Taking things to the next level....

 I have been pondering my career as an artist and really thinking about my goals.  Recently, I had an epiphany of sorts - what is it I'm trying to do?   My usual answer is, to make people smile and feel the joy that I have when creating my art.   My whimsical characters are such a part of me.  I remember each one, their names, and the backstory that I have created for each one in my head.  I look over the thousands of pieces of art that I have created and I absolutely adore my whimsical characters.  I think I've done several posts about them.  What is interesting, is I always downplay them.  I tell myself, that my imagination is far too quirky for people to "get" or want to purchase.   Then I start to doubt my career path more.  

After months of soul searching, I've decided to move forward and embrace who I am, embrace my imagination and all of the wonderful, whimsical creatures that I create.   This type of art makes me the happiest and if my goal is to share my happiness, then I'm going to dive right in.  Will I create other art?  Of course, but I'm going to embrace what I love most.  No more downplaying in my mind that it's not worthy of hanging on people's walls.  No more justifying being sad creating other art because people only want pieces they can resonate with.   I'm going to just spread my wings and fly.  If my goal is only to share happiness, then why does it matter what I create?  I KNOW people love my art and whimsical characters and I can share my love and joy every day by creating more.  

People often say the words you speak are the spells you cast.  If I belittle my favorite characters, then I am not embracing who I am as an artist.  I just know the people that they speak to will find me and they will proudly hang them in their homes.   

Look for some big changes on my website.  I'm going to retire a lot of pieces and only bring them out for "retired pieces of the month" and since I have so many, there will always be a nice selection of older material.  For now, my focus is to populate my website with my vision of what I love about my art.  My favorite pieces.   I think this will really showcase who I am as an artist and I'm no longer going to create to "try to figure out what people want".  I'm just going to SHINE and embrace my beautiful imagination!   Time to take my art to a new level of love!