I'm an Artist because.....

I remember when I bought my first house in Aliso Viejo, CA, once I had moved in and unpacked everything, the house seemed incredibly bare. This was the first time I had “built in” shelves..and basically, there was so much more open space than living in an apartment. Of course it seemed stark.

Not understanding that the glorious shelves full of stuff that I saw in other homes and in magazines were a result of years of collecting, I started out looking at big box stores for little things to put here and there…art…candles…you know. I was a beginning decorator. It sucked.

I didn’t really have any money and things were so expensive for what they were (they still are!), so I started to make things to fill up the space. It started with photograph enlargements… then moved onto assemblage pieces of art… but I needed more. I needed paintings!

I could not imagine in my wildest dreams paying for paintings that I saw while out shopping. It never crossed my mind to visit art galleries…certainly I could never afford anything in there. Around this time I was painting in my art journal, it just seemed like a natural transition to paint on a canvas.. a canvas that I could put around somewhere to fill up the empty space in my house.

Since then, I have not stopped painting. If I am lucky enough to have someone purchase a painting from me and I see it hanging in their space….that is the BEST feeling to me. I’m used to seeing my art all over all of the walls of my house…kind of immune to it.. but to see a piece that I made hanging in a prime spot in someone else’s house….that’s so great. I mean... it’s really great. One of my friends even loves his painting so much, he talks about aiming a special light onto it!

I’m still not at the place where I can go out to a gallery (or online on Instagram for example) and buy an original painting for myself, but I know that day will come one day soon. I can’t wait.