In response to my request for questions, Joe Kaz writes that he has been reading—and enjoying—my blog for awhile now, and he’d like to know how I got started actually selling my work. Not the nuts and bolts on how to approach galleries, etc. Just how did I get started?
(Thank you, Joe, for your support--and what a great question!)
I almost had the exact moment. It was when my husband found out on a Wednesday afternoon that as of that Friday, his job at BYTE magazine was kaput. That, in fact, BYTE magazine was itself, kaput.
Suddenly, money—income, that is—became a very huge factor in my small biz. I’d been working at my craft for a few years at that point, enjoying some modest success. But at that moment, I became DRIVEN to succeed.
As I thought about your question, though, I realize groundwork had been laid a few years earlier, when I first returned to my art. And the forces behind that had nothing to do with money.
It was when my daughter was very young. She’s an unusual girl, very quirky and charming in her outlook on life. Very much her own person. Yet also vulnerable and unsure of her talents in some ways. I was musing about her future one day.
My marriage was hitting a rough patch. I felt every day was full of strife, yet I couldn't quite tell what we were fighting about. Maybe I wasn't working hard enough on my marriage.... Maybe it was time to buckle down and focus simply on being a good wife and a good mother, and a good housewife.
As usual, my thoughts segued. Thoughts about doing more housework tend to generate that response in me.
I thought about my daughter. I imagined so many wonderful things for my girl, so many different kinds of success in her personal and professional life. I also wanted her to find love, of course. And I hoped the person she choose to love would love her enough allow her to be the whole person she is, to not restrict her or hold her back in any way. To quote Marlo Thomas, I wanted her to be “free to be.” I wanted a WHOLE life for her.
Suddenly, it hit me HARD. Hadn’t my mother surely wanted the same thing for me? From the time I could hold a crayon, I’d wanted to be an artist. Yet my life seemed full of unrealized dreams and a vague but overwhelming sense of not measuring up somehow. I’d reached a point where my life felt narrowed down to a very small place indeed. And here I was, a middle-aged woman, slowly damping myself down to being simply a good wife and a good mother, with absolutely no art in sight. Those things are fine and worthy, too, but where was the ME in that? Did my mother ever wonder where HER charming and quirky artist-child had gone?
And it hit me again, just as hard. How could I want this for my daughter, and not want this for myself?
And one more spiritual dope-slap. How would my daughter know what that kind of life looked like if she couldn’t see it?
At that point, I saw clearly that much of the disappointment I felt in my life with myself was of my own choosing. That I’d always taken a step back instead of a step forward. I’d been a backseat driver in my life and my marriage, always complaining about where we were going and how we were getting there, but refusing to drive the car myself.
That changed.
In that moment, I knew that however scary it was, it was time to drive the car. In a way, I had to become LESS selfish, and not hold my husband and others responsible for my own happiness. I also I had to become MORE selfish by taking personal responsibility for my own life. Kids are very savvy about what we parents say and what we parents do. It was time to "do".
I went to my husband that evening and said told him I’d done some thinking that day and come to a conclusion. As I told him what happened, I began to cry. (You’ve heard it here a million times, but again—whatever makes you cry, that’s where your heart is.) “I have to be an artist or I’ll die,” I sobbed. (No idle threat for me.) “I don’t even care if I’m a particularly GOOD artist anymore. I just have to do it.”
I knew our marriage would make it when my husband answered, “What do you need to do that?” I needed a studio, I said. I’d lost my “craft room” several times over the years as our family grew, and it was time to have a dedicated space for my efforts. “Then let’s look at the budget tonight and see how we can make that happen,” he said. If I were willing to make adjustments somewhere else in our family spending, he would find a way to accommodate a studio.
That’s how it all started. By the time my husband was laid off, everything was in position for me to get very serious about selling my work. When we sat down and reviewed our family budget that week, it became clear my art had to at least pay for itself. The need to bring in some kind of money became a focal point. I went from hobby artist to working artist almost overnight. And in hindsight, that awful event was a great dope-slap for BOTH of us. Someone told us, "Someday you'll look back on this as the best thing that ever happened to you." He was right.
In the end, though, it wasn’t about the money—although money was a precipitating factor. Money is important in life, but it shouldn’t drive all our decisions about how we live our life. It can be a good wake-up call, though, and in my case, it was all the justification I needed to put my dreams into the real world.
