This month we’re featuring Heidi Nielson for the Capitol Hill Art League’s Mind of the Artist feature. Read her story and check out her beautiful artwork below. Follow her on Instagram @heidinielson.art and check out her website: https://www.heidinielson.com/

I have been a working artist for the past 4 years, but it has definitely been a winding path. I have always loved the arts, but focused mostly on creative writing and music throughout grade school and undergrad. I majored in English, with a concentration in creative writing, played in the university symphony and had a quartet throughout college. I came to D.C. for the first time in 2011 after undergrad to work as an AmeriCorps VISTA for a local non-profit and that experience in policy and advocacy led me to law school. It was only after law school and starting my job as a lawyer in D.C. in 2015 that I reconnected with visual art and I’ve been hooked ever since. 

I started working mostly in illustration and murals with my small design business Desert 2 District Design around 2017 and my work has evolved a lot since then. I now work with a lot of different mediums and incorporate a little bit of everything in my background into my practice. Something I’ve really been enjoying lately is dipping my toe in creative writing again with my series of embroidered, painted photos. For each photo, I start by painting and then let the words that I’m going to embroider come through.