Day 5: Thanking God for my opportunities.

365 Days Of My Life As A Studio Artist: Day 5

Day 4 Donations: $ Will find out when I get into the office tomorrow.

Donations Running Total: $.03932

Day 5 Growth Idea: Thanking God for my opportunities.

Sunday seemed like a good day to show my gratefulness for the opportunities I have been given. You will see throughout this blog that I had a lot of roadblocks, but I also had a lot of opportunities that kept me going. One of them is pictured here. After my studio fire about 8 years ago, we moved everything into the bottom floor of this building. At the time, it was being rented out - one renter on the top floor and another renter on the bottom floor. I took over the bottom and have been here ever since. I love having my studio on our property. Although it could be larger... and I don't know any artist who doesn't feel like they need more space, it allows me the opportunity to come down and work any time of the day or night. And, for me that is a real plus. If I can't sleep, I come down, work for a bit, get the ideas out of my head and on paper, then go up the hill back to bed. How cool is that?

My History: I think #5 may be my lucky number. My jobs lasted for 5 years... 5 years at Manufacturers Bank, 5 years at The Westin Hotel, and the next 5 years were at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn. Once back in Dearborn I started back at school. Although I was foolish enough to have the engineers I worked with talk me into taking Calculus. Math was never a strong point of mine and even with their private coaching, I had to drop that class. Drove me nuts to do it... but for me, there was no way I was going to make it through and pass. As in the past, if times got tough, I dropped my art classes. Still trying to figure out why I did this. I guess it was that lack of confidence in myself, my abilities, and the ability to make any money doing what I love. My job at Ford Motor Company lasted 5 years because we decided to start having a family.

Today's Business: Did a little follow up on an upcoming job for a hospital in our area. Things are looking good but I don't want to post the results until I have a signed contract. I have found that getting excited about the possibilities before I have a contract and money is kind of futile. The committee is supposed to meet tomorrow, I found out so maybe I will know this week. It will be a 4' wide x 4.5' tall mosaic with the same feel as the glass panel on this blog. Wish me luck.

Pat Deere