Today I’m in the Marathon village, in downtown Nashville with an artist and owner of fine art “O’ Gallery Olga Aleexeva. Olga was a professional stage actress when she left Soviet Union with her son and came to America to start a new chapter of her life. We talk about how a painting class helped her to wake up to freedom, artistic expression, creativity and passion to inspire others to do the same.

Season 2 – EP 24

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Awakening to Freedom Through Art
"I was tired of feeling myself inadequate," Olga said to me in her charming Russian accent during our interview for Waking Up in America. There was no self-pity in her voice, only a matter-of-fact manner and a passion for life.

The two of us were sitting in her art gallery (named simply "O") talking about the waking up moment that shifted Olga's life and launched her into the world of art, entrepreneurship, and teaching.

We were surrounded by her eclectic paintings mounted on the walls from floor to ceiling. But it wasn't only canvases and prints that filled every inch of the beautiful space in Nashville's popular Marathon Village. The colors, the themes, styles and staging in her paintings exuded the story not so much of her life's events, but of her spirit - of risk, love, courage, freedom and confidence.

Olga Alexeeva was a Russian stage actress who came to America in 1991 to join her sister when the Berlin Wall fell and the big shift in Eastern European communist countries began to happen.

Life in America was radically different from anything Olga had known.
"The first ten years took me to speak English, because I came with no language. I remember the first time I saw a checkbook... I was a grown woman with a child, and I'd never seen a checkbook. I remember how... I was amazed by richness of Walmart. I hit my head through the door because it was so clean I didn't see it and boom... That was 'waking up in America'... And I remember that my first photo I sent to Russia, was from a grocery store."
Slowly, with the support and kindness of people she met in Nashville, her new life began to take shape "like from crumbles of the dough in a bowl."

But this physical shift of switching continents, of moving from one culture to a completely different one, was only a part of her path in truly stepping into the life she was meant for.

Russia had provided Olga with a free education; a college degree in acting led to a respectable job at a government-sponsored repertory theater. She learned and developed discipline, excellence, and a sense of striving for perfection, but there were also limitations that stifled her potential to be a creative artist, a powerful entrepreneur and an influential community leader.

America provided Olga with the support she needed to make another shift, a much more important internal one.

LISTENING TO THE SOUL'S HUNGER AND FINDING NEW PATHS
"When I came here, and I satisfied my hunger for food, for shelter, for everything, my soul was hungry for creativity."
Olga tried ballroom dancing and public speaking, and only considered a painting class so she could take it off her list of possibilities.

For years she held onto her insecurities, and her life seemed like a daily reminder of it.
"All children spoke English and I didn't. Think about it. Little baby, little child speaks English and I, an adult can not. That's already a shift, so that kind of added to my insecurity... I never considered paintings as one of my activities because I knew I could not paint."
Insecurity is one of those things we aren't born with. We learn it.