My mother's family were Quaker for eight generations--came to Pennsylvania with Penn, actually--before my great-great grandmother was read out for dancing. My mother was raised Anglican. My dad's family were not Quakers but he went to Earlham College (Quaker school) and rubbed shoulders with a lot of them during his formative years.

My family went back to Quakerism when I was three but I grew up in one of the most liberal branches and, while we didn't sing as an actual part of worship, we sometimes sang together before or after worship, we held craft fairs to raise money to maintain the meeting house, and there were always Quakers involved in all aspects of art in their secular lives.

David Cantieni, of Wild Asparagus/Swallowtail contradance bands, is the son of my pre-school First Day School teacher at Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting in Pennsylvania. I don't think he's a Quaker but Swallowtail used to come play for us sometimes so I imagine we didn't have a problem with them.

It doesn't bother me at all, and I don't see a conflict with the testimonies of either modesty or simplicity. I paint things and play music because I love to. I'm not doing it for money (well, not beyond what would be practical--it would be irresponsible of me to go broke in the process) or to feed my ego. I don't mind a compliment now and then but if nobody ever saw or heard what I produced, I'd be doing it anyway.

I painted my brother's wedding certificate last year (for the uninitiated: in Quaker weddings, the bride, groom, and all the guests sign the certificate as witnesses since there are no clergy). Normally, they're fairly plain but his had a an ivy border since my sister-in-law loves ivy, and then small pictures of their state birds, flowers, and trees, and then plants and animals with sentimental meanings. It wasn't fine art but it involved four close friends of his (me, my mother who designed the layout, and the two women who refined the wording and did the calligraphy) and was a better wedding gift than anything I could have afforded to buy him.

And, I posted this on an earlier thread, but here is my mother's version of the Peaceable Kingdom, South Central Yearly Meeting style.