Where Do You Think Great Art Comes From?

Feb. 15, 2013 - PRLog -- My story begins in a small suburb of Cincinnati where I am the youngest of four girls. Though everyone in my family went to college I opted out and went to vocational school for cosmetology. Stuck out like a sore thumb.  Scored highest at state boards, was smartest and most creative out of the 21 girls but couldn’t roll a perm to save my life.  Worked where I could and met a British college student who was going to travel around the country with his friend so I invited myself along for the ride.  Spent three month going to Chicago, Milwaukee, Butte, Montana, stayed on a ranch in Dubois, Wyoming, slept in the car in Yellowstone Park, saw Old Faithful, Mount Rushmore, swam in a lake in Oregon, stayed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, then took an Amtrak to San Diego and met a great aunt on my father’s mother’s side.

After that I moved to a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.  While living there I prevented a home break in and had one of my favorite co-workers murdered by the guy who was to do an E Check on her car.  After that I moved to Orange County, California.  My first job there was a receptionist at a hair salon and I was soon fired.  I quickly got a job at South Coast Plaza at May Company Department Store where I was soon promoted to assistant manager.  After living in California for a year I wanted to go to college and found Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.  I was going to school part time and working full time and then I wanted to go to school full time and so I quit the department store.  While going to school I worked at a video production company, a pet store, I tried selling air time to real estate agents, then I got a job at a frame shop.  I was a full time student focusing on commercial art and design but after many hours of looking at the artwork at the frame shop I began to want to paint.  I did one of my 2D art projects in a painterly style and my professor told me I had a flair for painting.

Now I was living in a garage converted to an art studio with a bicycle for transportation and having to shower at school where I was a full time student.  With the other occupants in the art studios we opened an art gallery and began displaying our art.  Soon afterward my mother got colon cancer and I decided to return to Cincinnati to nurse her back to health.  I stayed in Cincinnati and continued to paint developing my own technique. Over time I have had many jobs to help me get by while developing my painting and business skills.  I’ve had temporary office jobs, I worked with a guy who produced things, I was a scenery painter, I worked fulfilling orders, graphic design,  took inventory, took attendance of children at an art school, photographed the Harlem Globe Trotters, work at a facility that processed the checks sent to the IRS. My last and final job was for two guys and I did a lot of things like event planning, answering phones, billing, and customer service.

While working my last jobs I went two consecutive years to Art Expo New York and exhibited my work.  The second year I was named by Art Business News Magazine as “One of the Top 50 Emerging Artists of 2012”.  In June of 2012 I began to think about painting flowers.  I was coming to the end of my employment and would sit in the mornings in the park down the street from my home and watch the sun rise.  I was also feeling very lonely and would sit in the garden waiting for company.  The flowers became my companions.  It was then I realized what a beautiful subject matter the flowers and the park would make for paintings.  I had been focusing for seven years on Pixelism which is a contemporary form of Pointillism and welcomed the change to realism.  My current focus is developing the body of paintings that is of flowers and flower gardens and sharing that work with the world.

I am now an entrepreneur and artist who is self employed and working to make sure that continues. I believe great art comes from discipline rather than from inspiration.