Three years ago I was sitting on the floor at my mom's house, where my kids and I were staying temporarily. I was eating cereal for Thanksgiving dinner, because the kids were with their dad that year, and I wasn't going to cook just for myself.
I had spent the past several weeks revising my resume, which at the age of 40 was embarrassingly sparse. Seventeen years of being a stay-at-home mom was the bulk of my adult experience.
I have a bachelor's degree in English, but I knew I didn't have the mental/emotional energy to teach in a classroom setting. The previous months of navigating divorce and strained relationships with my own kids was taking all of it.
I don't remember exactly the timing of it, but in October and November two people asked me to do something for them, and it shifted something in me. One was my friend who asked me to take family portraits for them, even though I was not a portrait photographer (I mostly just did sports). The other was a local business owner who asked me to come paint a winter scene on her salon windows, even though that was something I had practically no experience with.
For both things, I remember feeling inadequate, unsure of myself, and worried it would be a total flop.
Neither one was either a total flop or raging masterpiece. But I got paid, they seemed happy, and it kicked me into gear.
It got the wheels turning in my head. I had a lot of time to think during the other work I was doing at that time--climbing up on a roof in freezing rain to clean soggy leaves out of gutters, raking piles and piles and piles of leaves, etc.
What if (it felt risky and nervous even entertaining the thought)--What if I did art full time? Between the three things that fell in that category (my painting, photography, and music), could I do it?
If one person was willing to pay me to paint their windows, maybe ten more would also be.
I don't remember if I said it out loud, sitting there with my pathetic resume draft staring back at me from my laptop screen. But I remember the feeling, as if I had been standing on a sidewalk curb for hours and hours and days and years while traffic zoomed by in both directions. Deciding to "go full time" with my art felt every bit as risky as stepping off the curb into traffic.
I started contacting other businesses about painting their windows. I reached out to local shops about selling my art (I think I sold 4 of these earliest tree paintings at Under The Sun for something like $30 each). I started doing LOTS of photography, spending hours learning how to edit and probably making about $4 an hour with it.
Driving home from Priest River last night, I was looking back on those early art career successes. Yesterday I painted winter window scenes at 3 businesses and a home, being paid over three times the amount I charged my first year doing it. I started turning down photography jobs about a year ago, in order to grow business in my gallery. In September I had to close my books for painting commissions, with more coming in than I could juggle.
I talk a lot about being grateful for my collectors who make what I'm doing possible, but today I want to say thank you to Tracy Freeze and Krystal at Bellagente.B.F for whatever it was that made you hire me 3 years ago.
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