Fur In The Paint

I was recently asked how I went from being a Veterinary Technologist to an animal artist. Where did the confidence come to begin so radical a life change. Here are the facts side of it. I’ll warn you, it is not a glamorous story. I will create additional posts containing the steps I took to actually create my business in the near future.

An animal inspired life path.
I always believed that animals were my life’s calling. I have a gift with animals and they are my bliss. The photo to the right is me age 3. I knew I wanted to be surrounded by critters from a very early age.

I had always drawn (mostly animals, see a pattern here) and had even been offered scholarships (one of my teachers nominated me) to pursue the arts. Which I ignored and went off to college for the vet tech thing.

Following graduation, I worked in a clinic and got totally burned out after a few years. Then I worked in a small zoo which I loved. It was a dangerous job and I was ready for a change. Since I had always been interested in drawing and had occasionally sold artwork and did some part time graphic design, I took a job as a picture framer. The job sucked, or rather my boss did. I wound up quitting only to be hired the very next day by a museum for twice the wage. There, I worked for a couple of years, until eventually I became the head framer and manager.

Necessity Is A Mother
(of invention, that is)
Mike wanted to return to Iowa to take over the family farm. This required quite a bit of capitol for farm equipment and cash rent. It left us very poor. Since we lived in so rural a place, getting a job was impossible. So I went with my strengths and began framing. Also I had sold artwork at a few artfairs for fun and thought I could work it on a more regular basis. Mind you, at that time this was an extra income sort of thing.

I started out of my home, doing framing for locals and creating art. In fact, my studio room was the first room in the house, that I stripped away the wallpaper and painted. Our 100 year old farmhouse is your typical Iowan four square. Meaning it has 4 rooms per floor and is essentially a big box. So 4 rooms were devoted to “the business.” After a couple of years I had completely overrun the upstairs of our house. It was time to expand.

So I rented a space (one room) in the front of a brick building in Rolfe. (The same space that I am still in.) The photo here, is literally after I opened the gallery in 2000. So barren compared to today. (I have no idea why I closed the blinds, on the right, to take the picture. Rather odd thing to do.)

The business continued to grow and I rented more of the building. Mike quit farming and we needed the business to expand and meet all of our financial needs. Mike stepped in and we began doing more print jobs for other artists. His computer skills are what made it possible to do quality giclee prints. I can honestly say that we would never have made it this far without creating prints of my artwork. Anyway, after a few more years I needed more space and it was going to be cheaper to purchase the whole building, as opposed to rent more of it. So thats what I did.

So you see, there was never a “I am going to be an artist” moment. It was more like “what can I do to make some money.” The need for cash is what has got me to where I am. It did also made me a better artist BTW. My work improved because I was always creating to have something new to sell. I never even considered taking classes to improve my technique. Not sure why, it seems like such an obvious logical thing to do. I just kept drawing, what I wanted, on my own terms. This approach definitely gave me my own look and style. Perhaps though, I would be farther along on a artistic level had I. Frankly, a few business classes wouldn’t have hurt either.

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