We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Noreen Dixon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Noreen, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Life. We all face challenges. It’s how we move forward that defines our resilience.
I believe we are all capable of more than we realize. Often, it takes years to understand that the challenges we face aren’t meant to defeat us—they’re meant to refine us. They shape us into the people we were always meant to be.
Resilience is about taking every piece of your story—each failure, every victory—and using it to build something meaningful. Often times, something beautiful.
As I work to grow my art business, I see how the resilience I built over the years—as a child, as a mother, as a designer—has brought me to this moment. Now, I can finally create, express, and live freely. It’s a powerful thing to come into your own after so many years of fighting for it.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m relatively new to the Upstate area and am excited to immerse myself in the local creative community. As an artist, my focus is on connecting with fellow creatives—especially other artists and interior designers. I’m eager to collaborate on new projects, share ideas, and explore potential spaces to exhibit my work.
If you know of any opportunities or are interested in collaborating, I’d love to connect!
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?
I believe that play, self-trust, and determination are essential in my artistic journey.
Play allows me to fearlessly explore techniques, colors, and mediums without controlling and overthinking the outcome. Play keeps the creativity flowing without restriction.
Self-trust keeps my work authentic and honest. I paint from my heart, gut and emotional state. No one else can replicate that and it will show up in your work connect emotionally with people.
Determination gives me the strength to keep pushing forward, trying again and again when things don’t work out. For every yes, there are plenty of nos. You have to have determination and courage to be noticed in this giant creative world.
For those early in their artistic journey, my advice is to embrace play—act like a child and make a giant mess. You will find good stuff there to take with you. Be authentic. Bring your work to the table and trust yourself. Most importantly, be courageous—keep going, even when the path feels uncertain. Keep trying, keep creating, and trust the process.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I have two on rinse and repeat!
Surprisingly, neither of the authors are painters. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being are the books that have given me so much inspiration to believe that I have a place in the artistic world and it’s within my reach and also my responsibility to bring my art into being.
What Gilbert presents is ideas are alive and they float around in the world, waiting for someone to bring them into existence. If you don’t act on the idea when it comes to you, it might slip away, and the universe will move it to someone else. This shook me and made me think of how many ideas I let get away from me.
Big Magic also taught me art is showing up and doing the work, even when it’s not perfect, because the magic is in the doing, not in the outcome.
Although Rick Rubin is a music producer, his message is clear: Creativity is less about imposing your will on the work, and more about allowing the work to reveal itself. That resonates with how I paint and if I surrender my expectations, my work shows up authentically.
He also refers to the creative as a “channel” and suggests creativity is something that comes through us, not from us. Meaning we are more of a conduit for ideas, emotions or experiences that already exist.
The two books really speak about the notion that the work itself has its own life force. When an artist is receptive and open, the work comes into being almost independently of their ego or personal desires.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://noreendixonart.com
- Instagram: @noreendixonart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noreendixonart
Image Credits
Just me – one woman show here!
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
