Journelism

Christine Goldbeck—Single Mother, Artist and Founder of the Arts on Union Studio—Turns Outside Pressure into Personal Success, and Still Finds Time to Sleep

In Middleton, PA, single mom Christine Goldbeck runs Arts on Union, a studio where she displays her own work and mentors young artists in the community. She is also a freelance journalist and legislative assistant at the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Ten years ago, she was a divorced mother without a college degree. Choosing not to accept that life, she now holds a master’s degree as well as more than thirty exhibition, publication and presentation credits.

“You control the motorcycle, it doesn’t control you.” Christine Goldbeck’s father told her this as she was peeling herself off the ground, her skin hanging like cheese from a dropped pizza after a vicious bike crash she had when a young girl. Her family’s take-control and no-excuse mentality drove her to step through a long series of struggles, ultimately becoming a prominent artist and writer.

Christine’s story is common in many ways-a 43-year-old single mother with a daughter from a failed marriage. She experienced a rough-and-tumble childhood that turned her into a rebellious teenager, making mistakes and dealing with the consequences. But, the art in Goldbeck’s life comes from what she can do from the common.

After high school, despite a lack of formal training, Christine found work as a journalist at the Evening Herald, a weekly publication based in Shenandoah, PA, and was soon writing two columns an issue for the publication, covering local politics and courtroom news.

Not all was well, however, and her marriage ended almost as soon as it began, leaving her with a daughter to raise by herself on only a writer’s salary and with no college degree. This struggle, however, would inspire her transformation to the teacher, artist, policy maker and writer that she is today.

“Chasing ambulances, going to court, and all of that is not conducive to being a single mom,” she relates. When her daughter became too old to take with her to work, Christine quit her full-time job. Her hard work in the past had earned her numerous awards and enough respect in the journalistic community that she was able to become freelance, specializing in government affairs and court proceedings. Though she loved the life she had while writing and being a mother, Christine desperately wanted to get an education.

Her father told her to get a degree in something “real,” but she had always been attracted to art, and even if he believed she could never succeed in the field, she had not come this far to allow others to shape her will. She enrolled in classes at Goddard University and received her bachelor’s degree in creative writing and history. Never one to settle, she continued forward, raising her daughter, writing independent columns, creating art and, ultimately, finishing a master’s degree in fine arts.

Christine now creates and teaches classes to aspiring artists, specializing in combining traditional artistic styles with newer techniques to create a wide variety of art for different types of media. She also helps in the Innovations and New Initiatives Workgroup for Goddard College’s “Third Century Plan,” a campus plan designed to help the college effectively continue its progressive educational systems into the future.  She is a beacon of hope to young, aspiring and of course, starving artists.

Her background in politics and amazing writing ability put her foot in the door, but what caught many off guard was her ability to create fantastic pieces of legislation. Her life had begun to resemble her art, and the job she took for health insurance as a single mother became yet another creative outlet for her to experiment. “Policy is about problem-solving and so is art.”

Christine now lives in a home attached to her art studio, conveniently close to her job at the House of Representatives. She continues to write as a freelance journalist and novelist, motivated by literary giants such as John Updike and Dorothy Parker. There is, perhaps, no exact definition for art. Some say that art, at its most basic, is change in a common thing. If this is so, Christine Goldbeck is art, a “coal cracker” from middle Pennsylvania who went through a journey of hard times and immense pressure to become a diamond.