Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz Gold
Hi Liz , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am an artist, writer, and entrepreneur on a journey of consciousness. My road has been full of adventure, emotional ups and downs, cross-country moves, queer love, spiritual work, and healing. I have been very fortunate to always have the resources I need to do what I want to do. While I am a dreamer, I am also a doer; I’ve funded and produced independent creative projects for more than two decades while making my living as a journalist and communications consultant, with other random jobs along the way.
I was born and raised in Portland, Maine to Jewish New Yorkers. My parents moved to Maine in their 20s when my dad took a job at a local university. As a child, I was interested in fashion, glamour, and art, as I was exposed to it at an early age. We traveled to New York City often to visit family. I was obsessed with CNN’s “Style with Elsa Klensch,” which I watched on Saturdays. In fifth grade, I sketched a clothing line of evening gowns with my friends. I was a shy kid, with a port-wine stain birthmark on my face and legs, and a wallflower, who felt like an adult in a kid’s body most of the time. But I always had a unique style. I had a fairly normal childhood growing up visiting the Catskills (where my parents met), playing softball, and hanging out with a few close friends. I was always interested in fashion and wanted to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. But my path led me in a different direction.
At the University of Maine in Orono, a classmate suggested I write for the campus newspaper, as he was one of the editors. I started getting published and realized I could get paid for my opinion. The next year, I became the Style and Arts Editor, and that was one of my favorite jobs to date. I also hosted a radio show on the campus station and invited local musicians to play live, in addition to playing a mix of funk, hip-hop, folk, and jam bands. In my last year, I published a women’s magazine and took a woman as my lover for the first time.
After college, I applied for an internship at the local alternative weekly newspaper in Portland and they wanted to train me as a news reporter. I started writing features and short news items. Shortly after, I got a job as a youth worker at the city’s LGBTQ youth organization. During that time, I was awarded a Gill Foundation Fellowship to lead their communications efforts, so we refreshed their branding and developed a new logo and website.
When I left the youth organization, I took some time off and went to a retreat in upstate New York for Jewish activists. There, I met a filmmaker and performance artist both from San Francisco and in the process of moving to Austin, Texas. They invited me to join them. Moving to Austin to live with two women I hardly knew. Why not? I lived with them for three months; and during that time worked a variety of jobs including daycare teacher, event photographer, and cocktail waitress at a well-known country western bar. I also joined a Drag King troupe with them. There, I met a butch woman and we connected instantly. A week later, I moved out of the apartment with my two new roommates and into a studio near the University of Texas with my new girlfriend. Soon after, I started to get run down sick with mono. She admitted she couldn’t take care of me, so we parted ways and I headed back to Maine. Once I got in my car and hit the road, I instantly felt better.
With six months of Austin living under my belt, I headed back to Portland. I worked a while at a sushi restaurant on the waterfront and became a reporter and then an editor at a family of community newspapers in southern Maine. I also was deejaying for the community radio station. I had two good friends, who were my creative partners. We made art, deejayed together, and practiced martial arts. But I had always wanted to move to NYC because of my familial roots and I was restless. It was turning out to be the time.
When I turned 30, I left my girlfriend and my jobs and moved to Brooklyn. I ended up entertaining two jobs; one was working on the newsletter for a local Chamber of Commerce. The other was becoming an editor/reporter for a business newspaper in the Financial District. I liked the location of the business newspaper better and it paid more, so I went to work reporting on the business and profession of accounting. Little did I know, I would be in that industry in various capacities for more than a decade.
I loved living in Brooklyn. My first apartment was in Sunset Park. I joined the Park Slope Coop, took the bus and subway everywhere, saw art, ran 5K races, and explored. For the first two years, I worked my job and stabilized myself in the big city. I published a blog chronicling my experiences in NYC called “14 Karat Living.” I interviewed other creatives and wrote about everything I was doing and experiencing.
While I was working my corporate job, I was covering up my birthmark with makeup and my brown hair was dyed black. My business editor role took me all over the country, covering accounting industry events, and eating at the best restaurants with my editor. I was writing about the human side of accounting which struck a chord with their readers.
One evening, I decided to go to an event at the LGBT Center. It was here that I met someone who would become a significant part of my life. I saw him, we locked eyes and I left the event early. I remember being outside the building, a full moon blazing, and feeling like I left too soon. The next day I checked Craig’s List, as I did, since it was a thing at that time, and saw a post that addressed the missed connection I had experienced the night before. I was excited to see it was about me and answered. He realized he found me and a hot affair started. He was a butch dyke, 15 years older than me, and polyamorous.
He wasn’t sure about me at first, he would say later, because of the heavy make-up I was wearing. But we spent the next several weeks meeting up weekly. We went to parties and it was very liberating and fun. I tried to not get attached because he was moving to Portland, Oregon with his partner. So when he did, I was surprised to learn that work brought him back to NYC shortly after.
Our relationship grew and evolved. We were living on different coasts but would fly out to see each other regularly. I was living a bicoastal lifestyle. We traveled quite a bit together. I quit my corporate job to go freelance so I could have more freedom. Because I was known in the accounting industry, I started consulting and took on writing and editing jobs. It was great.
I experienced a lot of firsts with him. Since we were polyamorous, I met someone who would become another lover and help me water my entrepreneurial roots. He was driven by service and I loved the attention. Both my partners were transgender and in the process of transitioning. I was happy and honored to bear witness to their journeys. We had created a lovely little poly family.
As years went on, my relationship with my lover ended and my relationship with my partner changed. I was growing tired of the long-distance roller coaster, aka the amp-up to see each other and the crash after our visits were over. We broke up for a few months. I dated and let myself be free. I was training in martial arts at a feminist dojo in Brooklyn. I got together with my femme friends. I finally took a class at FIT. I hosted clothing swaps. Then, he got back in touch and wanted to rekindle our relationship. I said yes, but we would need to be in the same place. So, I left Brooklyn and moved into his house in Portland, Oregon.
Our relationship continued. I was freelancing. Portland was a paradise city and had everything that I could have possibly wanted – progressive politics, a vast amount of art, and fun things to do. Plus, it was so lush and beautiful because of the rainy weather. I was successful at booking clients for consulting and writing projects and that sustained me for a while. Over time, my freelance projects dried up and I started to miss the East Coast. He decided to apply to graduate school. He proposed a deal – he would go to graduate school on the East Coast and I would get a “real” job.
I got a job as a marketing writer at an advisory firm on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Again, we were apart. I was living in Brooklyn and his school had him in western Mass. I worked there for more than a year before I left. I went back to freelance. He graduated. We got a dog and decided to move back to Oregon. At this point, I knew I wasn’t happy, but I was hopeful. I was grappling with depression and anxiety on a more intense level than before. We stayed with a friend until we bought a house. We were in our new house for about a year before I knew something had to change. I told him I couldn’t do it anymore. It was devastating.
I was floundering; I wasn’t sure what happened to my once ambitious career and hot relationship. Freelance was proving more challenging and unfulfilling. And while we loved each other, my partner and I were in constant conflict. I was unsettled. What followed was a very tough breakup and a move back to Maine for the summer with our dog. I stayed at my family’s beach house until late fall. During that time, I reconnected after a long estrangement with my old butch friend who was one of the two creative partners I ran with when I lived in Portland years before. I was wounded from my breakup and she told me she had feelings for me. I went with it for a few months before I realized the relationship was toxic and not what I wanted. It was a positive experience though, because I had always held a torch for her and our creative work together. So by breaking up, I took my energy back from that dynamic. My creativity was mine.
Much to my family’s dismay, I decided I wanted to move back to Oregon. But it was very different this time, as the person I had come to Portland for was not the same person to me. We had different lives now. I joined a queer dragon boat paddling team at the invite of a friend, took a storytelling class, and tried to branch out. I moved into a house with a garage. I produced a podcast called, “Conversations with Liz Gold: Stories of Strength, Courage and Getting Through” and interviewed (mostly) queer people about their life experiences. I dated frequently and had a few relationships. I was getting myself back but I still felt so much grief and sadness. The depression wasn’t lifting. But my ex and I were still in contact and had a good relationship, co-parenting our dog, who lived with me. I was seeing a naturopath in Oregon who suggested I try psilocybin for my depression. I had done mushrooms in college and my twenties and always had a positive experience, so I thought this could be a good healing modality for me.
One day my ex partner and I decided to go to the Oregon coast together. I took psilocybin and the experience completely opened me up to finally embracing myself as an artist. It was a magical, beautiful experience complete with visions of painting in my garage and a clear calling. I later continued my psilocybin exploration with my naturopath. It was reaffirming and validated information I knew about myself but had never truly embodied.
I wrote an e-book about my experience doing mushrooms called “45 or Die: A True Tale of Digging out of Depression.” The goal was to write every day and dig myself out of depression by doing so. And then a few weeks after I started the book, I began painting. The writing must have opened me up because it was amazing. Wonderful. Brought me so much joy. After I published the e-book, I continued painting and started sharing my paintings online. I started making products with my art, like legging, tote bags, notebooks, pillows, etc. But while I did get my work out there and people were noticing and buying my work, it was not enough to sustain myself yet. My expectations for myself were through the roof. And promoting myself was proving to not be my strong suit. It was 2021 and I was exhausted. Profoundly depressed. Not sure of what direction to go because my art wasn’t taking flight like I had wanted. So, I decided I would finally move back to Maine.
At the end of 2021, I was driving cross country back east with my friend and in the final stages of interviewing for a corporate editorial job in Portland, Maine. I stayed at my family’s beach house again and accepted the corporate job. I was angry that I needed to take it but soon felt grateful for getting up in the mornings, getting to watch the sunrise on the beach during my blue hour walks. I would paint in the basement and work my job, in disbelief most days that I left my life behind to rebuild it here. I remember saying to the universe, if you want me to stay here and do this, you have to bring me someone. Bring me my partner. And then two weeks later, we met.
At our first meeting, I knew I was intrigued. She caught my eye with her tousled white hair and butch vibe. But I was also guarded and wounded and sad. It took time for me to open up but she is a very generous, loving, funny, trustworthy person. A woman who told me she could build us anything on our second date. I shared my history with her and she shared her grief and own personal, profound loss and stories with me. We began dating and are in a monogamous relationship. She helped me move in and out of my art studio, populate my apartment with furniture, prepare for art shows, weld iron frames for my paintings, and traveled with me to see my family. I feel very grateful. She is what I was waiting for all along.
I left my corporate job a few months after we met. I wanted to be free and I told myself I didn’t move back here to be unhappy. I went back to freelance and art making. Though I experienced momentum and worked on interesting freelance projects, I needed to bring in a more full-time income to allow myself creative space.
In September, I took another job in corporate communications. Now, I am working 4 days a week and am responsible for directing the company’s communications efforts. Some days I question what I’m doing because it’s so busy and takes a lot of my energy, but I know the path isn’t linear. It’s been a stabilizing force. I am painting and exploring how to grow my collection of products for my lifestyle brand. I make leggings, totes, throw pillows, and notebooks with my designs, and look forward to making more clothing. I am building partnerships with people who can help me bring my vision to life. And I am witnessing my painting evolve and can’t wait to see where it goes. It’s been wonderful to have a garage studio again.
Today, I am focused on my spiritual growth and healing. I am building out the next phase of my business and art practice. I am grateful for all of my experiences and am optimistic about the future.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I’ve had many challenges in my life, though I grew up with a fair amount of financial privilege. Growing up with a birthmark and a facial difference, I had to overcome a lot of judgment and rude comments. I struggled with self-worth and like many who are raised women, was socialized to people please and stay small. I’ve had to feel safe to shine my light and express myself as it wasn’t always safe for me to do. It takes a lot of energy for me to get in front of people and share my gifts. But I am working on it. Also, as a creator, it’s so hard to have a vision and then it not come out the way you see it. Or to put something out there that you create with all your heart to be met with crickets. I realize now that is a common experience, but while it’s happening it feels so alienating and scary. I believe ideas come to people to fulfill them and we are given dreams because they are meant to be ours. I accept divine timing and that everything does not happen on my timeline!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I always considered myself a creative; it’s only recently I embraced the term “artist.” I have been fortunate to have writing and editing skills and to be in communications roles for nonprofits and companies to sustain my livelihood over the years. I advise executives and consult with business owners and other creative leaders on marketing, communications, and media matters. For the most part, I enjoy that work, but it has to be for the right place or person.
I’m a storyteller at heart. With more than 20 years of work experience in the journalism, communications, and marketing worlds, I bring my unique style to everything I do. I can make the most mundane topic exciting, am known for simplifying the complex and guiding people to find their voice and creative expression. I especially enjoy telling stories that have not yet been told, have been deeply buried, and come from people who have been marginalized or ignored.
As an abstract painter, it’s all about discovery, listening to my intuition, and allowing myself to embody spirit. I love the spontaneity of abstract painting, the movement, the texture, the color – I believe in neon all year long! I love the WOW factor I feel when I see another abstract painting that resonates, the visceral response that almost takes over. And I deeply appreciate the unburying of my gift to do my own version of this. Painting is where I can take risks, where I can safely explore the world around me and the feelings that emerge. As an intuitive artist, I enjoy sharing my paintings as they are a direct expression of my soul. My work is about discovery, finding light after a period of darkness, and following flow into joy. I want to create beautiful things and inspire others to find what is calling them and follow their heart to go do it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lizgold.online
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizstacygold/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
- Other: https://lgold3.contently.com/
