My Re-commitment to Trust

"Sanctuary" 16" x 20" Latex house paint on canvas

A year ago I made a brave decision to trust myself and go all out creating my own art. As a freelance artist, selling what I make and create is 100% how I pay my bills.

By contrast, the first 34 years of my career I was a freelance illustrator, creating art for hire. I was very successful at it supporting my two children and myself by drawing enough pictures each month to pay for...everything for decades. My business took a serious hit during COVID and it seemed that it would no longer support me. I had to pivot.

2024 was a good year. I sold a lot of original art, I had a month-long gallery show with one of my dearest friends, I won several awards, I painted two huge murals, I traveled to many of my favorite places to do art shows and hang out with friends.

Basically, I'm doing what I want much of the time, just like folks fantasize for their retirement! Only I'm not retired and don't have that monthly check coming in.

I had forgotten how much I love to paint and was reminded while painting murals in 2024. I spent time during the in-between of Christmas and New Year reflecting on the year behind and what to do differently in the year ahead. I realized I wanted to begin seriously painting.

The past several years I've been creating 2-D art by tearing paper and my old illustrations and gluing them onto canvases. I didn't want to make choices about what images to create and instead jumped straight into color and composition. It worked. I loved creating the art, talking to folks about the process and the why of it, plus I sold a lot of art.

During the in-between, I realized there was a whole collection of images waiting inside me but couldn't create them using torn paper because I wanted to work larger, so paint was the solution. I've amassed an interesting collection of house paints and decided to launch the new year by painting on large canvases using latex house paints. I've painted every day since the beginning of 2025 and ...wow...I've learned so much.

Every day I'm anxious to wrap up my pet and house chores to get into my painting studio and paint.

Trusting that my new body of work will sell at art fairs this summer feels even crazier than last year when I was tearing paper to make art.

Time will tell. Now I need to paint!

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"Moonflowers" 16" x 20" Latex house paint on canvas