New Beginnings January 27, 2015 17:31

The past several years have significant change for me. Five years ago I packed up a huge U-Haul, gathered my family and drove from North Carolina to New Mexico. When I arrived my life was a blank page with a story waiting to be written. Almost immediately I opened up my own gallery in historic Old Town, Albuquerque. Little did I know that running a gallery would take all my energy and all my time.

I painted between customers my first year but then I moved to a much more visible location and as I hoped I started to get busy. I thought I was well prepared to run a gallery because I had been exhibiting at art shows for the past 20 years.

In retrospect art shows are like running a sprint and running a gallery is like running a marathon. I was always better at sprinting. Anyway, I hung in there, learned a lot of valuable lessons, was the recipient of many peoples kindnesses, was singed by burn out many times and survived... and thrived.

I am proud of my gallery, Painted Sky. It is a vision of mine that has grown into a haven of my most treasured paintings. I daily receive visitors from all over the United States and practically every corner of the globe. I have shared and sold my art to visitors from South Africa, France, New Zealand,  Australia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Israel, The Philippines, Japan and China. But the most important thing that has blown on the embers of my soul is coming back full circle to the place that I am creating art again.

In my next post I will talk about my newest painting "Flags Of Our Fathers" and what it means to me to be painting again.