This is one of those you-just-never-know stories that goes all the way back to 2004 when I ordered a book from a home decor book club.  The book was called .  The cover of that book is unfortunate, but the interior is scrumptious.  I poured over that book and, almost 20 years later, it’s still a favorite home decor book to revisit.  The book features the homes and tips of shop owners, designers, and stylists.  And one of the shops featured in that book is Ekster Antiques. Fast forward to my first Lucketts Spring Market as a vendor in May of 2010.  As I milled around to look at other booths, I was so enamored with one particular tent that was filled with natural tones and European Antiques.  I snapped this picture, a little slice of the beautiful space curated and styled by Caroline of Ekster Antiques.  I didn’t make

The art side of my business has been slowly chugging along for a few years.  I go through spurts and seasons but didn’t really commit to producing enough to have regular art sales (about once every six weeks) until this year.  And, wow!  What a difference it’s made.  I know I shouldn’t be surprised that commitment and follow-through can have a significant impact on many aspects of growth, but it’s still surprising.  I find myself feeling more like an artist, like that might be the simple answer when someone asks what I do.  It’s not all I do, but it’s feeling more and more like it’s becoming the main thing I do.  Not only am I having regular art sales, but I am also getting more requests from clients who want custom work for specific projects or who would like to carry my work in their retail spaces.  More of

I intended to make new pieces available as prints on Society6 after each original art sale, but I got behind.  The truth is, I would rather paint and do a ton of other things rather than upload photos of paintings, and tag and categorize them for a few hours.  It’s not complicated, but it’s a repetitive task that isn’t very engaging.  But, I finally pinned myself down and added a bunch of new paintings – bunnies, water birds, landscapes, still life, and one of the dogs.  I didn’t add all of my paintings from the past few months, but I added some of my favorites.  If there was one that spoke to you and you were waiting for one to be available as a print, then just let me know! If you want to jump right to Society6 to see the new designs added, you can click HERE.  Society6 is

People have been asking about my next art class and here it is!  I’d love to introduce Plein Air | Taking Art Outside.  It’s a mini-class (about two hours of content), so the early bird pricing is just $18! For those unfamiliar with the term “Plein Air”, it means “in the open air” and refers to painting or drawing outside.  It’s a way of creating art made famous by the Impressionist artists and has grown from there.  When Jeanne asked me about teaching a plein air online class for her site, my first thought was that I was the wrong person to teach this class!  There are artists who specialize in plein-air painting, but I always remind myself that teaching rarely happens from a final destination.  It occurs on a journey and my perspective and the experience I’ve gained so far might be helpful, especially for those who want to

The original art sale of the Spring Sky Challenge Collection will be on June 2, 2023, at noon EST.  The sale will go live HERE. I think it was the last day of April and I saw that one of my Instagram friends and favorite contemporary artists, Erin Spencer, was doing a Spring Sky Challenge for the month of May.  Each day, she (and anyone who joined in) would create and share a painting of the sky.  My original thought was that my Instagram crowd might not want to see a painting posted every day.  Even having that thought made me mad at myself for caring about the shallow metric of likes.  It made me all the more determined to fly in the face of the algorithms and commit to something that was about growth, study, practice, and sharing in a community.  All of those things are better than any

I shared a few days ago about my deep dive into landscape study, drawing, and painting again.  You can read about some books and artists that have inspired me in this endeavor HERE.   On a whim, I also joined in on the Spring Sky Challenge hosted by Erin Spencer on Instagram.  A painting challenge issued on Instagram was how I started oil painting in the first place (that was the 100 Meadows Project), so it seemed a fitting way to push myself to paint landscapes daily for a month. We have had pretty miserable spring weather so far with lots of cold, rainy, gray days, so I haven’t been outside to paint as much as I would like and I’ve been painting off of photos.  Most of the photos were taken recently as I’m out and about, but a few of the photos are old ones that I wanted to