Getting Started....

I recently attended an encaustic art conference in Beverly, MA and after meeting and talking to many artist who are making art as their full-time job....AND succeeding at it, I've decided that that was what I wanted to do. It has taken me a long time to get here, but I am finally here.

Art has always been something that I do in my free time. It was my way of relaxing or letting out my frustrations in my personal life. I never wanted to teach art (and somehow teaching math made more sense and fulfilled my need to geek out with numbers) because I thought that it would somehow make art less enjoyable and it would no longer be my escape from reality. So I was left with teaching math at a middle school during the day and painting during vacations and weekends. 

I've always have been very lucky in whatever successes I have had in art. Shows and sales would literally fall into my lap with little to no effort. My work was apparently good and there were enough people interested in it to make some sales. I started to think that if this was happening with very little effort, imagine what could happen if I actually tried to make it as an artist and made an effort to show and sell my work. Despite these thoughts, I did nothing. And did some more nothing. And after a little more of doing nothing to advance my art career, I am finally at the point where this is what I want to do FULL-TIME. I want to be a full-time artist and be able to support myself while doing it. This is my story of what I am doing, trying to do, and want to do in order to get me to this goal.