Meet Naomi

Creative Thought & Growth Coach partnering with creative women through life and work transitions

For over 25 years I have been championing artists and nonprofit professionals in the arts arena to find their courage to create the life and work they love.

Twenty years ago, standing in the frozen foods section of the Whole Foods Market in Chelsea, New York, a graduate school friend asked me, “Have you heard of coaching? I think you’d be great at that.”

That was one of those pivotal life moments.

You know the ones—a single crumb that eventually leads us toward “the thing” we are searching for, but haven’t found yet.

That wasn’t the first clue, but it was a decisive one. I decided to go for it.

This was pre-cell phones and the internet boom. I took a train to a Westin Hotel in D.C. for five months of weekend coach training.

At that time, I was the Director of Development of a non-profit presenting organization in New York City and was very busy helping artists and program directors tell the stories that would move funders to make an investment in their projects and their missions.

But I wanted more.

I wanted more for myself—I had hit a professional ceiling as a fundraiser; and I wanted more for my staff. They were all young artists and burgeoning arts professionals who needed more support than just a good performance review could give them.

They wanted support for the big life transition they were in.

Coaching them felt like a way to do that.

Still, I carried with me a big imposter syndrome.

I support women artists and creative professionals because they are the change-makers who reveal hard truths, change our minds, and help us imagine a different future for ourselves and the world around us.

What happened next changed everything.

So instead of using my coach training to start a coaching business, I found a million ways to support artists that weren't “technically” coaching, but which created opportunities for artists to grow.

I founded my own presenting organization, for one.

The non-profit grew quickly in the first three years. I already knew how to tell great stories, raise money, and build community networks.

Behind the scenes though, my family was struggling.

In the middle of the third year, my husband died.

I’ll never forget that day—it was the first day of school for my then ten-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son.

(I tell that story in my book— you can learn more about that there—but suffice it to say that after that everything changed.)

It took me five years to stabilize myself and my kids, but in 2020 I quit my full-time job (as a Director of Development at another arts organization) and started my coaching business full time.

And then - just to mix it up - I sold the house my kids grew up in, wrote my first book, and sent my oldest to college.

My path, like the path that many creators travel, is not a straight one.

But it has been full with creative adventures.

I grew up fearing certain kids of change.

And in fearing change, I didn't entertain the possibilities that come with it.

After my husband died, the uncertainty that followed - however messy and terrifying - also opened

to a new path that unfolded with new challenges, insights and synergies I could never have imagined I would experience.

I began to see how that time in transition was so similar to the creative process I had experienced throughout my life and work with artists.

Creativity is the magic that happens when we engage with what we don't know.

All blank pages and empty spaces invite us to engage with what we don't know by using the creative skills we already have.

My coaching framework is a reflection of my own transformational journey and is informed by two decades of coaching, trainings and thought partnership with artists and arts professionals at all levels.

I support clients and growers when they feel most stuck.

Working with my coaches (I always have my own coach and additional coaches in areas where I continue to expand explore my creative growth edge) - I continue to pursue advanced training in conscious leadership practice, embodiment coaching, neuroscience, speaking, innovative systems change, and deep listening practices so that I can continue to co-create creative and transformational partnerships that help my clients explore beyond their growth edge.

Considering the family system where my life began, and my journey into adulthood and into my mid-fifties -- it makes so much sense that I do the work I do.

Creativity is a superpower -- It continues to help me find out how brave I really am.