It was 1996. We were on LBI (Long Beach Island NJ) in our frequent summer stays at my first mother-in-law’s beach house in Surf City. We took the kids up to Beach Haven for “Funland” (or whatever it was called). LBI does not have a boardwalk.
Outside a shop, we noticed a young guy (maybe about 20 years old) drawing caricatures, and a line. The price was around $10 each, as I recall.
Finances were always tight, so after some discussion, we decided to let our SONS stand in line.
I was, at that point, about two years into teaching art to homeschoolers about 10ish hours per week, as well as putting a lot of efforts into my increasing home-based art business. Back then, I primarily did hand-calligraphy: addressing wedding invitations, or doing poems or my “Cord of Three Strands” personalized wedding gift.
Jonathan would have been two years old, and we did not start homeschooling Zach until January 1998. So I suppose Zach was about 7 and in between 1st/2nd grade at Brookside Elementary School in Newark.
I was watching this kid draw people and I suppose I wasn’t expecting some exact likeness…I was studying how much money he “seemed” to be easily making, and, I was watching him use a MARKER with what appeared to me to be methodic, thick and think strokes that reminded me of calligraphy.
When it was our turn, I asked him how he learned to do that. He told me he worked a summer at Hershey Park, and he and the other artists were taught in ONE WEEKEND from a video course. He gave me the name of the course and said I could find it in the back of Artist’s magazines…some of which I subscribed to and read quite thoroughly to learn anything possible/get ideas.
He told me, “If you have ‘any’ art ability, you can learn this.”
I told him, “I was an art major my first two years of college, and also a bit about my current home-based business.”
I thought to myself, “I need to earn MORE money. I’m going to look into this.”
In those years, we began to have Little League fees, and to want to take our SONS to museums, or provide a good Christmas and birthday experience for them. And, just plain old pay our bills.
And so…I began yet another money-making trajectory that, quite honestly, is the reason I could offset other forms of overhead and the costs of doing business, in order to offer clients, friends and strangers online the things that God has gifted me for.
About six months ago I was contacted by two sisters in TN, I believe, through Etsy. I ended up painting a keepsake gift/scripture to celebrate a young man’s baptism.
These are the things that bring me the deepest joy. While it can be fun to do caricature “gigs” I never want it to detract from the REAL JOB/WORK of what I believe God has called me to. Both art wise, and personally in other arenas.
I am getting too old to live without intention and purpose.
(Above) Easter 1997 with my two sons Jonathan age 3, and Zach age 8 in front of our house in Brookside; Newark, DE.
