I'm on a mission to help others celebrate life.

People need to believe in truth and perseverance to set themselves free, to have faith and deeply know they matter.

 

Being honest with one self is not always the easiest thing to do. It takes courage to be vulnerable.  Especially if you lack a little bit of confidence. I had a wonderful opportunity 6-7 years ago to really look deep at what it was I wanted to do with my life. I had a change of plans that I did not intend to happen when it did but I considered this an opportunity. An opportunity to really dig deep and be honest with what I wanted to do. Sending out resume after resume and interview after interview for jobs that paid half of what I made and just made my skin crawl in a job market that did not want to hire, I started painting more regular again. I read story after story about successful artists making a living...and I keep going back too art throughout my life. So I asked myself, why not me?  Why .. don't .. I .. go .. for .. it?

So I approached my husband and asked.. What would you think if I gave it a go? To be a full time artist?   He paused, and came back with, " if you make x amount of dollars."  =)   Awesome,  I don't know what this will look like but I will figure it out.  Part time jobs here and there till I found one that worked best for mine and family schedule, and painting and entering as much as I could and volunteering way too much. I dove right into it all and did not look back. 

Also, if I was going to do this full time, I needed be very honest with myself. Very direct and Honest. I needed to improve my craft if I was going to go for it.  and that I did... I reached out to a respected artist/ mentor for a critique, he spent an hour with me going over everything.  I wrote everything down when I got back to the car, bought the paint he suggested and bam... I started improving and continued to do so. I took workshops with respected artists and painted like crazy. My painting felt like it was improving over night, my peers were noticing, I was winning awards and selling.

Time goes on, I evaluate every year where I am at and about 2 years ago it was time in looking at sales, honestly. I was making sales but they were flat.  I needed to improve sales if  if I want to continue doing this. It's not easy to tell myself that, because going back to that past life nearly left me for dead and it did not matter to them. I was very empty and lost at that point and wanted nothing to do with it again not to mention how negative it affected my kids.

So I took the plunge and dove into a coaching program with someone who sold $100,000 her first year of selling art. The coaching program has proven to be instrumental in keeping me focused, seeing my mission to serve you and confidence to skim the surface of my growth from this incredible program. Not to mention that it improved my sales last year with implemented changes.

Needless to say, being an artist is not easy. However, being an artist and sharing with others what I do or teach, has been so incredibly rewarding and what keeps me going longer on this journey. People are always thanking me for my classes taught or paintings that I created for them.  However, I am thankful one. I am honored to serve you and bring you so much joy. I love that smile when you take your purchase home, to it's new home. It brings me great joy knowing how much it means to you and that my art matters to you. That is what keeps me going. Your referrals are affirmations that my art matters and why I keep painting.  So THANK YOU for being apart of my journey as an artist.

People need to believe in truth and perseverance to set themselves free, to have faith and deeply know they matter.

 

Customer Quotes:
You may remember me from the Appleton Art Fair. My brother bought me the painting of the barn at Richfield Historic Park. I was rendered speechless at the time, so I just wanted to tell you how much I love this piece. I've hung it at the end of our hallway, and I've declared that the hallway shall no longer be called the hallway, but shall now be known as The Gallery. I look at it every day, and it brings my heart so much peace... so much serenity. I can feel the light and that crunch of the gravel as you walk the road, and barns and trees have always made me happy, even since my childhood.

 

I want you to know how much I love the painting of yours that I purchased from the Blizzard of Art show at the CCC. Your work stands out and I love your style. In fact,  I was very surprised that you didn't receive one of the awards. The subject matter was also appealing to me as I am a fisherman and am well familiar with that time of day going back to the dock as the sun is setting after an exhilarating day of fishing.

 

Michelle’s motto is to always be learning, help others and be happy