PRPC Connections - Getting to know...

Arty McGoo

By Osteo Dave

August 2026

If you’ve ever tasted a work of art - nibbled a Monet, snacked on a Dali, or snarfed an entire Grandma Moses, then you may have noticed a regrettable aftertaste. But if you’ve savored an original Arty McGoo, then you’ve experienced art at its finest. Arty McGoo is the nom d'artiste of cookie artist Liz A., one of our club members. In fact, you may have enjoyed an Arty McGoo at one of our pickleball club functions.

Liz first played pickleball when she was in middle school, back in the last century. Okay, that makes it sound more ancient than it was, but she played it long before most of us even heard of it. She returned to pickleball two or three years ago after her dad got her two daughters and son out to play with him, and renewed Liz’s interest in it. She says she “used to run every day, but running to chase a ball is way more fun”, plus she loves being outdoors, making new friends, and being part of the PRPC community. Family and community are important to Liz, so it’s not surprising that family brought Liz to the club. Last year, she was our club’s vice president. I like playing with people like Liz; she is easy-going, upbeat, and always has a smile. She says she “can almost always be talked into another game”, so she’s as addicted as the rest of us.

A surprising thing to know about Liz is what she drinks between games – chocolate milk – because it’s “good for muscle recovery”. If I had known this when I was seven I would have tried that argument on my mom. Perhaps more surprising is the pickle juice that she drinks afterwards to avoid muscle cramps. It seems to me that mixing the two would be especially therapeutic, but she claims she hasn’t tried that, yet.

She has lived most of her life right here in the North County, growing up in Atascadero with five siblings in the family home that her parents still live in. Liz and her husband, John, live in Paso Robles in the home where they raised their three children, now grown. John works at home doing sports marketing and music licensing, leveraging a love of sports and music, so if you need to license some walk-up music for your next tournament appearance, check with him. Liz says her walk-up would be ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor. There’s some stalkin’ and fightin’ and guts in that song, so don’t mess with her, no matter how easy-going she seems.

When she’s not playing pickleball, she’s involved with her church, plays piano, reads, bikes, kayaks, camps, draws, paints, travels, … oh, and works nearly full-time at her business as a cookier – which is defined as ‘one who bakes and decorates cookies’, although ‘decorate’ doesn’t adequately describe what Arty McGoo can do to a cookie using Royal icing. She creates such magnificent little works of art that it can be hard, at least for me, to eat one without feeling remorseful.

So how does one become a cookier? Some years ago Liz was “hobby hopping”, as she calls it, trying different crafts and art forms including drawing, ceramics, and photography, and then blogging about it. Then someone saw one of her blogs about decorating cookies and invited her to come teach a class … in Italy! She did, and since then has taught classes in Italy, Spain, and Australia, across the U.S., on cruise ships – most recently in Alaska, and at our own Studios on the Park. My wife took one of her classes, as have several of our club members. Arty McGoo is ready to teach it anywhere people like cookies, i.e., everywhere.

Every year, starting with the first one in 2012, Arty McGoo has attended CookieCon to do demonstrations, teach classes, meet other cookiers, and even give the keynote address on four occasions. CookieCon is like a Star Trek convention, but with more cookies and fewer Klingons. She is one of the OG’s and has been interviewed by NPR, the New York Times, and now, PRPC. Arty McGoo has an active social media presence and extensive website, with over 760 videos for subscribers to ‘McGoo U’. Her site also offers blogs, podcasts, recipes, ideas, and cookie cutters, including custom ones such as a pickleball paddle, of course, printed by her son on a 3D printer, plus other cookier merchandise.

When asked what’s the one word that friends might use to describe her, she said, “Ha! I guess it would depend on the day.” Personally, I would use the word “creative”, no matter what day it is, after seeing what she does every day with her art and cookies and business.

I can’t wait to see if Arty McGoo can do for pickle juice what she’s done for cookies.

Please check out this video!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJv_IpIcM14