I was blessed to be raised by my grandparents from birth. They both saw the importance of art since my grandpa made part of his living on it.
I was in the local newspaper every year when they would come around to do their annual article on "The Pumpkin House". Yes, I lived in "the pumpkin house" with "the pumpkin man" and was sometimes called "the pumpkin girl". Every Fall my pa would get thousands of pumpkins, I would help clean them all and he, with the help of some other hired artists, would paint faces on them. Some were funny, some were bats, ghosts, characters, witches, and goblins.
My pa had me drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil and painting soon after. Both he and my grandmother always supported my dreams, and do to this day. It was never a matter of "you can't do that" in our house but rather "you can do anything you're willing to work for"
I started making my money in photography, now I just photograph my quickly growing family as well as my closest friends. I'm the "everyone has a friend with a fancy camera and editing skills" friend. Photography was a launching pad into my next artistic adventure.
Which brings me to how Love is came to be. By the time my sweet baby was born I became really discontent with my 8-5 job, mostly because my husband and I just had our first baby and I wanted to be a stay at home mom so bad it brought me to tears. Each day I felt empty and guilty for leaving our little one. We prayed and discussed, discussed and prayed. Finally God gave us the push we needed. In November of 2011 I lost my job. That was it, that was the push I needed to pursue what I really love, art.
I dabbled in several mediums for a bit. It started out with barn wood signs. Mostly custom orders with quotes or lyrics but that wasn't it, I didn't feel at peace with just that. Next I started with the message boards and other up-cycled home decor items. Still, that wasn't my goblins. One day in an effort to duplicate a trendy necklace I visited the local craft store's jewelry making section. Something inside told me to buy enough to make several so I did. A few compliments later I was building an inventory and set a booth up on opening weekend of a new flea market. It was a hit, most everything sold and that was the affirmation I needed to continue. It grew out of the flea market into a little hippie store and from there caught the eye of a local boutique owner and the rest , as they say, is history.