The first step in owning any business, is having a clue what to price something at. My understanding is: They just don't teach this in Art School. That selling your art is sort of a taboo subject. Which makes me rather grateful I didn't take out any 200K loans to go. That I went into the “real world” of business an learned management. The first step I learned to take, no matter what business I was in, was to do a inventory of the business. So I would know how much I was responsible for materially. What I was going to be held accountable for.


So when I decided I wanted to do art again.


I did something similar: I took out the old portfolio an considered it's worth.


But just like most artist: I wasn't sure what it's worth was. Or how to price it's value. A PNL is a profit loss summery document most businesses that sell something have. It shows the true cost of something. What your selling it for. How much your making off a product. An how much your inventory is worth. An a bunch of other details about your business in numbers that help you make decisions effecting it. Unlike other businesses I had ran, I couldn't just look at a PNL an see what the cost of the item was. Then add 35-45% profit margin to it an put it out on the floor. I couldn't do a survey of what others where selling theirs for, because they where originals. So, I stumbled for a while on what to charge. Just like most artist do.


An because I wasn't sure, it got me taken advantage of plenty.


My first customer was gracious: She recognized I was way under pricing myself because of lack of confidence in this department an paid me $100 more. After her, I thought about it a little more: But I was just so happy I made a sale an someone liked my work: I just kept churning out Artwork daily without thinking much about it. I wasn't worried about making a profit, living or anything else but getting myself back in the habit of making art. Disciplining myself to do it daily. An art sites I was posting to automatically priced it for me. I didn't know if it was, right or even fair.


I sold my first fractal print, to someone in California on Imagekind.


I made a whole $28 dollars for a days work, but that didn't registrar with me I had made less then minimum wage for a days worth of work. I was just excited I had sold one, an people where interested in my work. People started asking for me to do artwork for them. And I still didn't know what to charge. A band, was interested in using some of my fractal work as a cover for their album. Wanted T's of it...... all things artistically I could do: So I set about working on it but knew there was a right way to charge for Tshirt creations. I had paid them myself for the family business: Even with me doing the artwork for them for free. Spoke to a music producer friend of mine, who let me know I should have a contract an receive residual income from the album sales.


The customer was difficult.


Wasn't sure what she wanted: Vague other then the Tshirts needed to be cheap. So they could sell them. An she wasn't like my first customer, she kinda really did expect something for nothing in exchange for exposure. She thought nothing of my time involved in her little project. Which ate up weeks, days an hours of my time. I got the job done, but she wasn't happy an frankly neither was I. I still had a living to make but wanted so badly for it to work out. That I worked basically for $50 bucks. An was disgusted by the whole process because I didn't walk away from that experience feeling valued as person, or artist.


So, I put the brakes on selling art right there.


An sat down an thought about all my time that got wasted. This wasn't exactly her fault. It was mine for not understanding what or how to charge. An it was something I felt needed to be addressed before I took on one more client. Because working for “exposure” wasn't going to pay my bills. No matter how much someone likes the attention, or doesn't. I'm very much a pay attention to my art, not me sorta gal. If I personally wanted attention, I already had a venue I could get plenty of that from.


The whole situation, while successful wasn't.


An I found myself online, with people expecting a lot for nothing: Entertaining them for exposure. It's become a dirty word to a lot of artist. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. While you want word of mouth about your art: What you don't want is people under valuing you. I got cranky about it privately. My kids can tell you: I was pretty frustrated because I wasn't going to work for free.


So I sat down again, thought about how business really works.


What it really takes to get a Snicker's bar to market. Since I didn't have a PNL I could just look at: I was going to have to figure out what it was costing me to create a piece of art work. It was overwhelming because I can do just about anything under the sun a well. So I made a list of every kind of artwork I could do. An thought long an hard about how long it actually takes me to do each type of artwork. Because I decided right then: I was going to at least make minimum wage or I doing this. I'd just keep doing artwork as a “hobby” an go back into business management if people where not going to pay a reasonable price for something.


Period.


I think everyone should own art. I think it should be affordable to lower incomes just as well as the higher ones. It's not just a luxury item to me. I see art an design in just about everything an on everyone. From the art you hang on your walls, to the couch in your living room to what you wear. What you eat off. So narrowing this down for me, was a difficult task.


Cuz I see the art in a snickers bar.


So I had to narrow this down, a lot. I knew my basic traditional art portfolio needed to be worked on as an artist, so I went through that. All the different types of mediums I can work in an approximately how long it takes me to do one to do that one particular thing: Like shading a drawing with pencil.


I made it easy, an just used ten dollars as a base.


I wanted to be affordable, an at least get paid what I would an unskilled worker would. I sat an thought about every art subject I was could an was willing to do. Such as portraits of pets, children & adults. Houses. Landscapes etc. an how many hours go into doing one specifically.


An then I though about that snickers bar, again.


Not only does Mar's have to pay their workers a base pay, they have to pay for the materials to make it to get that base cost on a PNL. An that was what I was trying to put together. My wholesale cost to make something. I learned from the first painting I ever sold in high school that it should AT LEAST cover the cost of the paint you put on the canvas. Someone got pretty upset with me for selling that oil painting for $100. It cost more then that to make in just paint. So I researched cost of paints & materials, an came up with approximately how much they'd cost me just to buy to do the work. But the surface you paint on actually cost something as well. So I researched that an came up with a reasonable price list as well. But since surface sizes vary, an people want different dimensions this had to be factored in as well. I even gave them the option of matting or non-matted.


An because that person devalued my time so much, I charge a one time fee just to cover all the consulting time they might take up. Each art project has a set up fee. This covers time spent via the phone/email with a customer, the client discussing the project. I use the time to gather ideas, research and collect the details from you regarding your order. It covers approximately a 1-2 hours: the beginning & end of the project not to be abused. The service is non-refundable. I do this so folks will not abuse my time. They either value it or they don't. I don't want to work with anyone again who doesn't.


Factor in Travel time as well: Because gas cost money, especially these days. Mines just for a a three hour window. Locally. If someone needed me to travel further, or plane expenses, hotels and food would have to be charged as well. Because just like a Snicker's bar: It cost money to get it to market on the truck.


Thinking about everything it cost me to produce a piece of art, made me as an artist be more realistic about what to charge. An this wasn't me being over the top, or a high end luxury artist.


This was a base price of Traditional Art. It's true cost to make.
An this is the simplest I can explain cost based pricing for artist.


You can see an example at: Commissions


It's a list of everything that goes into making a piece of work. It adds up. An you can not be doing it for less then that. Or it's costing you money an your making nothing. An it helps if you think of it like a Snickers bar. How much chocolate, sugar, nuts does it go into making that candy bar. Nuts aren't cheap you know. Just like paint isn't. Workers to mix it have got to be paid. That's YOU. Equipment needs to be bought & maintained. Your brushes, your drawing table, your counters. Your studio. The candy bar has to get to market: Someones going to have to drive it to a location to sell it. Or pick it up. Or move it around a store, to sell it. It's packaging cost money. It's design on it cost money. Marketing it cost money.


All the things just to make it an get it to market: Cost money.


That is your true cost. An you would find it on a PNL if you ran a store. A brick an mortar business. Most business take that cost, an raise it to at least 35% to make a profit. Walmart does. Some big box stores raise a products price 45%. Grocery stores raise it about 25%. It's business.


An if you are a serious artist, an want to keep doing it:
You have to treat your art like a business.


Unless, you like working for free & nothing. I don't. I won't. The reason I won't is because it ruins the industry if you do. I happen to believe the art industry is important. That artist should be taught how to sell their art, so they don't ruin it for other serious artist. I can't compete with the idiot selling a drawing for $5 on the internet. I can't support my children doing it. Nor am I going to compete with someone who won't take art or themselves seriously. I don't want those type of customers. Let cheap ol buy from them. But they aren't going to get something of value from me, for nothing. Nor any other decent serious artist.


An this is how you have to look at it. The Cstore down the street isn't going to give you a Snickers Bar for free. Nor are they going to sell it to you at cost. They can't keep their doors open for you if they did. As an artist you have to look at it this way: Do I want to do it for a few quick bucks, loose money doing it. Not be able to afford to keep doing what I love or do I want to still be around in ten years able to?


I wanted to be able to keep doing art.


So I looked at it like any other business would who still wanted to be around. To succeed. I probably need to update my price list. I made that over a decade ago now. It's out of date, but it's a very good example of having some guidelines in pricing to go by. So you remember to charge accordingly. My cost per hour as an artist never really has dropped below $150 hour since I made that. My average portrait sales where always above $185. Which is extremely good in this over saturated market. The lowest I drop to is $129, an that's usually because I give a $20 discount as a referral fee.


Artist have to get their pricing down. You can raise them as you go but you have to start off as reasonable enough to live to begin with. I was always confident in my ability to do art. Always have been but found not having pricing shaked my confidence. People can an will take advantage of you if you don't. Which weakens your confidence in yourself. Not because your a bad artist, but because you do not know how to sell your art.


The best thing I did, was create some kind of pricing guideline for me to follow. It chased off anyone who didn't value me as a person. Who for some odd reason, didn't think I deserved enough pay for my work to eat. It established, me & my art are worth something. Charging base prices isn't just you holding yourself in high esteem. It's keeping your esteem in tack an that you time is important. That you respect yourself.


An when you respect yourself, others tend to as well.


That the work you do has importance, not just to you but others as well. That it's useful. Has meaning. & you or anyone else doing it deserves to be paid. Artist, designers, writers, photographers work gets seen so much these days: People take it for granted. They seem to forget it takes time an effort to produce quality work. It took me years of studying how to do this or that. It's a its a skill. So every time they pay me, they are paying me for years of expertize. I didn't just pick up a pencil yesterday, or a camera. I spent years studying, practicing an perfecting how to do something. When you hire me, your getting years of knowledge. Experience. To create what client & people want.


I don't give that away free.


The internet started out, with a debate about free source vs paid. So, a lot of people & businesses on it will give things away for free. People are use to getting content for free: Artwork for nothing because they assume it's always going to stay this way. Or if you take a good hard look around, they don't just give it away for free. Content that is being created these days leads back to something. An it's not exposure folks are so interested in but branding. But before you can even get to that stage realistically you have to take a hard look at this subject.


Cost & Pricing = Success.
Successful Business. Successful Artist.

An that, is what will keep you doing what you love.

In 2009, social media was just taking off. Most artist, writers, musicians, comics: You name it where on MySpace. It was different then AOL. You could actually share your own work with more then one or two people in a chat room you knew. It showcased talent. It had a lot of technical issues but the just of it was that. I looked at it then in two ways. One, I had a place to show folks what I could do. Or was good at. Two, I thought it was a untapped market for local businesses because a lot of folks would get on it an show the local party scene. No one in I knew running a business in real life, would listen to me.


It frustrated me to no end because my fathers tavern business was being reopened. An I was being kept out of the business decisions. So I made the business a page anyway because their customers where right there. Then handed it over to do what they will with it but at least customers could add them. It did okay, but could have reached more customers. Since I was a silent partner. I kept my mouth shut an focused on my own identity.


I wasn't sure wanted to get re caught up in the party scene just to promote a business I was being excluded from. Since I had experienced what marketing a real website was like, saw it as traffic. A mini website. I looked at it just like I would a game.


I'm a gamier.


I played Ever Quest II for a long time to relax. An really looked at MySpace as sorta a joke. Or as a game. How many locals could I get to add my families business today? It was free advertisement! Who doesn't love that? So I'd add folks I knew locally to it.


But in my own space: I'd add my internet buddies. Non-locals I knew. Spoke to. Or had a interest in my writing. Art. Ect and I'd add content to ever day just like I would have a website. For me, it was just brushing up on my skills. An like I said, I sorta treated it like a game: just like in game reaching for the next level. How many readers could I get today? Could I make it to the top of the list writing. I wrote about my opinions. Life experiences like my near death. Grief. My views. I wrote poems.


It was a good artist outlet for me.


All this was going on as I was recovering from a illness. While my daughter was ill. I had to be at home, I didn't really want to run a website again but it offered feedback an a challenge. I did make it into the top 20 or so a few times. People where interested in my work. As the real life business opened, I went back to just artwork. Posting it. I was offered a spot in the local art show. Featured on the front page of the newspaper an exploring what was happening in the art world on the web. But as a person that had went to school for programming: I hated MySpace. The amount of bugs, spam an computer virus on it just didn't make worth messing with for long.


I migrated to Facebook.


I knew it was going to be difficult because I choose to join it with my given name. Not a handle, but I wanted that business to do well an my art to as well. I just wasn't going to do art under a handle name. I was serious about it. So I migrated my online friends, the local scene, an added everyone I think I have ever meet before. Opened a artist page for myself, a one for the business: to get them both off the ground. But it was overwhelming having that many folks that where so different then each other in one place. My online friends made fun of my real life ones. My real life ones mocked me for online ones. An frankly: I just got fed up with it sorta.
I didn't want to be what they call today: An “influencer”.


Although I had it. I also had real life stalkers. Ex's boyfriends bothering me on public display. People trying to use it as a way to hook up. Stealing artwork. I was extremely frustrated because I had two different types of “audiences”. A really over intellectual one, national an then party hardy local folks. It clashed. I felt criticized a lot for knowing so many different types of people. Which truth is, it's a good problem to have. Andy Warhol invited celebrities an homeless people to his openings but I felt stuck in a weird place all through it. Like I was being torn in several directions at once socially. But in my mind, this was the best way to establish myself as an artist. An the cheapest free advertisement anyone could ever get for a business. It landed me several jobs because I used my Facebook page as a way to document my progress as an artist.


I really did need to get back to “work”.


I wanted that work to be in art, preferably one that use my business, management & computer skills as well. An in 2011 I found it. Or they found me. They used my Facebook page and portfolio on Imagekind as a measure for if they thought I could do that job: Not just my management & career history. It proved I could do art. Sell art. Manage different groups of people.


It opened up opportunity for me.
One to grow as an artist, in another genre.


So when I tell you being on social media is important. I'm not kidding. This was what was happening to me putting myself fully out there. Creating content: Artwork and for just understanding how important is was going to become just projecting to other folks who you are: Interacting with them. Few businesses had even fully caught on. The one I went to work for did to a small degree but even they didn't take it as serious as they should. They had a page, but ignored folks on it. Didn't put out as much content as the could have daily on it. .


You can not sell something to others if they never see it.
Social media became a way to get traffic to online websites.


I didn't even have one of my own: While all this was social media was exploding I didn't even need one to get my art listed on search engines. Or sell art. Or get my name out there. When I went to work for them: Most of my work as a photographer was only seen by one customer at a time because I worked for companies. Having the experience I do on the internet saw this as a wasted opportunity. For me, them and my studio. I've done probably around 5000 photo sessions. Most of, never shown publicly. When I ran my studio, I started getting in the habit of asking each customer for consent to use their images I created to show others. I opened a simple facebook page of the local studio. I'd go home at night, an post the days best work an tag my customers to show them off. My sales increased 30k an would have kept climbing had the company not folded. It folded because they didn't understand the power of the internet. How to compete on it. Or social media.


I didn't slow down as an artist. Or on social media: I just posted on a different page, under a company name. I used it like I would have liked to seen our family business using it or the company I was working for. If the company I worked for had used it like I had: They might not have went bankrupt. Studios of the company that did, where going up in sales. Studios, that just relied on the companies website & social media pages didn't. They had a following: They just didn't pay as much attention to it as they should have.


So, yes: You need to be on social media.


But is it going to have the impact it did back when social media was exploding? Yes an No. The organic reach is not the same as it was back in 2009-2013ish on Facebook. Which is the platform I'm specifically talking about today. In five years or so it's changed. People aren't particularly fond of people just using it to sell to them. They've stopped just adding anyone. An they don't particularly want to just see you run ads of your business on it. They will delete you, unfollow you if you don't have anything interesting to add to their feeds. Or if you fail to interact with them personally. The attention span on Facebook is different.


They don't open things often to read.


So the kind of content that has always worked with websites, isn't a sure win on social media. It's a hit or miss with a general audience. So it's getting more an more important for you to know who your audience is. For me, it was easy promoting the studio. It was specifically my customers from there. It encouraged a bond between us. So, I really didn't work on my artist page until the studio closed. I had no reason to. I didn't have to add them to my personal profile. Or show them my other art work. They where interested in interacting with me, the story of the studio an me highlighting their involvement with it. They liked it simply be me getting them involved with it: Showing off them, as I showed my work. So new customers would follow it. It grew pretty fast.


I would look at my personal profile an just get overwhelmed.


I have about a 1000 folks on it, an couldn't even see my own kids post the way it was set up so I decided this was going so well. I deleted everyone on my personal profile but my kids. They still follow me, I just don't see their feeds. I'm just not nosy like that. I blocked a few folks who where on my personal profile & art page for the wrong reasons. I was so busy doing art, I didn't have time to post on it. Nor could I share a good bulk of the artwork I was doing the last ten years or so. It was the companies I worked for policy.


An it's not a bad policy to have: Respecting others privacy.


If others are in your artwork: Like photography, you should get written consent. My profile right now has examples of my work: But it's basically just family I will show work of on it. It shows some of my life, but not a lot of it. I created a page just for my private studio, so people locally can find it. I don't add much to it like I did the studio one because I'm not in a high volume location like I was. An can just ask my customers to like it. My circumstances have changed. Facebook has as well.


I know I have different types of customers.
I do different types of art.


My website is only place they all come together anymore. My approach on Facebook has changed. I'm starting over. From scratch. I use my profile to add local customers: I know who close enough I can do portrait photography for. Who are my taget audience for it. Facebook added that nifty see first: So I can always see my kids & families post first now. I've just now started using Instagram, mainly for those customers. Instagram has a measure of protection built into it for protecting artwork. People can't just copy it easily. If they do share it: They are going to advertise my work for me. Everything I do now, is waterproofed, an includes my signature. I post my other art, on my artist page for customers who really are interested in it. I only invite those who are.


I stay away from posting other folks Meme's. I created a private page, just for that so if I can't resit the urge to share something sarcastic it's got a place to land without messing up my branding. I use to share other artist works for them, cause they would mine: I created a page for that. To get me out of the habit of sharing anything not related to my own work on my own profile. My art page, shows my growth an progress as an artist alone.


It doesn't tell my story fully.


My website brings it all together: It all of it points back to my site like it should to get the full story. Sharing snippets of your life, art and story drives customers back to your site. It's content. Its not just about likes, or how many followers you have: Or even just influence. It's about building a customer base. An you want those customers to be interested in YOU an actually purchasing your art, product or service. Your business. Not you just spending your time entertaining them. Trust me, I got off social media cause I don't get paid just to entertain.


I'm a entertaining person.


An you have to be part clown to do portrait photography, or sell artwork. But it can't be all you do. Don't get into the trap of spending all your time on social media. Spend the bulk of your time doing the actual artwork. Build a portfolio with social media, a story of you. Entertain some but don't get lost in the crowd on social media.


I'm actually a pretty funny gall


I could spend all my time doing that an not get any artwork done. Let alone sell any. I'm not saying, not to show your personality. I'm saying think about how to use that to sell you & your artwork. My photography clients, who liked my page for the studio already knew I was fun. They had spent time in my studio with me. I entertained them every day. Personally in a interactive art experience. Let that bubble over into your profile or pages: but keep in mind---I got paid to be entertaining. To make a session a enjoyable experience. What your wanting folks to see is in your social media is enough to want to pay you to interact with them.


It's a tool to interact wit them, yes.


But save the best for the actual experience of working with you. Make it enjoyable as possible online an off but keep a boundary line there. You are running a business. An I think like I thought back before social media exploded: It's important for businesses to market on Social Media platforms. An for a long while, it's been free to do so: But the organic reach isn't there like it use to be. It might be smarter to just run an ad. In the photography business: I would. An I'd use it as a customer service tool. To keep in touch with customers an offer them the same attention I would in my store. This helps with referrals an repeat business.


I haven't really seen facebook work for artist to run ads though: Unless they had a specific product. Instead of running an ad to like my page or visit my site: I might show a specific product: Like a shirt. It's really going to depend on what your art is on how you want to approach social media, but think of it like someone entering your “store”. Of course you want them to enter. Check you out, but I didn't put all my effort into just social media expecting exposure to create an income.
You can't sell anything if people don't see your work.


But exposure doesn't pay bills. It can help with branding, enhance customer support, create leads an open up opportunities: but exposure is an expense. Just like taking a time to run an ad in a local newspaper use to be. It takes time to be on all these social networks, an you do not want to spend so much time on them that you do not get any artwork done. It should enhance your business, not distract you from it.


I keep using photography as an example because I've seen many different ways to do it. I see a lot of people open Facebook pages offering photography services. An right off the bat, I see a lot of them approaching it wrong because they are worried about building a portfolio an “exposure”. My photography portfolio was owned by several different companies I worked for. Most of it never was seen by the public. I just needed to give a few examples of my work online, because I was actually busy selling it to the person that would buy it. What I see a lot of photographers do, is post anything the do immediately to social media. They want that exposure, to show it off. An there is nothing wrong with that if the person paid for it before you post it an gave consent.


A lot of folks are taking advantage.


Saying they will pay for something later, go ahead an post it. Then take the work an never pay. They justify it by “giving you exposure”. Exposure is something you are going to get either way posting your work. It should be posted with a watermark, after the sale. Not before, an not if they didn't pay for your services. I see these folks more worried about showing off on social media then actually worried about the business or the industry they are in. A lot of them undermine the industry by charging a third of the price a professional photographer charges. All for exposure.


Most end up out of business within a year.


Social Media should enhance your business. Not create a loss for you. If it is creating a loss you are doing something wrong. I would rather have 500 people following me truly interested in buying my art then 2000 who won't. Or have a competitor following me trying to copy my style an selling it for half it's worth. To be a happy artist, doing what you love: You have to be able to make a living at it. You have to treat it like a business. Online & off.


Yes, show your work. Build up a portfolio by all means. But do not give away the house for free.


How do you do that with other types of art? By watermarking. By putting your name on it where it can not be easily cropped out with photoshop. Get these habits down, before you even start posting artwork. Remove anything from your social media profiles you posted before you got in this habit. A lot of us share with others just because we are excited about it before we even think about it being our business. I did the first couple of months, but I quickly went back an removed them to. Protect your work. Don't give it away for free unless you can afford to or have a specific reason for doing so. Brand yourself an your art as you go. Put those signatures on your work. Just like you would finishing any piece of work. Use photoshop! Not your phone to get digital copies of it. Photoshop allows you to put your watermark information right into the digital copy of it. An can't be removed. Upload your artwork to sites that protect it more, then share the link of it on social media instead.


It will display the same way, be shareable but on a site that protects it.


I focused on Facebook through most of this article, because it's been the bigger of the social medias. I do photography locally, an find it's best set up for local markets. But being on Google, locally is just as important. These two ways are the number one way people are going to find your services locally. Google, owns 60% of the market share on how people are going to find you: locally an nationally. Facebook isn't fully scanned by Google as far as I can tell. I tend to lean towards a local market on Facebook, for photography. A national one for traditional & fractal artwork.


You should also be on Pintrest.


Without having a website, I used Pintrest as a portfolio of my work an things related artwork & photography. I use it for art buyers nationally an to reach other artist. I've link every piece of artwork I do on it but the portrait photography. I have photography I share with other artist for photo manipulation. On it, I share articles buyers might be interested in: Like advice about how to get ready for a photo session. Advice I would give in studio, on a session call preparing for a photo session. I share articles that would attract other artist, who might be interested in using some of my photos for manipulation. Anything related to my three buyer types: art buyers, photography customers an other artist.


I get 10K traffic from it regularly.


Google scans it. I'm more easily found this way then any other. All without even having a website. I get the most art customers this way then any other. An it is a combo of using two social medias. I do not link back directly to my site: unless it is directly on my site an my site only.


The reason being is this: Clicks.


Most folks will only click once, or twice on a link then stop following it. I do not want to waste my potential sale. I send them right to the product, no matter where it is. So I don't loose them. That first click is valuable. I don't want to loose their attention or sale. An majority of my art sales come from this avenue still today. An I keep those links up to date. I don't post links that change very often on it so it's always correct. Out of all the social sites I am on, it by far out performs all the other social medias combined an I didn't even need a website to stay in the top results when searching for artist Dana Haynes.


Pintrest supports content.


Your artwork is content: Link it..... don't upload it to it. It will pick the image up of your artwork you are trying to sell. It's a ongoing revenue stream. Without you having to talk to a lot of folks daily. It gets your work out there. An if I had to choose any social platform to use over all the others. It would be this one. People who visit it, are specifically going there to buy, or dream about buying something. For a long while, t his is the only social site: Id post on because it gives results. It takes a little work, but has longer lasting results then other social medias.


So I've covered Myspace, Facebook, Pintrest an a little about Google & Instagram.


Myspace isn't even worth posting on any longer right now. Facebook is dying, but still an important way to document your journey as a artist. It's time line is helpful in regards to that. Pintrest is important and works with Google well. But what about Google? It has a social platform but is it worth using socially? I tend to look at Google two different ways. Local an National. It's important to at least have your local business listed on it an best if your in the top three return for those results. My photo studio always popped up first because it was the most popular in the area. So I didn't worry about it too much. I had the traffic I needed from it because it was popular. Starting over, with my own private photograph studio: I watch it. I created a Google page, similar to a Facebook page to keep me on the map locally of people to call when they search for local photographers.


It's what you would call a splash page.


It has information locals would need to contact me, an schedule a photoshoot: A few examples of my work. But I do not spend a lot of time on it as long as I am coming back in those results: photographer in my area. It's not something I needed to spend a lot of ad money on. There are two other studios in my area that do, that would compete like my old company that would with ads. They are something to look into, an if I was going to spend money on ads for my photography business. This is where I would do it. An Facebook for more targeted user ads.


For artwork, it's a little more complicated to be found.


I tend to think of Google as a national market for it. So, I do have a google page. I haven't paid as much attention to it as I should for artwork because I was busy doing portrait photography an didn't really NEED to. But since I'm focusing back on my traditional art more being semi retired: It's way more important then Facebook. Why? Because it's a national audience. I can go into a whole article just on it. Websites. Tags. Hashtags & search results.


An that's just it about social media: Use it for your custom needs.


Instagram, I just actually started using. I ignored it for a long time because I am a professional photographer. Not a hobbyist. So was reluctant to mix my work with snap happy phone picture takers. Now that it's established as a social platform I intend to use it to show the difference. It protects work to a degree an find it more beneficial to use then posting my portrait work on other social media. So I'm going to use it as a way for locals to reach me for that by using hashtags. So I can be found. I don't have to spend a lot of time on it either. It's just another way to portfolio my work. Once in a while, to break things up: I might throw in a piece of my artwork so it stands out.


An that's the thing, each social media platform can be used or good for something specific. Like Facebook, I've found just isn't the greatest place to post writing. It's better for me to post it on Google, Tumblr or Pintrest so it gets picked up by a wider audience that are specifically looking to read. Facebook, it be better to promote my art business posting Memes of quotes by me on top of my artwork.


Twitter, is like my garbage can.


Everything I do gets automatically shared an linked there. I don't waste a lot of time on it because I just never picked up a lot of followers there. I didn't focus on it, so actually closed it from public view for more then five years. I can't tell you the best way or right way to promote yourself or your business on it. But might look into it further now that I have more time on my hands on the best way for me to or other artist to use it. You are welcome to leave comments about it, if you do understand it better. But for the most part, I've just used it as automated feed. I check for comments on it but I find it a little too political for me.


An knowing what kind of customer your looking for helps when being on these platforms.


I'm not looking for political debates, my artwork isn't about that. So I just never saw it as having the viewers or customers I wanted. It might an I have under utilized it. I am on it though, with a few links encase someone looks for me: I can be found. Instead of using it: I asked the younger generation what they use:


The answer was Tumblr.


I'm on it for that specific reason: It reaches a my twenty somethings better. An that's the part of being on social media you want to understand. Who are you trying to reach? What customers. Who buys your artwork? Who your photography? Where is your time best spent promoting your art work on social media? Who's your niche. I sell children's photography the most: So I want to reach out to who has them an who will buy them. In my photography, senior citzens buy more often then anyone. So Facebook is important for it. Tumblr, seems better for blogs. An LinkedIn for reaching professionals. Snap Chat might reach a younger generation: but I'm not on it. Because it doesn't save my work. It's a waste of my time to interact on.


I'm on all other social medias that are imporant, but how much time I dedicated to building a following on or network has varied. The last ten years, I was in a position that I didn't need to spend tons of time on social media to sell art. I sold face to face but always kept the social media accounts for back up: an would update others occasionally about what I was doing. They helped me get the opportunity I had. But depending on what you are doing, is going to dictate how much time is worth investing in being on them.


They are a part of my daily, weekly, monthly routines selling art.


I haven't really fully used them to their capacities since 2014. I spent my time actually doing the art. Artwork I couldn't share to protect the customers privacy. While the work I put into social media previously still produced fruit. Not as much as they are capable of because I don't have a full time marketing team behind me. The good news about them is, if you get busy people don't seem to mind if you fall off the face of the earth for a while. You can pick them back up, an continue to brand your art with them. Your effort isn't lost.


Now that I have time to work more independently as an artist: I intend pick right back up where I left off and use them to my full advantage. All the efforts, I put in before where without a website. They left a lasting impact. Opened doors for me as an artist with others but I did want to see what would happen if I left them for a long period of time. If my work could still be found because I used them.


I happy to report it can be.


So it's not a wasted effort marketing this way. An like I mentioned before: Loosing a great deal of digital work. It was a priority for me to know the work I put in would last. Marketing is a lot of work. But your art is a business, an this is the best way to reach customers today. You might have to follow the trends on social media, but content last. This is the cheapest way to reach others: Word of mouth.


It always has been.


But it's also the most priceless.


My last suggestion is not to come off as an advertisement, but your authentic self.
Your an artist, an that alone makes you interesting to others. Use social media to let others learn about you. Your story is told a little bit at a time on each one of these platforms. The more you can document it on them, an still get art work done the better. Just don't loose site, an be on them more then you continue to do your art. Marketing and networking is just one step, in selling your art. Not all of it. I slowed down on social media only when those where was covered by the companies I worked for. When I'm not working for someone else, working independently: I use them. But I don't spend all my time on them. Limit yourself an the time you spend on them so you actually produce artwork (content) for them.


An remind yourself, it's business: Not just socializing.


It's networking with clients & potential customers: Not just socializing. Interacting with them is important. Service is important. But it's not all you are going to do as an artist. It's just one aspect of being an artist. Running a business. I spent a third of my day talking with customers at my studio. Doing sales & marketing. I thought of social marketing, like newspaper and flyers. Just another important step in promoting my studio. The rest of the day, I was actually doing the artwork.


Keep this in mind.


You can't sell a product if you forget to take the time to produce it. Doing artwork takes time. Some things I do artistically takes a long time. Like murals. Painting. Drawing. Writing. Don't let marketing online, distract you from the main focus of your job: Art.


Use it to back up what it is you actually do: Make & Sell Art.
You want your art business: work to be popular, not necessary you.


Just keep in mind, major companies have folded because they didn't take the internet or social media seriously when marketing. Keep at it, but don't let it consume you or all your time. My grandmother use to say: If you just get one thing done a day. It amounts to something over time. So, try to get a least one post a day of your artwork done. If it takes longer: Post about working on it. The top people marketing on the internet post ten-twenty things all over different social platforms to be successful making a living on it.


Explore different ways to get your message across without being a walking billboard. Your an artist. Coming up with creative ways to express yourself an your art should be second nature to you. Just displaying your artwork is one way. Writing about it another. Creating quotes. Meme's. Photo's. Videos. Flyers. Podcast another.


Be yourself, an what you want your brand to be about.


I've watched one branding themselves: An all they do is post sarcastic memes. They are funny. It suits their brand. Their name. It sells their clothing line. Artwork. They post something simple about ten times a day, linking back to their work, to buy. It doesn't have to be over complicated as being all all these sites seem. So, think about the image you want to project. Who do you want to attract? How: What emotion can you express or illicit that will reach them? Be yourself in the process, giving a high level of response: Service in the process being consistent.


Social marketing does work.


If it's not working for you, examine what you can change in your approach to it.

From 1996 to 2001, I ran a website called Mommysbiz. It was for mothers, daycare & care providers. I did it all myself from programming, designing to producing all it's content. I competed with a company that had material resources an probably a full programming team an won. This site had everything on it from regular articles to preschool work sheets. It had a collection of fairy tales, children's song lyrics an lesson plans. Anything to do with babies, children or toddlers you could think of I used as content. An it stayed in the top ten rankings & had decent traffic because---


Content is King on the internet.
It is what drives internet traffic.


I had built a brand doing it an was just starting to monetize it when a few things ended it. One, my computer crashed. I needed an upgrade. I went through a divorce, costing me a great deal of money. An I got to the point I just could no longer afford to give away the house for free. I was broke and expecting my third child. So broke, I could no longer keep up with the cost of my host provider.


I lost my work.


Five years of work. Poof! Gone.


I had a backup of it but I let it go. I just had to much going on to personally to continue even though I was in the process of creating a portal---a network—similar to Facebook today. One only for care providers. It did get me job offers though. Even though I was doing it, an doing it right: I opted for returning to college to learn even more. So when I say: I explore something fully. I'm not really kidding. I learned about 10 different programming languages. An when I tell you, you can get lost just learning about computers, the internet & all the software involved I'm not joking either. What I did gain though was experience few have: Running a successful site the way businesses into today's market should.


If your doing Content is King: transitioning to social media isn't hard.


When I ran my site it was before Social media really took off. But when it did, I took a different approach. An one I no better then but did it for a few specific reasons. One, I really hate programming. I had burnt out on it. I grew tired of having to learn a new language ever so often. I got tired of having to purchase new software. Of re-learning something. I saw it as a waste of time because art is what I really loved. An business management is what I did for a living. Computers was just a means to a end to me. To do those things.


So when social media exploded: I went at it differently.


I was either going to get on here an it be about art, business or management. Or I wasn't doing it. The reason why: I was not going to see another five years of my life go up in smoke over something that didn't produce enough money to support me. Maybe as a hobby: I'd still learn new stuff but I wasn't going to waste anymore of my time on “pipe dreams”. Even though I still believe in the internet. It's power to change the world. A firm belief. I've watched it change mine. An so many others.


But the the loss of that five years worth of work changed my approach.


I just wasn't willing to loose anymore work an I did something: I know better then to do. I operated without a website. I posted on social media. I posted my artwork on other art sites because content is still king but I wasn't going to loose my content again. Especially artwork. I took the long haul approach. Leaving a legacy approach.


What do I mean by that?


Humm... well if I ever got into a personal financial crisis again. My work would still survive it. My data wouldn't be lost. I made bets on which sites would survive over time: in case a site, computer or backup ever failed. I would have records & copies of my work else where. An I'm glad I did. I've had three computers die on me since. Had to take a couple of websites down due to money crunches. An lost three backup drives of my work. I even lost my original art portfolio & some murals hiring a mover to move my stuff from one house to another. But because I was worried about loosing everything again. All my artwork has survived except a few things written when I first got on social media.


This is my biggest reason for telling other artist to join art sites.


To put the work in posting your work to sites like: Redbubble, ImageKind, Fine Art America, Devaint art. Don't just pick one but several. Most of them are free, an low cost an give you residual income in the event something should happen to you. Your website. Or your backup drives. It's extra work but it ensures a backup of your work while promotes you to others across the web. They get picked up an scanned by search engines & your work can still be found. You could just pay for a backup on a cloud site: but again. If something where to happen to you: like death, a long hospitalization or financial situation where you couldn't pay it: Or simply forgot to. Your work could be lost.


It's not full proof.


I've joined some sites, like Artist Rising or Art250 to see them fold an close up shop. But chances of them all doing it at the same time are slim. But the first thing you want to do with your work is ensure it's survival long past you. I didn't join these sites for residual income. Although it can be a nice stream I didn't expect to get rich doing it. I did it so my work wasn't lost. I will always have access to a copy of my work. A record of it.


The advantage of doing t his is it leaves a footprint across the web of you & your work.


I recommend water proofing it so it can not be easily stolen but see it as a must do. My site original site was giant. I lost a lot of work. So, my first recommendation before you even start creating artwork is always going to be: Creating several backups of it. One on your computer, two backup drives of it, a website & cloud back up of it if you can afford it and across sites that will last. It's not that I set out to make more work for myself, because posting to numerous art/photo an social sites is a lot of work. I just didn't see the value in doing something that could be easily lost.


An digital can be.


So this is the first priority in doing any kind of art, even traditional because even a actual original you can hold it in your hand piece of art work can be lost. Or sold. You will always own the copyright of it so you should sell prints of it anyway. I'm thankful, I took the time to take quality photos of mine for that. Because when I moved an they didn't make it to the new house. I about flipped my lid. Some of them took a day to do, others six or more months. An I didn't calm down over it until I realized I still had backups of them on these sites. Losing your work, is like a death of a loved one or child.


It's not something you want to go through.
This is the true benefit of being on these sites. While, there is a down side of driving customers to these sites instead of your own: The peace of mind of knowing your lifes work won't be lost far out weighs the few customers you might loose. That is the only down side of them.


Backup is the biggest reason I suggest using them.


Most have a free portion that will be maintained even if you can no longer pay fees to them. They will maintain them. The plus sides are: You will be part of a community of other artist. Have emotional support by other like minded individuals. The sites do promote art, an you as well. Not as much as I'd like to see them do for individual artist but it's better to be apart of something: then nothing. An like I mentioned, the search engines scan these sites: helping you promote yourself and get your name an art out there. It helps in branding your art. Gives recognition to you as an artist. I've been honored to be spotlighted on Red bubble. Included in articles on Imagekind an featured on other sites. It boosted my work. An on each one, you can drive folks back to your own website an on social media to learn more about you as an artist. Your work and your story.


It's extra work but worth it in the long run.


Helping you establish yourself as an artist. No matter what type. They made it easier for artist to be found. Twenty years ago, having someone find your artwork & site was harder. Websites only had one means of being found: Directories & search engines. Being apart of one of these sites drives extra traffic, viewers and customers to you work.


So it has added bonuses to make it worth doing.


It takes a little more time & effort but helps you brand yourself on the internet. An while you may not always be able to keep a portfolio website up: You will always have some place to direct people to your work. It's helped landed me commissioned work, apprenticeships, customers & jobs. Being involved with these opened up opportunities for me I might have never seen without them. An some artist actually do make enough revenue off them to make a living. Not all, but a lot do. So, I won't promise anyone a future taking this approach materially. But if you are in art career for the long haul. Leaving a lasting legacy of your art work.


I recommend involvement with the majors listed on my website.
Depending on the type of art you do, is where you will want to go.


I don't however suggest that you think you will become an over night sensation. There is a lot of competition on these sites. Sometimes I feel like my work is just mediocre looking at some of the other work others do. It's not, but sometimes we can get into the habit of beating ourselves up an comparing ourselves to others. Try not to. An if you catch yourself doing that, stop. Look at others work for inspiration. Or how to improve your own work without being internally critical.


I also don't suggest thinking involvement will create a lot of income. It hasn't generated tons for me but some. They say only 1% of one percent of artist actually sell work on the Internet. That it's a rarity. I have sold work, not enough to live off comfortably each year though but enough to know it's a valuable tool in branding my work that's brought me other opportunities in my “real” that did benefit me financially. I feel someone has to be honest about this. It's not a get rich scheme.


Art is work. It takes dedication. Discipline.


The one's that make the majority of the money on these sites is themselves. Yet, They are promoting art. The art community an offer a valuable service to artist. If your doing it to just make money, it's going to seem to you like a lot of extra work for little return: Unless you understand the a long term game plan in using them: Like backup of your work & establishing your art & branding it. Yourself.


Then the investment of time in them is worth it.


But content is King, still today on the internet. As an serious artist, you should have this in abundance. Content others want or can use. Don't loose it or waste it. Use it strategically to further your art career. In a way that relates to your achievements of long-term or overall aims and interests. They will establish your progress as an artist. Show your growth. Create a foundation of solid work.
Joining these art sites, gives you an advantage.
A portfolio of your work, that isn't easily lost.

Content is King, This hasn't changed since Bill Gates stated it in 1996. Some these days now are saying: “Content is King, but is anyone listening?” No. They are reading less. They are viewing more.
What are they viewing? Art. Design. Photography. Video. Etc
Artwork Is Content. It Is The Mother Of All Kings.

If nothing else Art is most certainly Queen on the Internet today.

It's more valuable then you think. Save yours.
Artwork is work worth the trouble of preserving.

 Mission: My Fractal Art is about life. I wanted to demonstrate how we are like God, God is within us, so is Mother Nature & Father Time: The Universe. How “God” is “coded” into us: Mathematically, with sacred Geometry abstractly.

I wanted to try to convey my NDE artistically.


In 1992, I gave birth to my first child. It was over 72 hours of labor and I had a near death experience having her. She was born 9lbs 10oz after much struggle being stuck in my birth canal. I was in sever pain. I passed out an went into a “dark state”. The pain lifted, but all I could see was dark.


I thought to myself. This is it. The end.


For the pain had lifted. I was in a state of utter peace-- one no matter how hard I try to describe with words does not even begin to give it justice. I had never felt such an over whelming feeling of it before in my life. Nor since. I did not panic, I welcomed it. I thought to myself, now would probably be the time to ask for Jesus. So I did.


Then I saw what others have described as a white light off in the distance. I floated towards it. An thought out loud, with words but without them: Take me. I'm ready. The light grew larger an it was as if I was having a conversation with it. I asked it to take me, but please be sure my newborn was raised the way I would raise it.


I was instantly thrown back into my body.


Back into the intensity of pain, an soon gave birth to my daughter. But the moments I spent “talking to” what I can only describe as God, have been with me all my life. The time, seemed to stand still as I did, although it was probably only a at tops less then a minute. I walked away with a profound sense of “the other side”. An have been searching for a way since to describe what I felt an saw since artistically.


Nothing I have done, has ever seemed to give it the justness it deserves. Or conveys the peace felt. I am a very spiritual person now because of the experience but not overly religious. I do not preach or thump about people about God. Yet, as an artist feel I should try to express the experience creatively. I call what I witnessed God, another might not. So in my work I've tried to express different moods, feelings and sentiments every human experiences.


In 2009, I was contemplating returning to college at Rock Valley to finish up my associates degree. I only had two classes left to take: One of them Algebra which I hate, an have had to repeat more then once since high school. In fact, I was always the kid that would point out to the teachers: When the hell am I ever going to use this in “real” life. I just never saw me using it in art, or anything else for that matter. I was more of a ace at geometry. An it's always been my worse subject, an this time I had to do College level.


I wasn't sure I wanted to put myself through it just for a piece of paper.


So, I got on Google reviewing Algebra to refresh myself. Contemplating if I could even do it anymore. I happened across a Algebra software program. Decided to download it, to see if it could help me. I opened it up, ran it an blew my own mind basically: This was it! It was like jumping down a rabbits hole. I could not get enough of the visuals I saw.


Parts of it where very similar to the “light” I saw.


Described it visually perfectly. The sights within the program where that complex. I started taking screen shots of what I would find within the program. Then importing many into photoshop an enhancing them with light an color. Many of my pieces I worked on describe the experience perfectly. I was shocked and amazed Algebra / Geometry on a computer could show this in such detail. I continued to explore that program an others. “Seeing” things in the rendering it. Popping them out. Enhancing them. An coming up with beautiful abstracts found just like in nature. Asking others, what do you see?
An finding others would see several different images inside one.


Almost like a ink blotter test can.


So I shy'd away from telling folks what I see in one of my fractals, or what it means to me. An left it as you see what you see... just like any good abstraction does. I set a goal, of making a fractal a day for a year. Disciplined myself to do an share one a day. Entertaining others while teaching them about simple fractal art. An as my photoshop skills improved I started to get into more the more abstract art.


I had never liked abstract art in my life until I was introduced to fractals.


I feel in love with color again an the idea of conveying emotion differently then I had ever done before. I grew as a artist because I had a sound belief behind the art & symbolism of it an in it.


That it represented life.


I kept them a simple as you can complex abstraction but found that fractals are what we are made of. They are all though out nature. An like in nature, start out small and given time grow into something beautiful. Sacred Geometry is in our Oceans, Forest, Animals even us. It's what our universe looks like as well. Fractal art is very similar to what a brain can look like inside, our cells an even snap shots of space. An it's all based on mathematical code. Even DNA and light.


So while I'm still not a Algebra expert.


I've come to see it as a code within all things.
Its how “God” is in everything. Even us.


Only computes could produce that kind of mathematical scale to show it so clearly. An having been a computer geek for over 21 years, was elated to discover just how close they can replicate what is out in the real world. Of course I'm not the first to discover it. Pixar figured it out and bases a lot of realistic backgrounds in their animations. Fractal is used in computer gaming an all sorts of visual stuff these days. Fractal art is used to reproduce miniature worlds, with foliage, cliffs an realistic landscapes. An it looks so realistic because this is how mother nature creates it herself.


For me: It unlocked a key for showing what I experienced.


Not every piece is about my NDE, but a lot of them do have this theme of light in them for that reason. For me, it's like looking at what we experience everyday in another way. So we can appreciate what we have: Life an all the profound emotions we experience living it.


An how God is most creative artist there is. Think about it.
Just how beautiful life is.


That is the goal of my fractal art:
To get others to think about it.


Life's beauty.

I took close to ten years off from Art. Through my late teens & early twenties. Not because I didn't still love doing art but because I felt the need to finally explore my world. I got into retail management & thoroughly enjoyed business marketing as part of it. It opened up another side of art to me. The art of business.

My daughter is kind of in a panic about not knowing what she wants to be when “she grows up”. As I explained to her, your late teens & early 20's is the perfect time to explore who you are and what you want to be. I've always known I was an artist an wanted to be one but since I didn't have the money to go to The Institute of Art in Philadelphia or Minnesota. I took my general college classes at the local community college Rock Valley an explored work. I took odd jobs: like part time printers assistant at the local Newspaper. I worked in restaurant management. I worked in bars as part of the local scene. Explored opening my own business as a painter & stainer in residential construction. Found myself really interested in business: Taking accounting certification. Then took a full time management job as a Cstore manager. An a couple of years after my child was boring opened my own business as a Daycare provider.

I didn't get back to ART art, until I was 26ish.

One of the reasons being, is I didn't see the need to spend a lot of money on art college if the jobs where not there to make a living doing it. I was interested in marketing because it was practical application of art. It which one could make a reasonable living. When home computers came out: Then I knew what I wanted to do as an art career. An through myself into it. I returned to college, in my late twenties. Learned everything but the kitchen sink that was available in computers. I learned a lot of hardware stuff, I wasn't really interested in. An harder programming then just the self taught html. But the what I was most interested in was computer multi media graphics & interfaces: Which they really didn't have degrees for back then.


An this is why I'm telling my daughter to explore for a few years.


Find out what you are interested in most. I didn't know that I'd be so interested in business. I just knew I wanted to be an artist. An I'm thankful I took the time to explore other things out in the real world before I settled down into art again. Because the truth is, being an artist can be hard without business skills. I'm glad I learned retail. Management. Business. I take it a lot less personally when someone doesn't like my art or buy it.


An the truth is: Explore has always been my first step in art to begin with.


It's the first step I always take in any art piece. You have to know what your wanting to do, learn or teach yourself to do before you even embark on a project. When I was very young, it was just wanting to be able to replicate my favorite cartoon characters. So, I would draw them over an over until I could do it perfectly. When I was 7-8 years old I couldn't wait for my next Disney book so I could read it an redraw everything in it. I'd explore the book fully. Then set out on a mission to replicate everything in it. I spent one whole summer just learning how to paint on tshirts, an would explore what I wanted to put on them.


Making a colleged portfolio of ideas.
I started this habit of collecting ideas from magazines & clippings early on. Which later on, professionally was told to do. That it's a great habit to be in. Exploring & putting together inspiration for my own work. I use to have a full size file cabinet of nothing but clippings that would remind me of works I wanted to do.


It wasn't to copy another work.


But a collection of things would remind me of something I wanted to draw or paint later. For a completely different piece of work. An example would be me saving the way a arm looked in a photo, to be able to draw it in a painting doing something completely different later. Every piece of art I've ever done has started off with exploring.


I spent one summer just exploring calligraphy. Font.


Until I could sit an draw different type of fonts on my own off the top of my head for different work. I spent a year exploring how to come up with my own cartoon type characters. Another year, just exploring animals. Drawing those. Another just working on faces & the human form. A couple of years painting in acrylics. Oil. Watercolor. Ect.


It always started with exploring a topic or medium.


Around 11-12 my art expanded with the realization that what made one drawing of an animal stand out over another I had drawn was Expression. I remember it pretty clearly that I was drawing a monkey that had a certain laugh in his eyes. They had a shine to them. Clearly conveying happiness. An up until that point, my drawings of say horses kinda had a deadpan look in their eyes. I worked on this moneky for a week, making sure I could reproduce that expression an finally had it perfect. It was perfect. His expression I managed to convey. An people reacted to it deeply. That's when I knew:


Expression is important.


Art is emotional. It's to express emotion. Convey a feeling. Elicit a response. Make a person do a double take. In photography they use the term: Making it “pop”. Really grabbing another's attention. I worked with a lot of folks, if your familiar with Sears Portraits that really would push proper posing. Which don't get me wrong is important: but not near as important as being able to snap someone authentic expression. Expression is what makes the difference between a simple photo and a portrait. Expression is what makes art good or great. It has the ability to pull from it's viewer a emotional response. My studio sales went up 30K a year because I would take expression over posing someone to death.


I once watched a senior photographer spend 20 minutes posing a family. The family was so sick of her by the time she got her proper pose; they had dead pan eyes. The whole shot looked great other then that. They didn't buy it. The experience was enjoyable. An it showed. Photography is a interactive art form. Folks, aren't just paying you to take photos they can take on their own. They are paying you for the experience as well. You have to be part clown, likable an enjoyable to get those precious expressions worth buying & printing. An it doesn't just have to be just smiles. The expression can be serious, sad, curiosity: you name it. But without authentic expression photography just isn't as good as it could be.


Expression is important to me. It's a part of my process.
No matter what kind of art I want to do, I learned early on expressing something is what makes it stand out. So I tend to think about what it is I want my art to express. Joy? Sorrow? Anger? What you want is an observable verbal and nonverbal way to communicate an internal affective state. An you want it conveyed so well that the other person doesn't even have to be consciously aware for it to registrar with them. It sounds like magic, but it's not.


If you think about it ahead of time, what your wanting to express.


Growing up, I wasn't really allowed to verbally express myself a lot. So I found fifty million ways to through art. Either by subject matter, color, texture ect. Artist are here to communicate: Even if it is non-verbal. We express our selves in numerous ways. You want to leave a impression. You do that by thinking about what you want to express. What expression would one's face & eyes make? An then go about giving off that “feeling” in what ever art style or material of your choice. It's easier to explain by talking about my photography but it's just as important in traditional & non traditional art forms.


I see a LOT of art daily.


It's always the one that expresses a feeling or mood well that stands out. So, Express is an important step in my creation process. I think about what impression I want to leave my viewer. What emotion I want to get out of them. Do I want them to feel joy? Then I'd make sure the monkey I'm drawing conveys his. My family subjects I'm photographing are having a good time. So their eyes smile. Or in my fractal art uses colors that the mind process as that.


It's not enough to just be good at drawing.


I see lots of younger folks drawing anime characters. A lot of them, while drawn well lack. They are just kinda blah even though drawn well. Why? Because they lack depth in expression.


So Express is part of my creation process an motto.


My last step is to actually create the piece.


In fractal art I would spend a day just going down the “rabbit hole” of a software program to get inspired. I'd explore. Think about what is I wanted to express with different snap shots: then go into photoshop an create it using color, light & enhancements. In drawing or painting, I've spent years studying spirituality, mythology, folk lore, symbolism an color to convey meaning. With computers I spent a lot of time just exploring how to do technical things so I could get to the point of doing art well with one. So, expressing with one is second nature to me. Just as I had studied calligraphy once upon a time on paper. I studied it & collected them on computes.


I just tend to pick a subject, explore it.
Think about what I want to express.
Then create it.


Even in my portrait studio, the process was the same.


It's a simple effective system for getting really good at any art form. It works with traditional art, caricature, font, writing, photography, programming, computer art. I haven't really ran into an art form it doesn't work with yet. The creation process no matter what art form you choose get's better each time you do it. I wasn't the best portrait photographer in my area when I first started my process. But by the time I had done over 3000 photo shots, I was 80th nationwide. All using this process. So, you if you keep creating with this process in mind. Your creations improve. Your art improves.


It's what makes art stand out.

Explore * Express * Create

After I turned my parents into DCFS, around my thirteenth birthday: My “parents” labeled me a wild child out of control. They found a six pack in my room, which was a friends. Found out I was smoking cigarettes. Said a dish of baby powder, I had used as facial make up to dress up as a clown for Halloween was cocaine. An leaves I was pressing under my bed for a science project at school was pot.


An they read my personal diary.


Even shared the first time I had a sexual encounter with my grandmother. It wasn't even sex. It was more of like my first kiss sorta stuff. But it was a total invasion of my privacy. I felt more violated by that & the lies they told DCFS & others to make themselves look better then they where then the actual beatings themselves.


I didn't write again until I was in my twenties because of it.


The put me in a church school to “straighten me out”. Moved me into a small bedroom upstairs near their room. Covered the windows, so I couldn't even see out. I felt like a prisoner more then a child someone cared about. Like I was living out Cinderella in real life, with no fairy god mother to give me a glass slipper. The work load increased but I didn't care.


I had stopped something that needed to be stopped.


Physically anyway. I was pretty much stripped of who I was. Forced to wear dresses, even though I was the worlds biggest tomboy. It did nothing but give me a resentment of God at the time. Listening to the lectures each morning in bible study typically made me mad. The church was very conservative. It treated women sub servant. They didn't believe in music. Or dancing. An to the other kids there, I was the wild child who didn't conform.


Nor did I really want to.


Truth is, I felt bad for a lot of them. They didn't seem to understand there was a whole world out there waiting for them. I felt most of them where being taught to be afraid of it. An it didn't make sense to me God would give us a world that provided everything we needed, to be in fear of it. All I had during that time period in my life, was my music & my art. They always got me through each day.


An to me, where God given muses.


So instead of fighting this image of me, they all labeled me. I embraced it.


Lord knows, they all gave me more then enough material to rebel against. To me, it was just having the strength to get through another day of brain washing. It did though make me think about God. An what God really was in the most primitive way. I accepted Jesus died on a cross. That I probably should be bastardized to wash away the pain I was feeling. It didn't really work, but it gave me another outlet. I decided I believed in God, just not their take on him. An spent a lot of time learning to argue in biblical verse.


That whole year, really is when I started to believe in the power of the mind.


Mind over matter. That no matter what the circumstances, if I kept it strong I would & endure anything thrown at me until I turned 18. To me, it was physiological abusive. An made me really leery of religion. Not God. Or spirituality because spirit is what I felt got me through that time in my life. An the power of the will to over come & the mind. To me, ya just had to be smarter then the people holding you back.


I just through myself into art more. Listened to my music


An embraced my inner bitch if you will: Wild Child. I really didn't do much wrong. I actually probably was a model kid growing up in the 80s but an chance I got to party or raise a little hell I did. If your going to get accused of something, well then you might as well drink that Jack with the cute bad boy of the school instead of go to the football game. But I was a responsible partier even back then. I couldn't afford to get caught, be locked back into a room & stuck back in a church school I hated. I learned not to get caught. Period.


So when I threw up from drinking, it was in a closet & no one found out about it.


I'd skip lunch everyday at the new high school & go off campus for smokes. It was so routine that principle use to wave at me thinking I did indeed have permission to do so. I spent two years there basically taking every art class I could. An meet my future husband. Then we moved to another location an I took two more years of art. So it was like me being a sophomore in college art, instead of high school. That's how much art I did. But when Senior year hit, I started dating Mr. Wild thing from my old high school. He was Mr. Party himself.


My dad hated him, just based on all the information he had mustered up from my uncle about him. An the first thing my dad did was accuse him of stealing a watch from his truck. He had actually spent the day with me mowing lawns, an my dad was furious. I was forbidden from seeing him an well, that just made us all the closer. After I turned 18, I skipped work to see him: We went mudding in my Chevette. Got the thing stuck in a mud puddle. An I couldn't go home that night. I called my mother, to tell her I was saying at friends house from work for the night. She demanded I come home or I would be kicked out an would not receive any help for Art College.


I had been accepted at several.


Him & I went an spoke with his mother. Explained the situation an she agreed to let me move in if they did kick me out. The next day, we got the car unstuck an went to my house to see all my belongings strewn all over the yard. I actually consider it one of the best things that ever happened to me. My parents where just beyond overly strict. They actually had no clue, what a good kid I was. An I was so overly ready to break loose it wasn't even funny.


I was suppose to graduate a year early at the first high school. So I finished my first semester of senior year. Dropped out, knowing I could still graduate at the other in a reasonable amount of time taking a semester off. An I finally got to be the free spirited person I was. Myself. Wild child or not. Rebel whatever they wanted to call me didn't matter anymore: I was finally free of the bullshit once an for all. An I embraced it.


We where the official party couple.


Hosting party's all the time, drinking & smoking weed but to me: We really where not as wild as the stories told about us. Some of them really where out there. I really put down the art during the next two or three years. I suddenly had 5-6 of his friends I adopted as brothers coming in an out of the house all the time. It wasn't a quiet environment where you could do art really. But I didn't mind. I had been waiting to be released from prison since I was 13. We spend a huge amount of time, camping, hiking an just being outdoors. I loved it. An he did try to give me space to do art, while he fished. I just wasn't as into it because I knew I was not going to be able to go to college for it like I planned.


An I probably did need time off from it before I burnt myself out on something I loved.


So, my early 20's was about embracing my inner “wild thang”. In fact, he use to call me that. While some of the guys, I consider a second family to me in a lot of ways called me “Dragon Lady”. Now weather that was because I sat in the living room trying to paint blue dragon mural once or because I spent a lot of time trying to keep the “lost boys” out of trouble only they can tell ya. Either way, I earned my party stripes an didn't get serious again until I returned for my last semester in high
school.


To me, it was a year of exploration.


An finally being able to enjoy myself. An sometimes we have to get out in the world, explore it to express it creatively. An my little party reputation landed me jobs, that later came in handy running a business that was all about entertainment.


Explore. Express. Create.


An that's kinda where my little motto came from. Those years. It was the first years of my life, I actually got to get really social. I didn't get a lot of art done during that time. The half painted blue dragon, a half drawn picture of my Siberian Husky, a colored pencil drawing of the boyfriend fishing….the last thing I completed was a stipple of Tommy Lee of Motley Crue.


I didn't really go into the relationship or that time period to give up art.


More like, put it away for a while and just be. Enjoy. Pick it back up later, after the growth spurt I felt I was going through was over. I wrote some but not much over the seven years I was with my first husband. An the truth maybe, we where just really too young to be that serious about one another but when adulthood reality hit I wasn't that thrilled to be waiting tables & selling shots for a living. To me, it was just a stage. Not one I could see myself stuck in the rest of my life.


Even though I embraced my party beast so to speak.


My cousin getting hit by a drunk driver, made me wake up. It woke a lot of us up. She had just turned 21. An it hit all of us hard. The whole community. Everyone our age. Straighten me right up, even though I typically still was the party responsible girl: It made me more so being involved in the bar & local party scene. I cared we lost her to it. An it tore me apart watching people my husband & I both loved get involved in heavier drugs. An go down paths to me even then seemed rotten ones to choose.


I'm not ashamed tosay I tried coke.


I don't know a person growing up in the eighties that didn't. But I am thankful I didn't get addicted. Had enough sense not to get involved with it an don't really care if some saw me as someone who would lecture not to do the shit. Or heavier stuff. I'm may have been free spirited. A little hippy dippy but not stupid. An I saw that whole scene as stupid. Something that would waste your life away. An it has several of the “kids” we grew up with. A lot or no longer around to argue with me about not doing it because they did it. I'm thankful that because of the way I grew up: I saw consequences. I might have been a little more serious then most but it's why I'm still sitting here today. I know how to throw down a party, make money an no one get hurt an have a good time. Like they are suppose to.


I was watching Netflix: Internet Memes recently an kinda got grateful my generation didn't grow up with social media. I'm not ashamed of my partier status or anything from back in the day. Cause trust me, we all where notorious in our local area: but I out grew going out all the time an raising hell. I had children. I settled down. I went out but not all the time. It became a business, with the family bar more then a past time. An it might have been one part of my personality but not all of it.


The show I watched, one of the guys in it is a major influencer that travels bar to bar across the nation photographing parties. Creating events. I didn't travel bar to bar: but I ran several once upon a time. An you do get burnt out on it. I was burnt out on parting before my dad even bought the tavern. I had moved on into business management & a serious career. Motherhood. Doing art again. I wasn't thrilled to back behind a bar peddling drinks again. I was interested in business, marketing & event planning but burnt out on college type scene of it.


I had “grown up”.


An yes, I'm grateful for the business but really didn't want to get stuck in a role. A role that influencer got himself stuck in. One I could have been stuck in had social media existed back when we where all in our hay day and later when my father opened it. The guys 33, an yes it gets old. In fact, later after my first husband & I split: I got a call from him upset that his new girlfriend didn't get it. He didn't want to drink and party all the time like she did. Been there done that. An could I please explain that to her. You might want to be that person in your twenties, but eventually it grows old. You don't want to be the life of the party every day anymore.


Social media was hitting hard, just after my father passed an we decided to reopen the bar. It needed to be done but I didn't want to be “that” person I was in my twenties anymore. It's a part of who I am: The preferable wild child but it's not all of who I am. I didn't mind helping the girls out to get it promoted and going on the internet social scene but I was pretty careful not to be seen much. I'd show artwork, promote music an celebrate the ol' lifestyle but I didn't want it become my image.


It's only one part of my life. Not all of it.


My dad would call it being a professional. An the guy on the show is, as we all where. Are. But he's now stuck in a rut. He can't escape from. People don't see him as a professional photographer. They see him as a party guy. They see image of him. That is how he makes his money. He doesn't own a business that's conducive with settling down, or having a family. Something he wants. An it might be part of why I side stepped the whole scene an was happy to just run my family photography studio. I could have been over there the whole time, taking pictures an posting just the scene on my social media promoting the bar. An I was there the first night of a major concert even with SoiL doing just that. Documenting it all.


I just didn't feel people would take my art seriously if that's all I did.


They'd just expect the wild child party girl. An helping promote it by hooking up with everyone I've ever known locally since grade school that is kinda how some saw me. They'd ask about me and my first husband. Even though we've been separated well over 15 years by that time. They'd expect me to come out an meet them for drinks. Although I rarely drink. They'd expect me to be that girl again. Which I'm not. She's just one part of me.


A part I'm proud of but not stuck in the role of acting out.


That guy on the show, is stuck. It's going to be hard for him to get another job or be seen any other way then party hardy mr. irresponsibility. Even if behind the scenes he's really not even that person he is know for anymore. At least I can walk away from it saying I was a CEO of a successful business but if my face was plastered all over social media drunk from every party I ever attended in my life time I'm not sure I could have moved on to other things I have.


Before social media it was easy to do three jobs at once & them not interfere with one another. Now, I swear it just confuses people when I post party pictures and bands, then post my family portrait stuff. Add the other types of artwork I do an all my interests an the I get crickets from the people on social media because I have known so many different types of folks.


It was a headache just getting on social media for me.


Some knew I did art. Some only knew me from retail management. Some only the bar. Others from my raisin hell party days. Some just from the internet, that I use to sit in spiritual rooms with pondering the meaning of life with. It was like all the different aspects of my personality took a crash & burn. Some expected me to stay in one role. Kinda like some expect you to stay stuck in one art form. I helped get the bar off the ground on social media, promoted my fractal art work but went ghost after it all got a solid ground start.


I went an focused on a completely different art form.
An got off the internet for the most part.


Outside of promoting my studio to a totally different local market I wasn't on it much at all. Not because I'm unsocial. Just because I don't like getting stuck in a certain role. What I figured out pretty quickly about the whole social explosion was a expectation I'd entertain others without getting paid. I had influence. An well I can't eat likes, so I went back to work doing something I knew would bring in a income. Something more close to the person I am today.


I was pretty private about it as well.


Outside of my kids, no one but my customers knew I was even doing photography. I didn't need internet attention to do art. It's nice don't get me wrong when folks appreciate your work. But too many where asking for work for next to nothing because they knew me. I don't and can't work for free. I have my own family to support. An that's the dilemma that influencer had got himself stuck in. One he is going to have to break out of.


I don't mind documenting my artwork, or even my life but I prefer people to focus on my work: Not me. An it gets mighty uncomfortable on the internet every time someone I dated eons ago jumps on my page drunk or another tries to keep me in roles I've out grown. Since most have settled down on the internet now as themselves, an come to the renationalisation people have grown in an out of roles themselves I can be authentically myself.


Maybe I can tell my story & be authentically me.
My inner wild child demands it: Without role expectations.


An I'm okay with her, even if a few aren't. I'm not ashamed of the life I've lead. I've had many lives inside this one. Many chapters have played out in this book that is my life. My childhood was just one aspect of it. An I will not sit here an let my mothers approval or disapproval of what I have to say about that part of my life keep me from speaking my own truth. An just like back then, when I left home: I've been cast out for spilling it. A few aren't speaking to me because of it.


An that's okay.


Just like back then: I feel set free to be myself. Free spirited. Not so much wild now but pretty content an calm about doing my own thing. Which includes being all aspects of myself. Not just this or that season in my life. I think worrying about other's approval is one of the biggest problems we are facing on the internet today. It can stunt your growth as a person if you let it. Keep you from making art or showing it out of fear of rejection. Keep you from pursuing a life long dream. Shy you away from doing things you know you need to do for your business to be a success. Or keep you stuck in a rut if you let it.


Telling your story can be hard.


I have a personal hang up about others reading my work because my privacy was invaded when I was a teen. Yet I have a few screaming I'm invading their telling my story. I've always journaled as an adult. And as an artist, it's something I need to do. It helps me grow as an artist an connect with my fans an others more like myself. Who have gone through similar things, or out grown others. At age 50, I'm going into my grandmother stage. The wise old owl stage. The seasoned artist. An I'd be bent if someone tried to make me live the role I played in life when I was 13, 22 or even 40.


If someone isn't being supportive of you growing as a person or an artist.
Then cut them out of your life on social media.


Their approval & likes aren't needed.
Appreciated but not needed.


They are probably never going to buy your art, service or product. Especially if they can not embrace you as the whole person you are today. If I had to give advice to the guy stuck in party harty land photographing it. I'd tell him to move on to a different subject. Something that he is interested in now. It's why I choose to sneak off, disappear an do family photography. It's a subject, I still can embrace all the time. While once in a while I don't mind showing up at the local party scene an taking a few now in then. It's not what my life is about much anymore.


Your art & your story is about you.


Know what kind of customer & audience you want now. Not ten years ago. Twenty years ago. I have customers I've known since 1994. Most of them don't give a rat's ass for my fractal artwork. Some really love it. Others, totally dig my portrait photography. Some dig that I get into business like I do. Or music. Some just now figuring out I'm even an artist an can draw. Or paint. Some are just computer geeks, that totally get me & the fractal work. Some are never going to buy a piece of my art, but would love to buy me a drink down at the old family business an chit chat with them. Thrilled to hear my stories. An talk about the good ol' days. How I evolved from that to this. Why this an not that. Or where did you come up with that idea?


The point is, people are interested in artist stories.
An by the time you reach my age, it's a long one.


It's evolved. So has my art. So will yours. It's called growth.


Don't let social media or your past keep you stuck in a rut you no longer want to be in or do. Celebrate it because it's a part of what made you who you are now. But just like any job, it's okay to move on to the next one. The next phase. The next development. The next chapter of your life. It could be the best move you ever made. Me getting my car stuck in the mud at 18 my dad saw as one the biggest mistakes I made as a teen, dropping out but I finished and into adulthood. Lead me into a huge growth spurt, freedom and into learning business that also saved his ass more then a couple of times later on.


So don't be afraid to tell your story.


I am so much more then just a Wild Child.
And “Dragon Lady” didn't bother me much either.
It sold a lot of Jagger when I needed it too.


Besides, if you don't tell your story: People will just make stuff up anyway.
My life has been chalked with people telling tall tales.


It never hurts to tell your own version; In fact it usually sets ya free.


An that's the whole point of art anyway is to express your life story creatively.

Mission: Everyone Deserves A Outstanding Portrait Precious To Cherish Memories.


I believe precious moments should be cherished with a outstanding portraits worthy of print. That they should be hung in your home, on your walls & shared with friends and family.


In 2010, I took a management job as studio manager of a Picture Me! studio. I took a pay cut so I could combine my business management career with art. Yet, the other reason I took the job was because this was a belief I could get behind. To me having portraits done & taking family photo's is important.


For one, I grew up in a household that demonstrated this belief.


My mother, while not a professional photographer grasp the importance of documenting our lives. I think personally for me anyway, an several of my extended family it's importance rang home when my grandfather passed when I was four. He was not big on having his picture taken I don't think. But my aunt, had managed to get a hold of one of the only ones of him an had it cast in glass paper weight of sorts. They where given out at Christmas. An for me, being four years old not understanding death or his passing of a heart attack it was something I used to comfort myself with. I use to carry it around with me when I was missing him.


It helped with grief & sorrow.
Not just me, but all of us.


No, the portrait didn't replace him being with us: but I'm 50 years old an still can go to it an remember him. The babble (not sure what else to call it), even became a struggle between me & my dad. We would argue over who's it was. Of course it was a precious memory for both of us. So, I inherited it when he passed. I've owned a little & a lot over my life time: but it is my most prized possession.


It reminds me of him of course but of happier times in my childhood.


It reminds me of how much I was loved an he was. It reminds me to enjoy & live my life to it's fullest. My grandfather passed at age, 46 of a heart attack. They had been out square dancing the night before he passed. To me he looks a lot like James Dean: with the same tragic ending of dying too young. His portrait reminds me of him of course: but the lesson of not taking life for granted. We can go at anytime. That we should pack as much life into our lives as possible.


Enjoy the dance.
Or Seize the Day!


As my aunt likes to say: For we don't know how much time we have. An this is why I believe so much in the power of a photo. It not only captures a image of a person but can come to represent much more meaning then you ever thought it would when snapped. Its why I believe portraits are important. I was young when he passed. My image of him in my memory is not as clear as his portrait. An his life had value an meaning to me: That I want to remember crystal clear. Not only did it help with my grief, an others but it has given me strength to carry on in a way not many things could.


It can give you hope.


That things will get better, things have been better an will be again.


I have a portrait of me, my grandmother & my daughter. Three generations together. Proof of hope. That life does go on, an we will smile again. That while he may not be with us, he does live on through me an mine. His life mattered. Mine does an so do you an your loved ones. It's just not a belief to me. It's a fact. I cherish memories of those I love.


An portraits help us do so even more.


If you ever lost someone you loved, it's easy to understand. Not that any of us want to, but its a fact of life. At some point we pass an documenting our lives for those we leave behind is important. It's why it's so easy a belief for me to get behind an want to be a part of of. I enjoy, deep down to my soul helping families capture moments in their lives. Helping them document them in the best looking way as possible is deeply satisfying. Even if they don't even remember my name: I know that I helped them do something that will give them great rewards: Now & later.


Art is about deeply touching others.


Photography has been there for me: An I enjoy being there for others in the same way it has been for me. Sometimes we just don't have a clue just how beautiful we are or life is. As professional photographer I consider it my job—no mission: to remind you, your family & others. Just how very precious you are & life is. So you cherish it.


A good photographer will remind you.
Life is short, embrace it & enjoy it.


An while I think personal home snap shots are important. Documenting life: Having crystal clear, details oriented portraits done by a professional are as well. My father was the most anti camera person I think I've ever meet. An it bothers me, most of what photos we could get of him where usually grumpy get away from me facial expressions. The man actually had a great smile when you could get him to do it. I only have one professional portrait of him. Its clear, an it's his normal facial expression. I wish I had more then one. We should have hog-tied him and make him go more often to a professional. There are a few snap shots of him smiling: but they are blurry. I wish I had more of him that where sharp, clean and crystal clear vision of his life. Instead of one small 5x7 hanging on my wall.


He was important person in my life.
He deserves more space on that wall of life.


But when I look at it, I'm reminded of him in the most successful part of his life. That I too can be a successful, happy and confident. It reminds me of so many life lessons, an hardships over came to get where he was. It speaks volumes to me, even though he isn't here any longer to lecture me. One of the hardships our family faced was our family home burning down when I was around six. It caught fire, an they thought it was out. A few things where grabbed, then it burned down over night. We lost just about everything but the family photos. They where out of everything the most important things in the house, that could not be replaced.


Besides us & family memories.


Everything else, even my favorite stuffed donkey I had had since birth could be. Even today, I make back ups of my back ups of family photos: So if anything where to happen I still have the most important things that can't be replaced. I've even lost back ups of my artwork, but not the family photos. An when you ask most people what they would want out of their houses the most. Outside of making sure each family member got out alive: The family photos and portraits is going to be your answer. They just aren't something you can go back in time & redo.


They are valuable. Priceless.


They hold memories of times you can not get back. They show where we are now, an how far we have come. Time goes by in a blink of a eye: but they show our progress. Our determination. Our will. What our lives are about. What we valued. What we hold dear.


They say, what you photograph the most: Is what means the most to you.


Having thought I almost lost a uncle in a fire, I can't tell you how scarey that is. Or that it could have been any one of us, if the fire had not been caught in time to get us all out. It makes you cut out what you can live with & without really quick, an see what is most important.


I learned at a very early age. Life mattered. Family did.


So, getting behind the belief that portraits of those are important was easy. They've been important to my life. My families. I believe they are the most important things in life to be captured: Life itself. It's why I have continued to do children & family portraits so families have their memories captured in the best possible light. So they can cherish one another an remember with each how precious they are: An life is. It's something I know I can do that will be with you and yours in the best an worst of moments. It's an art that will always touch the deepest part of others.


An that's what the best art does.


So while I will always do other types of art, this is the one I do that I know benefits others the most. I consider it a privilege to be the one allowed to share those moments. I try to do my best to make it one of the most enjoyable interactive art moments of people's lives. Something one can participate in, remember fondly an enjoy for decades to come. I don't mind being part clown for others to have what I hold most dear. If I didn't cherish mine so much. I wouldn't expect others to. Yet, I do.


Portraits being important has just always been apart of my belief system.
So, it was easy to get behind them being important to others lives as well.
I just grew up where extreme situations happened that taught me just how important they can be. So I take them seriously. No matter how much I clown around to get that smile out of someone: I never forget the impact they have had in my own life. Or the one they will have in yours. It is a honor.

It's a life.

There is a art to life: It's a creation. Cherished Moments.
I don't know anything more important than life to do art of:

Life is the highest creativity there is.

I learned to do something from a very young age because the temperature dropped in my childhood house hold: Channel. Focus. When you grow up around difficult people or very authoritarian ones which mine where: I had a escape hatched I used an it was Art.


Still is today.


You can't yell, scream and protest like a normal human so you retreat into your head. It's really very normal response. I felt lucky my whole life to have discovered art at such a young age. I might have not been able to say out loud what I felt but refocus my attention to something else. If I didn't like how unhappy things where: I'd draw pictures of happier times. Or what I wanted them to be. Or I'd listen to music that lift me “out of it”. Change my mood all together.


Instead of focusing on something I could do nothing about...


I'd go to my room at 8-9 years old, crack open my newest Disney book. Read it. Then spend a week drawing the whole thing over & over until I had a exact copy. I didn't trace. I practiced. I concentrate on it instead of my parents somber moods. It was a overly serious house without a lot of lightheartedness. I choose to focus on something that would make me happy instead. Like being able to do what Walt Disney could. It redirected my thoughts into something productive.


An much like giving yourself round of personal therapy all the time.


In grade school, I got picked on a lot because I was really shy. Withdrawn. In third grade, the class bully decided it was my day to be picked on. Picked on me because of my pants, ran around the indoor recess taunting me, so I just went down an sat at the table an started to draw Bambi from memory. He came over to the table, snatched my drawing out of my hands: Started to make fun of it, an couldn't.


Wait a minute, he said, “Is that...” all stunned.
An I said, “Yea, it is: Now leave me alone.”


Then, instead of taunting me: He took the drawing around to every kid in the class showing them what I could do. Suddenly, the little freak was my best friend. He wanted to sit by me. Ask me to draw him things. Informed a few other bullies not to pick on me anymore. Etc. Every time he'd brag on me, I'd turn red. I really didn't want attention either way but didn't mind someone appreciating the work I had put into being able to draw that well.


It felt nice to be appreciated for what you could do.


So, I kept working on it. Art. Drawing.
Focusing & Concentrating for long hours.


When, the family would sit down to watch TV at night: I'd have my drawing books open, learning how to draw a realistic horse. Or Cow. Once I had gotten that down, I moved on to drawing from pictures. I'd draw lions, tigers, and just about any animal you could think of. I loved animals. An I wasn't happy until I finally drew a monkey, that had a certain gilt in his eye. A warm glow. His eyes smiled. I didn't consider myself a “good” artist until I could do that. Convey that with pencil.


I spent night after night focused on it.


We had moved up to IL, an I had learned to kind use that as a way to keep bullies off my back. An it usually worked. When the new kids could see I had something to offer, they tended not to pick on me. It helped me make friends. I use to draw an paint things for them. As practice.


So art really was my saving grace. My savior.


It gave me a way to escape the drudgery of growing up feeling like I was living out Cinderellas life. I'd clean a four level house, I'd cook, do the dishes, counters, floors and trash. I did everything but the laundry. For some odd reason, thank god my mother never made me do that too. Weekend days where spent, painting apartments an painting storm windows. Over an over. An at night, I'd double down an work some more on art.


It kept me sane.


It kept me focused on the best part of myself. What I could do right, instead of what was not. My parents where critical people. Especially my mother. Nothing was every quiet good enough, or perfect enough. But I could go in my room, turn on some music an focus on something I was good at. Concentrate on what was right about me, not wrong.


It made me a workaholic very early on.


It gave me a way to express myself, for some odd reason my parents never paid much attention to. Even when I won ribbons and contest. Disigned Yearbook covers. It didn't matter much to me, whether I had their approval or not because others did recognize me for who I wanted to be seen as: Myself. MY work. Not theirs. Them not really giving me kuddos for it might be why I've had some mental block that I could not make a living as an artist. I don't know. It's a topic, I'll probably explore. Their in ability to say “good job” might be the whole root of my mental block about money & art.


They where just not very emotionally supportive about it.


They supplied the paper, sent me to a few art classes in town but generally bitched about the cost. So I tried not to ask for supplies to much until high school an had to. When I started painting murals, is when I got a reaction. It wasn't pleasant either. I was really into music. I really really admired Stanley Moore art on Journey album coves. I reproduced just about everyone of them on giant 4 foot murals.


He's know for Grateful Dead art too.


Journey was a pretty positive type of music to listen to actually. I mean I liked heavy metal too. It could have been worse lol but my dad went off about it. I was just learning to draw people. I was a teen, of course I was going to pick good looking guys to draw. An that's when he noticed, came down to my room tore every single poster off my walls: Screaming at me. All this! Is gonna go, he said. It wasn't okay with him. He went to grab my mural of Journey's “Escape” album cover I had painted that was HUGE. Pointed at it hostile as hell, “That can stay” an wouldn't touch it but when we moved to a new house, all those murals I did but one “disappeared”.


My mom said they where in storage.
Then said she couldn't find them.


No one every has confessed to where they went. I landed up in another high school Junior year. Which in a weird way was alright by me. I had just got done taking every art related class I could an by going to the new high school I could take another two. An I worked on faces until I moved out. Not as much as I had before. I got a boyfriend. Was a teenager. Got distracted. Got kicked out of the house.


I lost my focus on Art.


Didn't pick up my pencil or paints for years. Instead I focused on business, management, computer programming. But Art is what taught me: if you want to get good at anything...


You have to focus on it. Concentrate. Practice.


It's the biggest key to art & life to me.
Where your attention goes, you become.

I grew up on a farm, outside of a small town in Missouri in some ways they where the happiest years of my life, an the worst. Depending on which part of it I want to look at but the reason I'm writing this to tell my story. It's not actually here to complain or focus on all that was bad that happened to me. It's to examine where some of my beliefs came from, an reroute them. Because what you believe you become. Or can hold you back.


So I have had to look at some of those painful memories to see if they stuck.


An they didn't, an I'll tell you why they didn't. I had plenty around me that encouraged me to be my biggest brightest self. They invalidated the your unlovable aspect that could have stuck with me had I choose to believe my mother at age four. It just didn't stick.


I knew she was wrong.


An I believed that deep down all my life. I just buckled down on what I was good at. It started out as a way to stay out of trouble actually.


Art.


It became one of those household of been seen, not heard. Later in my life, I figured out I was kinda sound sensitive myself. Maybe because of it. But I enjoyed quiet as a child. Sitting at the table, drawing was enjoyable an it didn't set anyone off. I could be just what I was. A kid. An as long as I was “good” there was no drama in the house. So, although I was an active kid that enjoyed outside a lot: I learned from an early age to sit still. An focus on something else.


My dad came in one day, while I was sitting there drawing a tree.


An instilled something in me: That's great he said but then the criticism came: but can you draw something else besides a tree. I'm not sure he meant it critically either. He just saw I was stuck on one thing: Trees. He said, “Your trees good, but can you draw me a house?” I had never thought about drawing a house before. So, he sat down next to me an showed me how. He didn't do it for me. He instructed me to draw a box, then a triangle. He was working on my shapes with me.


That is how much I remember of my childhood.


Details like that. Who was actually teaching me things. He walked away, an I drew windows in it an he was pretty proud. An that's probably when I decided to become an artist because I've been doing art since as far back as I can remember, an being rewarded for it on a emotional level the more I improved.


“That's a nice house”


An he's the one that got me thinking, what else can a draw: An off I went with it. Next came the dog, the cows ect an it wasn't long after that, I saw Disney's “Alice in Wonderland” an got inspired. I sat and watched in awe cause it was all drawn. An they moved. Its really the first animated cartoon I saw. They weren't on at our house. We didn't have Sesame Street or any of that. It was a very rural area that only picked up three channels.


I wanted to know how they did that. I really did.


I was seeing how far drawing could take someone. So, I really became all about it. Plus, it kept me out of trouble. It was a winner to me! I'd still go outside and play with my dog, run but my time in doors became all about drawing and stories.


“Alice In Wonderland” was one of my first real novels I read.


An still, my favorite. My dad, use to sit on the couch an teach me my colors. We'd go through the whole box, while he'd show my infant sister as well. They where good memories. Anything associated with stories, learning or art where the best of memories. He'd watch Captain Kangroo with me before we would get dressed. He'd go over whatever lesson, he was teaching drinking coffee. Then we would get dressed, head over to my grandmothers to eat breakfast. I'd go hang out with Pappa.


So my childhood wasn't all bad.


It was after four that it got difficult an that is when my grandfather passed. That's when the tension happened. Looking back it's understandable as an adult. It was a huge loss for all of us. There was a lot of pressure on everyone. My dad, took over running the farm. My uncle moved in to finish high school. My grandmother moved up north to work to support the farm. An no one was in a good mood, most days. If not down right pissy, you'd say.


I myself didn't understand what happened.


I was four, an no one talked about it. He just disappeared. Poof! Gone.


An I remember having a conversation with my dad about what it.


What do you mean, he's in heaven?


Can't you call him? Tell him to come home?
You can call grandma, why can't you call him?


An I'm sure the conversation was difficult on my dad, cause I got pissed. An kept demanding someone call him. An at some point, my dad said well here: You talk to him an handed me the phone. He can hear you, he just can't answer you. He's with God.


Well who's God? An why won't he let Pappa talk?


So he called my grandmother instead. Here you talk to her for a while.
An that would take my mind off it I guess.


At some point, my dad wouldn't let hold the phone anymore like that. An told me I could talk to him without it. In my room. So I would. That was my introduction to God, Prayer an Spirit. Later, it when my grandmother returned from up North. She took me out on a drive and explained “Heaven” to me. I didn't much like the concept.


But I continued to draw.


It was the best way for me to be with everyone so upset. Quiet. The adults around me needed it. An I guess his passing made me grow up a little more serious then other kids. Shortly after that, my sister was born. An the dynamic in the house changed like it always does. I was no longer the center of attention, but that was okay. I kinda liked this idea of a child around. I've liked babies since I was a tot. Everyone kinda cheered up. Including me. An life moved on.


But I really was into art.


An my grandmother took me to see Snow White in theaters. It was my first movie.


I was blown away. You could do all that drawing?
So, I've always thought about drawing & stories.


It was just instilled in me from a very early age.
Books, stories, drawings...all of it.


I wanted to grow up an do that! After the baby came, my mom decided to redecorate my room or our room. Not sure which. I was entering Kindergarten an she decided to go with Precious Moments stuff for the theme. I use to play she was a great artist who did that. I'd sit an try to redraw it until I had it as perfect as the one on the folder. I'd spend hours in my room doing it.


I didn't want to just draw stick figures like my grandmother taught me.


I wanted them to be as cute as the figurines I saw down at Hallmark. As cute as the baby was. An I'd focus all my attention on it. I'd play I was that great of an artist. An even worked on what “my signature” symbol should be. That's how into the idea I was of being an artist & story teller I was. Still am. I'd play that all the time.


One playtime ritual revolved around a suitcase.


I played that a famous artist had stopped by. Painted an oil painting on it of a VW bug, traveling. Which actually was a famous ad back in that day. That it was worth millions, an he just gave it to me and my dad to protect. An inside was my mom's typewriter. An I'd take it out, pretend to type my story then draw the artwork for it. I'd pretend the “bad guys” where trying to break in to our house an steal it. But they didn't know how special it was.


An when I got sick couple of years ago.


This is the kind of stuff, I was thinking about. My playtime stories. Rituals. Things I would do as a child. I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to use my mom's typewriter. I think I knew how to type before I actually could read very well. It was just important for me to know how to do that. It's what made books. An she would let me do it, as long as I didn't mess up the ribbon.


This is the kinda of stuff artist think about.
Getting back in touch with your “magical thinking”


My kids where all upside down, when I got sick because what I was talking about just didn't seem to make a lot of sense to them. It made perfect sense to me: I was the one stuck in my own head. An I might have been starving an hallucinating, but I was rediscovering myself. I just wasn't communicating so well.


I don't suggest starving yourself to death as a way to creativity.


I've never believed in the starving artist notion. Even though, I was literally at that moment. I only suggest looking back at your childhood as a way to get to the root of why or where you got that notion in your head. I was surrounded by successful art. In books. On Tv. In Movies. Magizines in my childhood. So, I really do have to rethink this “poor” notion.


It might have been watching my family struggle with bringing the crops in.
How important that was to our families financial future.


Farmers are poor part of the year, rich the other.
An they have more equity then most do...


Yet there was this image of poor struggling farmers out there. An in the 70's banks where taking farms away from people that had several farmed the same land several generations. It was a legit worry for my own family. I didn't grow up with this notion we where poor. Just that it required a lot of work. I grew up with stories of when my grandmother was poor, struggling to over come that. An how the whole family had. I grew up with my father, going on strike an marching on Washington over the way farmers where being done. Him warning other's in his community to get out, or invest in something else before you loose it all.


An that's what he did. He sold all the equipment, the cows an even my dog an moved us up north. He was well worth over a million dollars. We were not poor. It was just invested. He took that money an bought rentals to support the farm land. He didn't farm it anymore. He rented it out but held on to it by doing something else with the money.


So, I'm not sure what got stuck in my subconscious that you couldn't make a living at art. Or where it came from. It might be I just got taught you couldn't make a living at something you love. Because my dad actually loved farming. He didn't really enjoy fully being a landlord. Not like he had farming. So that might have been why I choose to go into a different field other then the one I loved.


It might not actually have anything to do with art.
Or if you can or can't make a living at it.


An this is why you have to go back into your programmed subconscious an see what's going on there. What lessons you learned watching your parents grow up. We always had enough. We might have not been living like the Rockfellers but there was food on the table an clothes on our backs. So, you have to look at what you learned about work or money from your childhood. An when I look back, my mom had a habit of telling us there wasn't enough money for this or that.


But looking back, there was plenty of money for what we needed.


So it's a nasty habit mentally I got from someone that didn't mean to instill it I don't think. She always had a fear there wouldn't be enough. Not that there was or wasn't I think an passed that on to me. That thought. It's part of budgeting to last a year on a farmers salary. It's just the nature of the beast. Same as getting through to the next weeks check. It was just a habit of hers to tell us kids. There is or isn't money for this or that. Or we only have this much to spend. That probably made me a great manager. I didn't over shoot my budget as one. But it might have made me always think we where poor when we weren't. So, it's how you choose to look at something.


An you have to examine it or it's going to effect your whole life.


Money's a funny subject for me. I've had money, I've not had money. An I don't tend to look at wealth the same as most of the people I know. Successful or not. Money to me, I guess because I watched my parents under so much pressure from it: Seemed like a burden. Not a joy. An when you don't have enough of it, it most certainly can be. My hang ups regarding money might just all go back to the time my grandfather passed away.


Before that, people worked an did what they where suppose to create money. They didn't worry over it. They just did it. So my four year old self might have been running my whole money show my entire life, prepare for the worst that could happen. That's kind of what you do, budgeting. Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best is kinda deal. Go without somethings, while you have to get them later when you can afford to.


I'm not bad with money.
I never have been.


I can make 30K go a lot farther then most. I just tend to view wealth not just as something material. Happiness, satisfaction, resources factor in. What's the point of being “successful” if your whole family is miserable in the process weighs heavily for me. Not that I don't understand the road to success. I'm surrounded by successful people, in one form or another. But like the “Artist's Way” brings up, you have to define what success means to you as an artist.


It wasn't starving.


So, when did this notion I might be one if I choose a art career take root?
Where did it for you?


This is one of the reasons I got back and rethink my childhood. Not only is it a source of getting back in touch with your creative self, an your “magical thinking” You can pull up a bad weed that got planted there in your subconscious at some point. It can block your road to success. I want to pull up by it's roots. It's a bad seed.


I'm just not seeing in my childhood where that got planted.


Other then my father selling the farm, an taking away from it you couldn't make money doing something you love. You might have to find something else you like doing to make a income. That just might be it for me, an has nothing to do with can I or can I not be successful artist. It might have been why I became so interested in business management. I actually love running businesses. PNL's turn me on. Out performing ever gas station in the Rockford area, use to give me chills. Good ones.


When the gas guy would call, an say hey Dana, want to get into a price war today?


I'd be oh, hell yea!


I enjoyed it. Competition. It's fun to me. So, it might not be a fear of being an artist. Or not making enough money at it. It just might be, this is the right time in my life to presue it. When it doesn't matter if I make money at it or not. That's a nice bonus. But it's not the main goal. Just a side product of it. It might have been because I witnessed great aunts & my grandmother not get into art until they where older an had time to. When raising their children an obligations where already meet. At any rate. I got over whatever fear of it was holding me back, when I took the photography management job.


An that fear of instability, seems to be there regardless of what career I'm in.
An it's just something you have to scwash like a bug. An get past it.


I think that fear for me comes from some place else that has nothing to do with money or art.


I don't know a successful person that hasn't had to face that fear, an over come it.
Regardless of the career path they choose to be in.
You have to face whatever is holding you back.


So, I've pretty much set myself up, now where I can do art regardless. Without worry.
An the only thing that seems to get in the way of it is, a few peoples approval.


I don't actually need to do art.


So, what's holding you back?

I tried as much as I could to stay home with my children at least until they where the age of five. I did this because the basic personality is formed by that age. The video above says age seven. My logic was, if I could be the best parent I knew how to be they would have good lives. See, I always wanted to be a good mother. I mean we all do but for me it was even more important because I felt mine had failed me. I was exposed to things I shouldn't have been. Done ways that just where not right to do to a child.


I'd like to say my mother did the best she could. An maybe that is true.


That is the best she could do, but my inner child says no because it will always go back to remembering what she did to me. When my father disciplined me, it made sense. If I did something wrong, I might get spanked but there was a reason behind it. Not that I'm absolving him completely. He was heavy handed at times an there is that one time he locked me in a closet for a full day. I have not forgotten. It was wrong an it shouldn't have been done.


I told him I hated him.


Actually screamed it because I thought he was hurting my mother. They had been in a fight, kissed an made up an he was tickling her an I thought he was hurting her. So, I got very defensive of her started screaming at him. He was playing. I wasn't. He had a belt an kept snapping it at me, joking around. But being threatened wasn't a joke to me. An when I screamed I hated him, it got serious. He whipped me. Locked me in a closet in my room. I stayed there what seemed like all day crying. But I did understand why he whipped me. Screaming you hate someone isn't something you should do.


My mother did nothing.


It was the first time, my father and I had not gotten along. Normally, we did an I was pretty much glued to his side. He was more of a mother to me, then my mother. He dressed me. Feed me. Ect. An I was pretty mad at him for doing that to me. All over a misunderstanding. I defended my mother, but she never came to my aid for doing so. An that is pretty much how she's always been. Expecting me to be there for her, when she never was for me. At some point my dad had a little sit down with me an explained, he wasn't going to spank me, he was just playing until I did that. I as best as a little kid explained I wouldn't have done that if he wasn't scaring me.


I didn't agree with my dads instilling fear into a child.


Even as an adult, lectured him that was the reason him and I where not as close as we should be. Because we where close when I was a little kid. But at least his discipline had some predictability to it. I actually had to do something really wrong to get spanked. An truth is, there is a difference between a spanking and a beating. An most of the time: his where spankings. Not beatings.


My mother on the other hand, was totally unpredictable.


You just never knew what was going to set her off. With my dad, I knew what would land me into trouble for the most part with him. So it was never my dad, normally that had me walking on eggshells growing up. It was her. An she stated recently to my daughter, she doesn't know how she ended up being the “bad guy” cause she was always at work. The trouble never happened when she was at work. It was what mood swing she was having when she got home.


There was no predicting when she would go off. An her spankings where not spankings. They where temper tantrums. They where beatings. I can name three times, my dad beat me: Not spanked me. It was wrong but it was limited. With her, I just never knew what was coming. I didn't have to keep track of his mood, but hers to survive.


An that's the truth of my childhood.
I walked in fear of setting her off.


When I was maybe three? Four. Before my siblings where born. She told me to go outside and play. I went out, swung on the swing set. Got bored, came back in for something an she screamed at me to go back outside: I started to an she grabbed me, started beating me with her fist until I was down on the ground. Screaming at me: I told you to stay outside. You never listen. Then she proceeded to kick me into a corner of the kitchen between a wall an the cabinets. Screaming she should have never had me. She never wanted me and kicked me so hard in the side. I couldn't breath. I still have that pain in my side if I try to run to hard or much. Then, when I was about to pass out, she lifted me up crying saying she was so sorry.


That was a beating.


An I've never forgotten it. Or the difference in my parents styles. An it's complicated because you do love your parents. An as a child you try to understand that shit. When you never really can. I made a vow to myself, never to be that way with my children. An wasn't. I wasn't perfect but I never beat my children. An it was rare of me to loose my temper. I'd go sit myself in Zen mode, time out if one of them was pushing me to my limits. It's the best I could do.


I just really did not want to be my mother.


It stuck with me, that just wasn't any way to parent. The unpredictability. The worrying about mood swings an what would set my mother off. Once was over lent on the floor. You just never knew. It was kinda like having to always be the adult in the situation. Taking care of an adult child. Who had melt downs and temper tantrums all the time. My dad saw it. Once, she got on to me about something, don't even remember what an he stopped her an told her: No, listen to her. She's the one making sense not you. An it happened all the time at our house after DCFS.


My mother never really forgave me for DCFS.


She would say it was my dad saying this or that, but truth was he's not the one that kicked me out of the house before I finished high school. She was. Threw my stuff all over the front lawn. That kinda of stuff wasn't my dad's doing. Yet, when you'd speak to her later she'd say “he's the one that told me to do that”. I just don't believe her anymore.


I use to be pretty protective of her.


I'd help her when no one else would anymore. Then she'd turn on me again. Just like she would when I was a child. An you get sick of that. You love them because they are your parent but you don't want to be exposed to that kind of behavior all the time. I'd like to say she doesn't or isn't aware she's doing it an on some level she's not but on another she is. It's kinda like dealing with a snake, you just kinda never sure when it's going to bite you.


One minute she's all lovey dovey


Next, she's back to a hateful, bitter old hag spitting out vile to you when no ones around to witness it. I use to report in to my grandmother, literally just so you know: This is what happened this time. I didn't do this this or that. I had someone in my life that believed in me, could vent to about it. An life went on. Cause everyone in our family knows how she can be. Nice one minute, trying to destroy you the next. It's just the way she's always been.


An once I left home, it didn't really effect me much.


I just learned to help her to a degree from a nice safe happy distance. She didn't really involve herself to much with me or my children anyway. She refused to help an I was kinda grateful she didn't want to. I raised my kids, with the help of my grandmother. Someone I knew, wouldn't go off half cocked like that. Someone that had patience.


My relationship with my siblings is strained at times.


They have been since I left home. They where fine before that. Other then typical spats between children we all got along fine. I don't know what was told to them during that time period. I'm sure I was made out to be the bad guy. We for the most part got a long fine after my parents divorce but they where used like a bargaining chip at times against me. To keep me involved in a situation I really didn't want to be apart of anymore. My youngest sibling is ten years younger then me. She was like my own child in some ways.


I bottle feed her, held her, dressed her, fed her, cooked cleaned an did all the things a parent should do for their own child. I ran our household, not my mom. She worked. An that is the only good thing I really can say about my mother for the most part. She's good at her job. I'm sure there are other t hings. I mean she can be kind when she wants to be. She can be a lot of good t hings when she wants to be. The keyword is: Wants.


It kinda comes an goes regarding me an I've just learned to accept that.


She's like a child. A spoiled one who will act out if she isn't getting what she wants. When my father passed away, she moved in with my sister. She packed up her house an gave me my baby picture. It was my mother's way of saying she was done with me. An I was perfectly okay with it. She's banished me so may times over my lifetime this was nothing new. What I didn't really expect was to have trouble with my siblings. We had all pretty much gotten along just fine since the youngest moved out of her house.


There is a strain there now between us all.


An the only time I've seen it like that my mother was behind it. Everything in the estate was getting divided pretty equally and fairly up until her involvement. My grandmothers estate was divided without a hitch. No problems what so ever. There have been issues with my dads. As if I where never born. A lot of low dirty tricks played. Tricks my dad or grandmother wouldn't have never done nor tolerated. An for the most part, I've let it slide.


An here's why:


There was a point in my life, where I landed a huge bid job. The person specifically told my mother to call her girls to do the job. My sister didn't want it. She already had two jobs. I took the job. When my mother found out how much the job was worth: She demanded I pay her $5000 for a finders fee. She didn't find me the job. The woman just didn't have my phone number. My mom, was all take the job, take the job. I'll help you. Cause I wasn't even sure I should take the paint job it was so big. Had to be done in a certain amount of time an I had no crew. NO no no, take it: Ill help you.


She showed up for a hour.


Had a melt down, shit fit and left. I did the job, when I got paid she'd call me harassing me to pay her for work she didn't do. If I didn't pay her, I wouldn't see my younger sibling. She wasn't going to talk to me, blah blah blah. I finally got on the phone, called my father: told him what was going on and asked his advice because she's my mother. WTF, you do with that? He listened, an basically said “Just pay the miserable bitch” That way you never have to worry about if you did something wrong.


So I did.


She never earned it but my conscious slept well at night. I never had another involvement with her financially again. The just of it was, both him and I where worried about my younger sibling over in that house with her. If she had enough or the things she needed. So I paid it. It was ransom, we both knew it. Emotional blackmail. It's what she's done her whole life.


He was sick of it. I was sick of it.


An that conversation went a long way in repairing mine & his relationship. Cause it was clear, he was not the one doing this. It wasn't his behavior but hers. He could have asked me for a loan at that time, could have used one actually an didn't. An the one time I did loan him money, I did it without his permission because it had to be done. He actually got pissed at me for it. Thanked me but pissed all the same he was taking money from his kid.


They are different.


I saw him trying to put back together his family. All I've seen since he passed is someone keeping us all arguing. She seems to enjoy us all not talking to each other. An sits around like the innocent one. I really don't get what she gets out of it. Other then some sort of feeling like she's in control if we don't. An truth is, I don't really care anymore.


I'd just like the lady to get out of my families lives.
Because I'm not buying mrs sweet an innocent.
Or poor me.


I've gotten sucked back in too many times too when what I really want is for her to just leave me the hell alone. I love her but I don't want to be around her. It's like dealing with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde all the time. One minutes she's there for you being loving as hell, next she's using your relationships with your siblings or your kids. Threaten you in private, then playing concerned parent to the world. It's about the most frustrating relationship you could ever have with a parent. An it's not just me she does this with: If she doesn't like something my sisters are doing, she'll get on the phone an try to get me to go parent them for her.


It's put me on the defensive in personal relationships half my life, an my life has been best when she wasn't much involved in it. I can't even be myself. It's like it's forbidden. If I'm in a relationship and happy, look out: Here she comes. She's going to point out every rotten thing she can come up with to whoever I happen to be with. An if it doesn't work:


Well, she's just got you rapped around her little finger.


Do you know, how many people I've dated she's done this with. I've lost count. She keeps tabs on all my close relationships. Ex's that I don't even talk with anymore. It's smothering. It's kinda obsessive. Down right unsupportive of me as a daughter an just plain weird. An I am just at wits end with it. The more I try to just stay clear of her, the more problems she causes me in personal relationships that matter to me. Their have been several times, I've just thought about moving as far away from her as I can. Cause I just really don't know what you do with someone like this anymore.


It's a toxic relationship.


An every time I get over it. Move past it. Forgive it and get on with my life and heal. Poof! There she is again. An I feel sorry for her all over again. Find myself trying to repair a relationship that really can't be. Its not the relationship that's a problem. She's my mother an I love her but I am the target of her anger an have to remember that. She's not capable of loving me in a way that is healthy. She's just not. I accepted this fact about her a long time ago.


Probably when I was fourish.


It's not that there is anything wrong with me. Nor more then their was that day she beat me like that. This problem, was her problem not mine. An as an adult, we have to re parent ourselves. I did all that cause I know those tapes in our heads can get stuck on auto pilot if we let them. I'm a decent person. Always have been an way more forgiving then I should be. Way more tolerant of peoples quirks sometimes then most. An even screwed up people need love.


An I've tried to love her without getting side swiped in the process.


From a distance, an sometimes that puts distance between me an others there shouldn't be any distance with. My mother got on a kick, I was a bad parent. If she could prove I was, then she could redeem herself she wasn't. She started the same kind of campaign she did with my younger sibling. False claims where made to DCFS, while I was in the process of moving to another house. Using my siblings against me wasn't working, so lets try the her children. My daughters father even said it: I just thought the whole thing was a get even for you turning her in to DCFS.


Bingo


On the day I was suppose to go back to court. I was sick an just kinda said, you know what. I'm not going. I'm not going to let someone use my own child against me. I am not going to keep being put through this crap had been going on since my father passed. Let my daughter stay over there. Then at least one of my kids will learn what they are like. Not that I wanted her in harms way. My mother hasn't tried to lay hands on me since I was pregnant with my oldest. She went to attack me, I defended myself an she's too old to physically harm her. Let my daughter get a real glimpse of it. I'm going back to work. Then I'll resolve this.


So I did.


At first she was, why do you hate her: She's such a sweet lil' old lady. I don't hate her. I don't trust her. You'll see why. An recently she had to be moved over to my other sisters house to finish high school.


Why?


Because my mom is running behind her back to my sister about what a terrible kid she is. She's not. She gets good grades, on track, in choir an works. She's a pretty busy girl. But she got caught doing one thing wrong, which really in the scheme of things: Is her just being a normal teen an it got all blown out of proportion. Instead of being grounded for a reasonable time, she was grounded for months. Her phone taken away so she couldn't communicate with others. Same old physiological shit my mom pulled on me after DCFS.


So I called my other sister an asked if she could stay over there to finish high school.


Away from my mom's parenting. Her depression has lifted. She's back to her normal joyful self. My mom called once after that an hissed on in the phone about what a terrible kid she was an I just told her to go parent her own children.


Cause I'm done. Just done.
Mess with my kids.


I dare you to. My kids aren't stupid.


They can have a relationship with her if they want. They are all pretty much full grown an can make their own choices. If she tries to come between me an them: They will see through it eventually. My oldest just came up here an told me: I think money is just how she loves. I don't think she knows any other way to be. An she doesn't accept you for who you are. An I told her that. Even defended me on my moms “She's crazy” kick.


So, I don't have to be around it any longer.


I love her, but I don't like her much. She keeps yelling at me: “I'm a good person” Okay fine, your a good person. An she can be at times. That's not the part of her that always has me watching my own back when it comes to her. She has some need for mommy approval from me. Which is odd. It always has been. I've chalked it up to her mother passing when she was young. Or however her mother was with her. I don't know, she won't talk about it. Never has.


An you can't help someone who never really deals with their core issues.


An those all go back to before age five or seven. I know what my issues are. Every sore spot in my childhood. I found someone who could mother me positively. So when I think back to my childhood those are the memories I focus on. My mother resents it. My grandmother mothering me but I'd be a mess if it wasn't for her. Those childhood tapes would have got stuck in “unlovable”. It is because of her I know that I am. I could go on an function like a normal adult.


She's the one that got me into art.


It helped a lot in my childhood keeping me quiet an still, so I didn't receive wrath. It made me productive in a environment that wasn't very emotionally stable. Truth is I got kinda use to sitting calm in the eye of a storm. It made me learn to focus on something else instead of what could be bothering me if I had let it. It was therapeutic. My biggest vice growing up. It help me re direct my own thoughts away from harmful emotions. It gave me away to channel them with out being punished.


It set me free.


It gave me a outlet. A way to reprogram myself while going through stuff I really shouldn't have been put through. I'd go draw mickey mouse instead. Use my imagination to dream of better. I lived in my head a lot. An even back then told myself: She's wrong A lot. I had my pappa, grandmother an others letting me know I was loveable. I was valued. All the time, not just part of the time or when the mood struck.


My mother is trying to tell others I'm bipolar.
I'm not, but she might be.


It would explain a lot of what she's put me through. I deal with depression and PTSD but it only acts up when I'm resubjected to her behavior. They say, you have to cut toxic people out of your life. Even if they are family. I've tried that but what ends up happening is I have to cut others out of my life because of her. I just don't know what else to do with it. I'm fifty something years old. I haven't had to deal with this kinda nutty behavior in 30 years. When I did it was short spurts.


Toleration.


I know she has her issues but at some point isn't she suppose to be an adult by now?
Why must she keep projecting her mommy issues / orphan shit on to me.


An that's really was it is, a projection.


My mother doesn't really know me well. Nor, the few she gets on board for these kicks. Most that have been around for any length of time, knows she gets this way. Many have been tolerant of it. She has a couple good friends, an seems content enough with her work & life most of the time not to bother me. An I guess that's the best you can hope for. I wish she'd get real help for whatever the real underlying issue has always been.


It was there long before I came along.


She's old now, an probably never will deal with the issue. I've pretty much accepted that. But she wanted to know, why I feel the way I do. An my kids wanted to know, so here I am writing about something I dealt with a long time ago. My moms issues. It's not that she's unlovable. She just makes it difficult when you always got to worry about how your going to get burned this time for getting involved.


Love just shouldn't be this hard.


It's just easier to stay away, then to be drug into a bunch of drama.