimately, a gift.
In the midst of burnout, I went searching for myself. In 2024, I enrolled in Mel Robbins’ LAUNCH program. I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and committed to writing daily morning pages. I studied Jean Houston and Joseph Campbell. I fell into yoga, meditation, the Enneagram, and the edges of quantum theories of consciousness. I joined Nicholas Wilton’s Art2Life community. I stayed faithful to weekly EMDR therapy for eight years. All of these pathways were guiding me back to something essential: my purpose is still to help others—but in a way that aligns with who I truly am.
What I didn’t recognize until recently was how long art had been calling me. I remember being a little girl wanting the blue ribbon in the school art contest, admiring my dad’s watercolors, taking art electives, doodling through school, filling college credits with art classes, and wishing I had the courage to major in it. I created multiple paintings for both of my babies’ nurseries. I was always drawn to design, typography, architecture—the language of visual expression.
Life finally quieted enough in 2018 for me to pick up watercolor painting. The more I painted, the more every spiritual practice, book, class, and therapy session pointed to the same truth: I had to leave corporate nursing. I had to follow the thing my intuition had been whispering for decades.
In January 2025, after 26 years, I “retired” from nursing to pursue art full-time. And in just ten months, everything in my life has rearranged itself in the most beautiful way. I completed a 14-week art program, created three new series, received multiple commissions, exhibited in two shows, found a mentor who became a dear friend, grew an international circle of artist friends and colleagues, began a podcast, formed an LLC, and built a local community of supportive creatives.
What I give through my art and my presence today—care, encouragement, connection, hope—is the same generosity that once grew out of necessity. Now it grows out of purpose. My generosity comes from the very places where I once felt empty. And somehow, through this creative life I’m building, those places feel full now.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a Mississippi Delta–raised abstract and landscape artist whose work is deeply connected to the land, the river, and the emotional terrain of the human experience. After 26 years as a nurse and senior case manager, I “retired” in early 2025 to pursue my art practice full-time—a decision that felt less like a leap and more like a homecoming.
My paintings are layered, intuitive, and driven by feeling. I work primarily in acrylic on canvas and birchwood panel, often pulling inspiration from the Delta’s vast fields, shifting light, muddy riverbanks, and all the contrast that lives there. I’m fascinated by the tension between what’s seen and what’s felt, and my work often becomes a conversation between the two.
What excites me most is the way art allows me to transform emotion into something visual—something that can meet people where they are, whether that’s comfort, curiosity, nostalgia, or hope. After decades spent supporting others through nursing, art has become a new way to care, connect, and lift people up. I see my studio practice as energetic work as much as creative work.
Over the past year, my art career has grown in ways that still surprise me. I’ve completed multiple commissions, developed three series of work, and had pieces selected for two curated exhibitions. I recently completed Nicholas Wilton’s (Sausalito, CA, abstract artist and educator) 14-week Art2Life Creative Visionary Program and have been working closely with an artist mentor based in Massachusetts, who has deeply influenced my evolution as a painter.
I’ve also built an art business—Janelle Douglas Fine Art, LLC—started recording a podcast, and connected with a wide community of artists across the U.S. and internationally. That sense of belonging, of being in a creative community, has become one of the most rewarding parts of this journey.
Looking ahead, I’m focused on expanding my body of work, submitting to juried shows throughout the U.S., and continuing to build a presence in Mississippi’s art scene. I’m also preparing to launch my website, where collectors will be able to explore available work, join my email list, and follow along with my studio notes and upcoming events.
My brand centers on authenticity, intuition, and honoring the places and stories that shaped me. I want people to feel something when they stand in front of my paintings—whether it’s the calm of open fields, the energy of layered color and texture, or the sense that something in them has shifted.
Ultimately, my art is about transformation, belonging, and coming back to yourself. And this new chapter of my life feels like exactly that—a return, and a beginning all at once.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Self-Awareness & Inner Work The most impactful part of my journey has been developing deep self-awareness. Years of EMDR therapy, morning pages, meditation, and personal study help me understand why I am the way I am—what drives me, what scares me, what patterns I repeat, and what I truly want. That inner work gave me the clarity and courage to change careers after 26 years.
2. Discipline Rooted in Purpose
Discipline has always been part of who I am, but what changed everything was shifting from discipline driven by obligation (corporate work) to discipline driven by purpose (art). When the work aligns with who you are, discipline stops feeling like force and becomes momentum.
3. Willingness to Take Risks
Leaving a stable, lucrative career for art was the biggest risk I’ve taken, but it was also the most honest. Every meaningful step in my journey required me to act before I felt “ready”: investing in courses, seeking mentorship, joining communities, showing my work publicly, and trusting a path without a blueprint.
Advice:
1. Start by getting curious about your own story. Notice your patterns, your resistance, your “pulls.” Write every day, even if it’s messy. Therapy, coaching, or any tool that helps you face your inner world is an investment that pays forward for decades. Clarity doesn’t arrive all at once—it arrives in layers, just like art.
2. Find the smallest consistent action you can commit to—10 minutes of painting, writing, researching, moving, whatever your craft is. Consistency builds identity. Identity builds confidence. Confidence builds capacity. And once you taste alignment, discipline becomes your ally instead of your taskmaster.
3. Don’t wait for the fear to disappear—act with it. Start sharing your work before you think it’s “good enough.” Apply for the opportunities you think “aren’t for you.” Reach out to people who inspire you. Risk is a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets. And every risk teaches you something you can’t learn by staying comfortable.
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
If I knew I only had ten years left, I would spend every day living as the truest version of myself — no performing, no pretending, no shrinking, no over-explaining. Just full, quiet, grounded authenticity.
I wouldn’t wait to feel ready, or qualified, or brave. I’d make art the way it wants to be made. I’d say what I mean the first time. I’d choose relationships, conversations, and environments where I can show up exactly as I am. I would trust my intuition completely — the first whisper, not the third or fourth.
I would spend my time creating meaningful work, traveling to the places that feel like soul-marks on my map, and surrounding myself with people who inspire expansion, depth, and joy. I would pour energy into my art, my community, and my own growth, not because I’m trying to achieve anything, but because that is the most honest expression of who I am.
I would leave as little of myself unexpressed as possible. Every decade — but especially a final one — deserves to be lived in alignment: with integrity, with presence, with courage, and with a kind of radical self-truth that becomes permission for others to do the same.
And honestly, knowing I had only a decade left wouldn’t radically change how I live now. My goal — daily, intentionally — is to live a life that doesn’t require a countdown to make it meaningful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/janelle-douglas
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janelledouglasfineart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JanelleDouglasFineArt/
Image Credits
Darby Douglas Photography (profile picture)
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