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This story is About Me! |
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They say if you can paint your own portrait, You can paint just about anything.
I have been drawing and painting since I was a small child I took all the required art classes throughout my school years, just barely passing the grade. When I was 14 years old, I took my first painting (oil) class with my stepsister Charlotte Thorne. I learned many different techniques from her, but she encouraged me to keep my own style. I worked with her on a consignment job, a fifty-foot mural of a vineyard scene, in a popular Pizzeria located in Calabasas, California.
I later took on my own consignment jobs with a different medium altogether. One of these was to design a Floral mural six feet in diameter and a Single Rose pattern. My patterns were copied onto several different types of unique wood, and then intricately cut into puzzle-like pieces. Each small piece was then inlayed into an oak hardwood floor. The mural was placed at the entrance of an enormous living room, which measured approximately 30 x 50 feet. The single rose was placed in each corner of another enormous dinning room, in the home of Donna Rosen of Beverly Hills. Contractors Mike Lions and Randall Nance did the actual wood flooring inlay work. Another consignment job was to reproduce a Floral design from imported Italian tile, which I painted onto a bleached (white) oak hardwood floor.
For several years I put off all of my artistic talents (becoming a single parent) raising my two sons, always dreaming of painting, and at the same time regretting the waste of my talent. My aunt, Janice Graham tried to get me back into painting, but after such a long time, I had lost most (if not all) of my confidence and desire to paint. She introduced me to China painting just a few years ago, when she installed some of her painted tile work in her new home of South Lake Tahoe, California. It was so beautiful, but I still was not ready. While on vacation one year, she showed me how to use this medium called China Paint. I played with it on a tile and I liked it! She then invited me to attend her China painting class. The instructor was Eleanor Skiles of Gardnerville, Nevada.
OK, I was hooked! There were no if, ands, or buts about it. I began to realize the path that was in front of me. My Aunt Jan later showed me a Inspirational piece of hand painted porcelain, which she told me to pick it up and turn it over. As I did, I noticed the signature of my Great Grandmother, Mary Swing Clark. I realized I was holding a piece of my past, a piece of who I am, and a piece of my future. I was determined to follow the talent that has been passed down to me for generations. While returning home, I searched for months trying to find anyone who could put me in contact with an instructor in my own area. One year, while at the Los Angeles County Fair, I found two little gray haired ladies sitting at a table in the Arts building, painting with China Paints. To my delight, and leaving my friend in the dust, I ran over to their table and asked them so many questions they didn't know what to think of this wild woman in front of them. They explained they had a booklet listing of Porcelain Painting Teachers, as well as locations and phone numbers. I swear I sat at that table for almost two hours bending their ears, and copying down as many names and numbers as I could, (they were probably so relieved to see me go). I returned home and called the first name on the list, which just happened to be the president of the San Fernando Valley Porcelain Painter organization. I was told that one way or another she would find someone whose class I could attend in my area. She did just that, and I signed up. I have since watched my talents unfolding before my eyes. My confidence and desire for painting has exploded from inside my soul and is now in full bloom. I began teaching in 1998, and have completed several custom jobs for hand painted murals, plates, and personalized wedding gifts. I also created this web site from scratch, not knowing the slightest thing about it. Now people are asking me to create a web site for them as well. I'm vary proud of what I have accomplished here and I have found what makes me, who I am, by doing what I was meant to do, Paint!!! d |
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