let's see other people thinking out loud like this, developing ideas

Good response, Jason, and you are showing how one can use the forum to develop ideas for papers, perhaps. I would caution against a too neat contrast between society and art, and I might suggest that the term "socialite" is not quite what you want in your paper to describe the desire for human connection in Woolf. Instead of social standing perhaps the term you'd find useful is conformity or conventionality. This pressure to conform or to appear conventional is manifested in many ways, as her novels show. To be a pacifist (as Woolf mostly was) is one aspect of resistance to conventional pressures. To question gender identity is another. To question religion another. To marry a Jew, another. In the novels, however, there is not a neat division between seeking social interaction with others and seeking the solitude necessary for one's art. Even Lily Briscoe, the solitary artist, who chooses not to marry, enjoys visiting the Ramsays, where interaction with others is a large part of the experience. Indeed, she derives much from this experience. Her love for Mrs. Ramsay is very important (not just in the Demeter/Persephone et al sense) but in the connection with persons different from ourselves. Lily recognizes in Mrs. Ramsay a gift, a genius, that Lily understands is not something that can be reduced to simple cliches about mothering. Clarissa and the notion of "hostess" (see my web page on Orlando for more about this term) also complicates this. Woolf and her friends were very much influenced by theories of art as connected to life, by the notion that they could create an artistic life and live artfully. Also note the voluminous letter-writing, many social activities, etc. And finally, consider the lighthouse itself. It's a beacon swinging round; the light comes, then goes. And it includes everything in its path. So it's not only a masculine image, but also a feminine one. I'm just trying to shake up some of these binary oppositions a bit, hoping to get you to trouble them a bit more in your paper.