When your Passion is Greater than your Pain
"I truly believe we can either see the connections, celebrate them, and express gratitude for our blessings, or we can see life as a string of coincidences that have no meaning or connection. For me, I'm going to believe in miracles, celebrate life, rejoice in the views of eternity, and hope my choices will create a positive ripple effect in the lives of others. This is my choice." ~ Mike Ericksen
As we enter into a new decade, many of you have probably done some reflecting on the past few years. I took some time to do this by looking through old photos. What I love about memories, good and bad, is that it enables us to see growth along the journey, and to pause and focus on being grateful.
As with any profession, being an artist takes a lot of hard work, passion, and never giving up even when times are really tough. I look back at challenges I faced, and am so thankful that my passion was greater than my pain. I absolutely LOVE what I do, and would never have arrived at where I am without perseverance, Faith, and all of you who have supported me in so many different ways. I send you a heartfelt THANK-YOU!
I thought it would be fun to share a little bit of my journey over the last 10 years. I'm hopeful that by sharing with you, that you'll feel encouraged to not give up on your own dreams!
In 2010, I still owned my business "Creative Wall Designs" that I started up in 2002. I specialized in painting designer faux finishes and murals in businesses and residential homes across Texas.
This was part of a project for an Olive Oil Tasting shop:
At the time, I would have never dreamed I would be teaching at a Villa in Italy nestled among acres of olive groves 10 years later!
I continued juggling oil painting, art shows, and running Creative Wall Designs until 2013. I discovered I had torn my rotator cuff in my shoulder from 12 years of wear and tear, which forced me to shut down my faux finishing business and pursue oil painting full time.
Below: A couple of the final murals of my career 2012
My sidekick, Charice Cooper and I; 2013
Small portion of the Daystar Tv Studio Set:
One of my most exciting (and challenging) projects: my company, along with another faux finishing company, was hired to do all the finishes for Daystar TV; including a large 19' x 90' Italian vineyard mural along the back of the set. We had 12 artists working together for 6 weeks woodgraining trim, texturing walls, making Styrofoam look like stone, and painting murals!
In 2013, I relinquished the "faux" part of my business due to a torn rotator cuff. It was time to push forward full speed ahead and see what could become of me being a full-fledged professional oil painter. Let's just say, for a while I completely and whole-hardheartedly knew what it meant to be a "starving artist", but with the support of my husband and a determination to make it work, my bestie, Charice and I jumped in the car and traveled around Texas to meet with Art Galleries, hoping to find homes for our paintings.
I was overjoyed to be invited into 3 different galleries across Texas!
(Below: Adobe Western Art Gallery) 2013
I knew that merely having art in a gallery wasn't going to pay the bills, so I considered teaching art again. (In case you didn't know, I taught art in the public schools for 11 years prior to owning my decorative finishing business). I was approached by an art studio owner about teaching a workshop in her venue. Realizing that this would be a very different format from teaching public school art, I googled some artists whose work I loved and signed up for some classes. This was also a great opportunity for me to get out of a rut and learn some new techniques from artists I highly respected.
I was terrified, but went ahead and scheduled my very own workshop. My students were so kind and complementary that it set me at ease. I realized that encouraging and helping other artists gave me a tremendous amount of joy...that's when I discovered that I absolutely adored teaching adults, and in that moment, the path I wanted to take became very clear!
For the next few years I pursued teaching, painting, doing commissions, and showing my art at every opportunity that came along. Unfortunately, the torn rotator cuff I had mentioned earlier was getting to the point that I couldn't move my shoulder and was causing quite a bit of pain (yes, in my painter's arm!) so, in 2015 I had shoulder surgery. The thought that gave me comfort was that I would snuggle with my sweet schnoodle pup, Sophie after the surgery.
Sadly, a few months before my surgery, she passed away unexpectedly after complications from her diabetes. The house felt very empty without her! We realized our house wasn't a home without a little fur baby, so along came Tibby!
Tibby, my new little studio companion
My attempt at painting with my non-painting hand after surgery.
Once I got passed the 9 months of recovering from shoulder surgery, I came to a fork in the road. Our finances were urging me to "get a real job".
However, my passion was greater than my pain.
So, it was back to the easel. I knew I had to work harder than ever. I did everything I could think of artistically speaking that would generate income, including enrolling in business courses. Thankfully, paintings began to sell, and my workshops were filling up!
2018 Live painting on Good Day Fox
2017, 2018, 2019 Mallory's Finest licensed "First Snow" for use on their Christmas tins sold at Big Lots stores.
For a long time, I had wanted to incorporate travel and art. In 2016 my brother generously blessed me with a trip to Italy and I used the opportunity to scope out possible future artist retreat locations. Actually taking that step towards the dream made it all seem very real and reachable!
I've since taken artists to Italy and France to study and paint with me, and it has been the biggest dream come true!
I'm very excited about our plans for 2020 and 2021! I have a brand new opportunity I'm working on that's coming your way, along with more international Artist Retreats...stay tuned!
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