Believe

I've spent my whole life focused on specific things: art from a very young age. My life has revolved around it home, family & management. I grew up in a family that started out as farmers that centered their lives around homes: Real Estate. My mother sold them, my aunt brokered them. My uncle built them. My grandmother rented them. An my dad remodeled buildings to rent. An I painted them from the age of ten onwards. Not very artist but practical painting!
I was so sick of painting versions of white by sixteen: I wanted to scream every time I opened a can of it.


But it did teach me to apply a skill I had from a very early age in the real world. My trade mark? My boombox playing in the background of everything I did. Music got me through everything. No matter how hard or tired I was. I had a belief in myself other kids my age didn't have. I could make a living at something I could do. It might not have been as artistic as I desired but it was a skill. Being a latch-key kid the rest of my time was spent watching my sisters, cleaning and managing the house. My life revolved around kids. After one of the adults got home, then an only then did I get time for art.

I didn't have a lot of time for socializing like other kids.I've spent my whole life focused on specific things: art from a very young age. My life has revolved around it home, family & management. I grew up in a family that started out as farmers that centered their lives around homes: Real Estate. My mother sold them, my aunt brokered them. My uncle built them. My grandmother rented them. An my dad remodeled buildings to rent. An I painted them from the age of ten onwards. Not very artist but practical painting!

I was so sick of painting versions of white by sixteen: I wanted to scream every time I opened a can of it.

I wanted to but it just didn't fit in the schedule. An I told myself, I could do all that after I turned 18. An I did. Partying became a “hobby” of mine. I took a bartender job up in Beloit just to get paid to socialize. Because if nothing else my childhood made me practical. The rest of the time I worked painting new construction. Staining woodwork. I worked Sharkys one nite a week, starting out as a “Shot Girl”. Graduated to full on weekend, an picked up another bar tending job at Rockton Wagon Wheel to learn “classy” bar tending. You know, mix something a little more complicated then Lady's Nite well drinks.

I didn't set out to open a bar.

But I did learn to mange one without meaning to. I got into retail management because I was a organized person. I didn't like a unpredictable pay check. Or working three jobs at once. Which I was. I went to RVC, took a certification course in accounting just to get away from what I considered at the time: a no where job. Just a phase of my life. It gave others belief in me that I could do more then just serve others or paint walls. I learned I liked practical sales, not sales jobs. I've been in retail management since. I believed I could manage millions of dollars stores. An proved it.

I believed I could. An did.

What I didn't believe I could do was sales. I mean, I knew I could because I watched my mother do them. She's good at them, but I also watched her go through the ups and downs of it. An I was actually very good at convincing people they needed another shot as a “Shot Girl” but I just didn't think sales positions where for me. I took what seemed to me the easier route: There's the candy bar on the shelf, I'll organize it. Clean it. Manage it. Make it look nice: You buy it if you want to. I'm not gonna spend my time talking you into it if you don't really want it. I liked PRACTICAL sales.
Not sales, SALES.

Or so I thought. I didn't choose to go into an Art Career because I was so practical about it. I wasn't into the idea of “starving artist”. I went into what I had learned growing up: Managing. Being practical. Being an artist wasn't going to make me a living. Only the best, an few make any real money in art. I ignored it as career option. Even though that's what I was best at. It just wasn't “practical” to believe I'd get any where in an art field. Except being a teacher. An I started to go that route returning to college in my 20's because I had a art teacher tell me: “If nothing else works out in art for you Dana, you can at least go into teaching.” Not even the art teacher, no matter how good she thought I was had a belief that there was any good way to make a living in art.

An here's the point of this whole piece: Belief.

What you believe is going to effect your whole life. I grew up being discourage from actually following an art career. I was encouraged to do art, just not to believe it would earn me much of living. I used the things I learned as a kid to guide my whole life. I grew up watching entrepreneurs all around me. I was taught I could turn something I loved into business that would support me an later on my family.. I was taught family working together is everything. An what I wanted to do for work, just didn't quit fit into being as successful as they had been. Or at best it was a “long shot”.

An you have to examine those beliefs you have learned or been taught.

I was taught to believe in myself, just not so much about art. Painting a wall is an art form. Believe it or not. A practical one. It's boring but can be therapeutic. An you can get so good at it you don't need a drop cloth or have to put up painters tap. But it wasn't going to provide me with income I wanted. It could have had I stuck with it but it was just too boring to a person who'd rather paint flowers on the wall. Or anything else that wasn't white. I'd do big jobs, commercial now an then to catch up on bills but it left me dissatisfied.

When my kids where born, I went into Home Daycare. Again being practical.

I wanted to be home with my kids, Do art when they slept. An got to use those business management skills I had learned. I believed I could do it. So I did. An I made a “okay” living doing something I could believe in. Being home for my little ones. Family: A Family Business. Again, my drive of wanting to do something, but having to be practical at making a living doing it. I had managed to get paid to be social parting in the 80s. An I managed to get paid to stay at home with my kids. Then, when my daughter was about six I got a phone call from my grandmother.

My dad had bought a bar.

I was the only one in the family that knew anything about running one. I was the only one that had any kind of retail management experience: Could you please go over there an help him. So, I did. I ran the daycare during the day. Worked at night running the bar. An picked up a huge commercial painting bid job just so I could afford to follow everyone else's dream but my own. An it was a success. Still is. I believed we could do it. An we did. As a family.

But when my father passed in 2007, an my children growing up:

I hit a full on depression because my whole life revolved around them. kids and managing things. I had spent years returning to college, learning computer programming struggling to raise the kids during it so I could be in a art field. An had landed right back into retail management. I wasn't doing art. An the only thing that got me through the grieving possess of loosing him and my grandmother was ART. I dived in head first into digital fractal art. I didn't care if it sold or not. Practicality went out the window. I had to do some art, or I'd loose it upstairs. I'd work my management all day an come home an do art all night. I finally decided by 2010 if I didn't figure out how to do something in a art field I was gonna go crazy. I spent my whole life revolving around managing this or that: painting walls an raising children. I had to get over this belief you couldn't make money in an artistic field. Everything I had learned an put to practical use over the years had been successful. Even parting. An not many can say that. So I had to get over this block I had. Or disbelief.

An it was deeply ingrained in me for some odd reason I couldn't make a living doing “art.” I'm still not sure why that it is, other then years of listening to people who are not artist tell me it was a impossibility to make a living doing it. So 2011 or so, I got determined when I was looking for a job. An it was bad. I was behind on a house payment. Pissed off what I had worked for was being taken away from me. An pretty close to getting my lights shut off. I just didn't care. I had to find a job that was going to actually be forefilling or go nuts.

You can only merchandise beer displays so much an tell yourself at least it's somewhat artistic marketing them an not flip the hell out on yourself. So I looked hard for something that would actually fit me. An got over the fact it was gonna involve sales. An FINALLY I found a job that incorporated everything I had spent my whole life invested in. And I didn't have to paint a white wall! Or get someone drunk to do it. A studio was looking for a retail manager. Must be good with children. Artistic a plus! We will teach you sales!

When I read the ad, I thought I had died an gone to heaven.

I've never been nervous at a job interview. I was at this one cause I wanted it so bad but practically needed it or me an the kids where gonna freeze to death if I kept up this craziness of wanting an art career. It was a god send! An it might not seem much to most, but probably taught me the most about getting over my phobia of not believing in myself having a career in what I loved. An it's definitely not for everybody. The hours are long, the attention to detail exacting an you have to really like people an socializing to do it.

It was a perfect balance of art, family and management for me. An I rocked it out of the park because I fell in love with it. Could believe in it.

I officially became the retail manger of a photography studio.

All my years of learning digital art, working with kids, family and the public in management had finally paid off. An I had some of the best years of my life doing it. I can't complain. But I will tell you it's not a job you can do if you don't believe in yourself. I don’t care how many guru’s you pay. It's not a job you can do if you don't believe in the art of it either. An it's definitely not a job you can do if you don't get over “art doesn't sell”.

I grew as an artist more my first year as a studio manger then I had in a decade.

Why? Cause the job makes you confront every self doubt you have ever had about yourself and your art. The first couple of weeks on the job, I didn't know if I was gonna make it. I really did have a lot of self doubt about my ability. And it was confronted by customers daily. People that loved what I was doing. I mean everything that could go wrong did. Right down to, the DM quit during my training. To not knowing how to even open the registrar on my first sale. I had to retrain my mind, to not be scared of sales. I had to make myself get out there every day on the floor an push myself to engage with people to bring in new customers. I had to get past being scared of rejection. I had to show people daily my work. I had to report in every day that I was in fact selling the art: photography portraits.

An to do that, you have to believe in it. An yourself. You have to have confidence in what you are doing. Something I had always had in every other area of my life. A belief.

You have to have a belief system in your life that works for you. Mine hadn't in one area of my life: art. An the job pushed me past a limiting belief, that art doesn't sell or can't support you. I kept looking for it. My whole life, an what I found was a self limiting belief that had to go in order for me to be happy. My life has been nothing but “do what you love” an the money will follow example. If it's not, you have to examine the roots of your value system an pluck all the self limiting weeds out of it. If you can't do that, art or the art of photography really isn't gonna be a career you can make it in. Your not just selling art, your selling a belief in it an yourself. An if your a slash an burn photographer selling it for less then portraits are worth your harming the industry.

It was very easy for me to get behind the notion that family memories are important an should be captured by a photo lens. An they are worth paying good money for. It was a lot of fun for me to get to part take in the artistic experience of it with others. I don't think I've laughed so much in my life. An there was nothing better in the retail world of being greeted by customers that smiled and where actually happy to see you. It was the perfect combination of life balance for me. But it took a lot of over coming myself to achieve it. An that all boiled down to belief.

So believe, but don’t be stupid about it.

Your looking at a girl that “followed her bliss” practically.

A woman that turned painting houses & buildings into a paid off home for her family. Turned a hobby of 80s parting into a rock solid tavern business. A mother who wanted to stay home with her children into successful daycare business an internet site. And manger that turned her artistic dream into reality that ended up running the district. It's never a matter of can you. You can. That just takes practice.

It's a matter of how to turn a belief into a reality. An that starts with your beliefs to begin with.

So take the time to examine your own beliefs. But believe: Because what you think, look for or invest your time in. You will find.