My husband has had the last two days off, and has kept things around here stirred up until my tummy is in upheaval and I'm not sleeping any more.
He's back at work today, so I'm hoping to take a day off from our worries and think about something else.
Just a little something from my personal history...
I was sorting through some stuff on my shelf the other day, (purging in case we needed to move again soon,) and I found some old, old, old instruction sheets from the very first tole painting class I took a lifetime ago. (Plus a progression of others, leading my memory through my painting career...)
That first class was at the Hobby Hive - which, back then was located in a tiny little shack on a side street in Spanish Fork. I had run across it by accident one day, and had haunted it since, drooling over the adorable painted objects in the window.
I finally got up the courage to sign up for a class, (and convinced hubby to finance it.)
That first class was done with oils - from there painting became a passion that took hold and burned out of control for a while...
Eventually, that little store moved to a larger building on main street, and by then I was a fixture there. They had discovered a new tole painting artist (Marie Cole) who's work was (and still is) beyond cute. I took a few classes from her and others - this time in acrylics, and from then on I was a complete addict.
When it became necessary for me to go to work, the Hobby Hive was the first place I thought of to apply. (Brad was 4 when I applied, and I had to take him to the interview - I swear he got me the job!) I did get the job, and spent several happy years there.
Shortly thereafter, the store was purchased by a larger, but still family owned company out of Provo. (Provo Craft.)
The new manager was young, and somewhat inexperienced, and he gave me a lot of opportunities. Eventually, I got brave enough to teach a few classes myself. (Even though it was extremely stressful for someone with acute social anxiety like myself! - what was I thinking? ha ha)
It was fun, and a challenge learning how to articulate to someone else how to master the art...
After a while, it became apparent that Provo Craft had purchased the store, not to expand their territory, but to eliminate the competition.
They soon planned to close the store, (which broke my heart.) But, through helping with the transfer of merchandise, and the move, I managed to secure a spot at the store in Provo.
It wasn't a great spot - I was just an "extra" which meant that I did whatever crappy chore no one else would do, and gave breaks to all the people with real jobs. (I always worked Holidays and weekends etc.)
I had some pretty hair-raising adventures there, but along with that came some pretty fun stuff too. For instance, one year, I was put in charge of receiving and organizing all the merchandise that came in for a weekend long crafting event.
(Kind of an open house, offering dozens of mini classes to customers who came in the store.
It was a big responsibility, (and got me out of a lot of crappy jobs for a while ha ha)
When that day came, it was crazy busy, and I got to be the stand in for several of the teachers so they could take a lunch break - which meant that I got to be taught how to do all the projects.
I also got assigned to receive all the Christmas merchandise one year. That was fun too, except that it was all stored in one of the uppermost rooms in the building, and the ceiling was really low - it was July, and it was stuffy & hot up there, and very claustrophobic!
Anyway, (getting side tracked here.) It was while I was there, that I was approached by one of the painting teachers about a new venture that they were starting - painting samples from the instruction books that the company produced, to be used as displays for other stores.
I was stunned, and honored to be chosen to do this! I would take an order home, after work, and do it on my own time. (An order would consist of several of exactly the same item, so it could be done assembly line style.)
They paid by the piece, but if you were fast - it was really good wages.
I loved it, and made a good living at it for a while.
At one point, I was chosen to take a special class to do work from one of the more detailed artists.
There were only 8 people chosen to do this, so it was really an honor.
I was really happy with this work, and ate, slept and breathed to paint - joined the local chapter of the Decorative Painting Society - and went on lots of fun retreats, went to the painting convention in Logan every year, took seminars (two to three day classes by one individual teacher where you complete a series of projects - always intense!)
I even contracted with a couple of private places - Betty Headman, who had a booth at Quilted Bear in Park City, and I forget the name of the other place, but she sold Christmas ornaments by mail, and worked out of a little tin warehouse over by Geneva.
I would have been happy to go on like this forever, but the tole painting business started to wane - (those darn scrapbookers encroached on our territory!) And the biggest buyer of painted samples (somewhere in Chicago) went out of business, so I lost that cushy job.
A few years later, Jennifer came along. I had a child in high school, one in Jr. high, and one in middle school, plus a baby, so I had to put everything else on hold for a while. (It felt like I was shifting from first to fourth gear all the time, with no transition in between - quite jarring!) ...And my health started to fail.
I enjoyed my baby to the fullest, telling myself every day, that there is a time and season for everything, and that I would take up the brush again someday when she was grown...
Ha ha.
She is grown now, and I am blind and arthritic. There are very few places to buy painting supplies anymore, and the passion is just not what it once was. (Medication side effect - or old age?)
Whatever the reason, my hey-day came and went. Pathetic, but that is as close to being successful at something that I will ever be.
Post Script: I was talking to my sister about this, and something else came to mind - how during this time, my dream was always to create my own designs and have them published. I worked and worked on some, even got the samples painted - I then took them in to show Becki (who was the person over the classes at PC.) She loved them and told me that she wanted me to teach them.
I got so scared, that I took them home and never showed them to anyone again!
...And a few months later, every single one of the PC designers had taken my idea and done their own spin on it.
Like I said, pathetic.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment