Or was I really an artist earning a living as an illustrator? — I’ve never second-guessed the choice of my career path. I’ve spent my career as a freelance illustrator. The early years of my solopreneurship were intertwined with the very intensive hands-on portion of my single-parenting career — parenting never ends, it transforms into something else. …

Objects have secret lives too. — I’m a professional illustrator. My job is to tell stories through images I create for my clients. Translation: I’m a professional visual storyteller. I should not have been surprised when I realized that many objects in my house whisper their stories to me — all the time. Thank the Goddess above and below I…

These stories are the reverse of “ a picture is worth 1000 words.” I’m the one who makes the pictures. Art is a form of visual storytelling. Good art, in my opinion, stands on it’s own. Good art transcends time, place, era, historical context, it doesn’t or shouldn’t need a…

Because you politely ended it — So that’s it? You spoke your truth. You told me you didn’t ever want to live in the midwest again. I heard you. We reached the end of a path we’d been traveling together for a year and a half. …

Success looks different for everyone. — Just tried washing white house paint off the sleeve of my favorite olive-colored sweater. Half of the paint is now permanently part of my sweater sleeve. Now my paint-christened sleeve is wet and cold feeling yucky and clammy rolled up against my arm. “Fuck it,” I said to myself because…

Choosing Beads for New Bracelets — The cold winter months are a blessing to gypsy-artist-makers. We hunker down in our home studios creating new work to sell during the warm summer months. The joy of this season is the absence of the crushing need to produce enough inventory created for next weekend’s show because we had…

It’s about time — Carefully exhaling, I think client work may have slowed down for a wee bit. Which means it’s time for me to work on my own projects. I’ve come to realize how much of myself and how much concentrated energy I laser beam into my personal projects. It’s impressive. I’ve been…

The fulfillment of a dream. “It looks so real,” I said to one of the women hanging my show. She met my eyes and said, “Yes, it does.” Eight volunteers met me at the door of the gallery. They happily helped schlep all twenty pieces of my work indoors. It…

Old World & New World techniques work together. — Creating custom maps is one of my all-time favorite things to do in my job as a freelance illustrator. I’ve been a map geek from my early days. John Rea Neil was the second illustrator to work with Frank L. Baum on his “Wonderful World of Oz” series. Neil illustrated…