Sometimes, the biggest struggle for an artist, is not HOW to paint, or draw or sculpt,  it's when.  

There are many like me who have been creating art, painting in my case, since they can remember. My favorite gifts as a child were art supplies and yes, even paint by numbers sets. How I loved getting the new printed out drawing and the little containers of paints and back then they were real oil paints. I fell in love. I loved everything about them, the smell, the feel of them as I brushed them on the panels, the look of my 'real oil painting' when I was done.  Seeing how they/I used blue and purple in the shadows on darks and lights to show shape and form. I was hooked.

I tried all types of painting and drawing; acrylics, pastels, pencils, colored pencils, but in the end, it was always oil painting. I didn't have a genre of painting and appreciated all forms which changed as I grew and learned. I went to art camps, private lessons and high school art classes which eventually led to studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. My parents were teachers and thought I should go to SUNY New Paltz so I could do my art and also get a teaching degree, you know, as a back-up plan. Nope, not for me, all I wanted to do is paint and I was sure it would work out...somehow. 

I graduated with a 4 year certificate in Fine Arts Painting and then spent another year working there in open studio sessions to keep painting. I had everything figured out except the business side of being an artist. Shortly thereafter I moved to Colorado with my fiance' and continued to paint on my own by driving into the Rocky Mtn areas to paint and explore and painting at home in my studio/spare bedroom. I managed to be in contact with some local art guilds and showed a few pieces but not much else. Marriage, life ,and family went on and we had bills to pay and my painting production slowed down, sometimes way down . I still loved everything about it, but never had much time for it.  I never officially quit, it was always 'someday'.

So, someday showed up last year. It presented itself to me in sort of a "If not now, when?" kind of way. I believe everyone in life has their own path to take and their own timeline to follow. You can never live your life, or follow your passions, the same way, at the same pace as someone else does. It doesn't work.   So, I started gearing up for my Re-emergence by going through my paint supplies and seeing what I could still use. I carved studio space out of part of our home and set about outfitting it with carts and racks and things I would need to paint and store new works and supplies. I built a large rolling painting rack out of pallets I begged for on Nextdoor for free and scoured the ads for rolling carts to hold palettes and supplies. I bought panels when I realized I no longer liked working on the stretched canvasses I made myself and then learned how to make my own panels to cut the cost by 2/3rds.  I found great art supply sellers online and stocked up. I was ready.

I didn't have to re-learn how to paint but I did have to figure out what I wanted to paint. It turns out I pretty much like painting anything, as long as it is something I really WANT to paint. If I don't get excited about it, it's tedious,  I like variety. When I finish a still life I want to do something else next, a landscape, a portrait, anything different. I am not painting for anyone else but me. Now for the nagging part, the business part, the part of me that says, wouldn't it be nice to sell some work to at least pay for all these tubes of paint and brushes?

So, this is where I am now. I've started entering shows again, I now have this lovely website and have started selling some work.  Every artist I know wants success and recognition, who doesn't?  but, I more importantly want to be a better artist, to keep working at it, to make myself see what is really there, not what I know is there. To keep it fresh and exciting and most of all fun.

I am not on anyone else's path, or time-line, I'm on my own. And, I'm in it for the long haul.