For artist Elizabeth Decker, life is all about voice, that little voice that reminds you who you are and what makes you happy.

“I like to help people find the freedom to just breathe, the freedom to think naturally, to be themselves,” she said. “We are all entitled to what we feel. Recognize it. Own it. Move on. Put a voice to it, a color to it. Work through what you need to work through in a creative way. Go from where you are now to the next place and know that everyone else is trying to do the same thing.”

Each of us has a voice inside that can guide us into the kind of life we should be living, says Decker. Sometimes that voice is quiet. Sometimes it is loud. Sometimes we listen, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we don’t pay attention to it for a long, long time.

Two years ago, Decker was a working actress in Los Angeles, a painter and a single mom with a published book, “Melancholy Girls,” a collection of freestyle poetry and sketches, a feast of sorts, of beauty and moods from the collective female mind.

On a whim a year and a half ago, Decker moved to Austin with her son, Maximillian, now 12. In her eclectic Lake Hills neighborhood, she has blossomed further. Her paintings quickly went up in local galleries, and she developed a series of workshops called Moody Me that help people, especially women and kids, express themselves through art. In her workshops, people find a way to get in back in touch with that little voice that leads them to inspiration, to happiness and empowerment.

For Decker, it’s not as much about who she is as who she is becoming. It took Decker years to find her own voice. Born in Long Island, she grew up in Connecticut, a creative child in family of creative children. She was always drawing, writing poems and taking the lead in school plays. She said she lost touch with her inner voice when she was around 13 years old and began to live in a state of anxiety, loneliness and anger.

Through it all, she kept writing.

“I wrote because I had to say it – had to say it, express it,” she said. “I had to sort out how I was feeling, even if nobody else knew.”

At 17, she left for Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology, not seeking the degree in fashion design she had always dreamed about, but the business degree her father insisted upon. She eventually got a degree in English from the University of South Carolina and took jobs in publishing at E. P. Dutton and Simon and Schuster. From there, she went on to work in marketing for Ralph Lauren.

“I was being shoved into boxes that didn’t work for me,” she said. “I found outlets, but the nine-to-five conformation got to me. I was sitting in an office in my $250 shoes, when I wanted to be somewhere else in sneakers.”

A gutsy move to Chicago led her into acting workshops and modeling. It also led her to a bad relationship and breakup. On the advice of her therapist, she picked up a paintbrush. She discovered a talent. Within two years, she was getting commissions to do portraits and had paintings up in galleries and coffee shops all over the Windy City.

“Painting is layered in depth,” she said. “I’m constantly scratching through layers, in life and literally in my painting. It’s self-reflective. I’m trying to get through to what I want to say.”

Decker said she never starts out with a work in mind. It’s not about the outcome; it’s about the process. It’s about being yourself, not about being Picasso she said.

“I never create something I had an idea about; I discover as I go along,” she said. “It’s as if the painting reaches out and pulls you into it. It’s about listening to the painting.”

Decker moved to Los Angeles at 30. She had her son, and she picked up acting gigs and writing jobs for corporations. She even produced her own Indie short film, “ The No Show.”

Still, it wasn’t enough. In the summer of 2008, she visited Austin by herself for three days. She listened to that voice and moved here.

“Austin is such a welcoming community, so nonjudgmental,” she said. “People really care about what you do and they’re interested.”

Decker’s work is currently on display at Bay6 Gallery at 5305 Bolm Road. Her Moody Me workshops are quickly gaining respect from experts. She recently conducted a five-week workshop as part of the Girls Now celebration for the Girls Empowerment Network.

“It’s what I want to do, what I think I am meant to do – helping create a community where people can find a creative outlet and realize they have a voice,” she said.

Decker is deep into a new project – painting a series of a dozen eight-foot canvases of women. The first, a nude, is already up in the room behind her house that she rents out to visitors. To Decker, the world is display space waiting for colorful canvases.

“My journey has been so challenging, like swimming upstream for a very long time,” she said. “Only recently did the water become calm. I feel like I’m in my organic state, the place I should have been a long time ago.”