My Story

My name is Nadley Doerge. My friends call me Nad or Nads, feel free to do the same. I spend most of my time in Austin, Texas making art. Some of my many mediums include paint, pencil, photo, video, and music.

I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2015 with a degree in Biology. I loved college, I enjoyed my biology degree course work very much, genetics, microbiology, organic chemistry, ecology, all of it. I found it all so fascinating and mind blowing. But after graduation and trying my hand at research and lab work in the ‘real world’,

I quickly realized my passion did not lie in the lab, pipetting and sequencing mice DNA.

I quit and went back to serving tables and eventually bartending at the Dallas Love Field Airport in 2017. I didn’t know which direction to go or what I wanted to do next but for the time being I worked hard and enjoyed having a job where I was able to commune with many different people, as I’m a very social and charismatic individual.

Now, like many stories of transformation, it started to get interesting after a good heartbreak.

Single for the first time in four years, I began stock piling money so that I could quit and travel as long as I could until the savings ran out.

In early 2018, I spent a month in Indonesia where I was exposed to the inspiring digital nomad communities in Ubud and Canggu. After I got back to the states I had a burning fire in me to start working from my laptop so I could work and travel at the same time instead of my cycle of work..save..travel..go broke.. etc. I was living with my mom (thanks momma, I love you!) and lived off my savings or as long as possible. And trying to find any online jobs I could. Copy writing, social media managing, virtual assisting, etc.. But nothing substantial panned out for me.

With my savings running out I decided to move to Austin, Texas and get a job (ugh).

I felt a bit discouraged but was excited about a new city and a cool new job at Easy Tiger in August of 2018. I never lost sight of my ultimate goal of becoming a digital nomad. And after only four months in Austin, the stars aligned and I landed a dream client that I meshed with so well and was able to go fully nomadic and work solely from my laptop. It was a dream come true.

Now that I could work from my laptop full time I started to travel.. a lot.

A handful of cross country road trips, living in Mexico for a month, Portland for a month, frequent trips to California, London, Croatia, New Orleans, New York, just to name a few. This phase of traveling is reminiscent of a kid in a candy store. I traveled as much as possible simply because I could. I would be home in Austin for one or two days before my next flight or road trip to wherever. I was broke but happy. Collecting epic memories and learning A LOT about life. Eventually however, I began to crave a bit of grounding and started staying put more often.

I would take photos and make videos of my travels but nothing too serious. After I got a drone I really started having fun with making videos of my travels. But making physical art was never really a priority in my life. My mom (hi mom) is an amazing artist. I grew up around her always painting and creating sculptures. Little Naddy was always drawing dolphins and horses or just doodling randomly. Even as a young adult I had the ability to draw things pretty photorealistic but would start pictures and lose interest and probably not finish it.

I took Ceramics 1 my senior year of high school just to fill a block. I ended up placing in the state competition (V.A.S.E.) with gold and silver seals. I vividly remember the art kids showing up with their portfolios, being annoyed that ‘ugh, she won a gold seal, she’s not even going to art school”. I never really recognized my ability for creating art as special. Having artistic talent just seemed normal since my mom was such a great artist. And I felt like I never had the creativity to make my own art.

I had artistic ability but not the creative energy to fuel it.

Then one day a switch was flipped.

I was having a particularly emotional day, to put it lightly. I felt crazy. Happy, sad, angry, lonely, and every emotion in between was swirling inside me. Again, I felt crazy. I thought, ‘I have to get this out’. So I started writing. Any word that popped into my head, I wrote down fervently. The wordy, scribbled nonsense quickly turned into doodles. Over the course of a day, from (literally) nonstop fast paced gesture drawings, a ‘style’ began to shine through. There was no thinking involved. My hand would just start moving when I put pen to paper. I was not in control of what came out. This phase of my artistic development is so special to me and I will cherish those sketchbooks showing my evolution forever.

I was actually seeing myself for the first time.

Since that day, most of my free time has been devoted to making art and learning more about myself. I am constantly evolving as a budding artist. Trying new mediums and new styles to see all that I’m capable of. Most of my art is from unplanned streams of consciousness and is meditative for me. I am constantly inspired by nature, science, my own raw emotions, and the beautiful people in my life. There’s no going back to a life without creating art.