My life before I became an artist

A little bit about me and how it all began...

It’s funny how fate has its way with weaving its magic in and out of your life. Being in my 40s gives me a much better perspective on the saying ‘everything happens for a reason’, and although I would love to still have my 25-year-old body and glowing, wrinkle free skin, I wouldn’t trade places for where I am now for any other age.

Being older makes me appreciate the timing of things and realising that everything happens as it should.

I spent my late 20s and 30s raising 3 kids and working part-time in our family real estate agency. I was in charge of the accounts and boy was that a challenge for me. My husband seemed to be able to run the business and manage the accounts with his eyes closed, but I was HOPELESS!

On a weekly basis I would pay bills twice forgetting that I had already done it the week before. He was so patient with me. If it were in any other company I would have been fired at least 10 times with my incompetence. Still I loved the idea of working side by side with my husband and working toward a common goal.

It was around this time that I discovered I had ADHD. It explained a whole heap of reasons why I had never stuck to anything, left school

early, couldn’t get the accounts right, and was the most forgetful person I knew, forgetting things like my keys and school lunches on a daily basis. It also explained why I was so creative and excelled in any area where I could let myself get into a flow of creating and lose track of time.

After 5 years of me being the worst accounts manager ever, I decided I needed to find something to satisfy my creative side and work with my strengths.

I decided to take a cake decorating course and began my own business of making cakes of all kinds.

While I was actually pretty good at it, It was extremely time-consuming and very time dependent. The cakes needed to be ready on an exact date regardless of the humidity (which is a cake's worst enemy!) That as well as having three young children always ‘wanting to help’ was another challenge.

Realising that I did not work well under pressure at all, I stopped decorating cakes after 5 years.

Since then I have always had my hand in something creative. I would sketch fashion, play around with macrame, practise portraits of people I love. I would take painting classes with all the retired grannies on a Thursday morning which I loved!

It was on my 40th birthday that everything changed for me. My best friend bought me a full-day painting course where I was able to create a large artwork for my living room.

It was one of the most fun fulfilling days I've ever had and knew that I had to do that again. It coincided with the first COVID lockdown and all of a sudden I had all this time to explore abstract art!

I became OBSESSED with it. Day and night experimenting with different mediums. My house became over run with painting supplies and my friends started asking if I could do one for them.

Fast forward 3 years and it's now been the biggest blessing of my life to actually be living my dream and fulfilling my passion every day.

I have now transformed what once was the ‘man’s cave’ into a full-blown art studio. I sold 56 large-scale artworks in 2022! That’s unbelievable to me.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this could have happened to me!

I question sometimes, ‘if only I could have found this gift when I was younger, where would I be now?’

But I really believe that I wouldn't have been able to back myself then, and I wouldn't have appreciated and valued what a special privilege it is to have so many people want to buy my art.

I am humbled everyday and so very grateful.

So the moral of the story is NEVER give up looking for your passion. I didn’t know what it was until I was 40. But when you find it, you will know you cannot go another day without having it in your life!