Today begins the new year. That special day when we rise from the ashes of the previous year, spread our wings, and soar to new heights, carried by our hopes and dreams.

Either that, or we sleep until 3pm, regretting the previous night’s decision of “just one more bottle…”

For me personally, today is the beginning of a new project. The Blog.

This blog is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Ever since I became a full-time artist, I thought there must be a way for me to share my journey, explain how I got here, so that maybe just one person might find the hope and inspiration they’ve been looking for.

What better way to start then to launch this project on day one of 2017!

Posts may contain details of my personal artistic journey, travel photography and experiences, project developments, etc!

To start out, I’d like to tell you how I got to this point - a full time artist living my dream every day.

The Lore

To fully explain things, I’ll give you a brief overview of where I was in 2010.

2010: The Year of the Camera

I was living in Colorado, graduating with my second bachelor’s degree in Interior Design with an Emphasis in Sustainability, and starting my new job as Campus Planner at the very college I was graduating from. My first degree was in general Fine Arts where I majored in drawing and ceramics.

So, I’m starting my new design job, and having fun.

But design wasn’t my only creative interest. Although I had never taken a class in it, I was a huge photography fanatic. I had a Canon t2i with one lens: 50mm f/1.4 (my pride and joy).

It was my greatest hobby and passion at the time, and I found myself taking hundreds of photos per week of every subject matter, just for fun. You could hardly meet up with me without a threat of your portrait being captured. I was taking photos of friends and family, and since I was getting pretty good, I decided to start shooting weddings to see if I could earn some money to buy better equipment. My first wedding I received $200 (for 8+ hours and over 2000 digital images to the client). I was advertising for free on craigslist, and using a free website maker (Wix) for my portfolio. I thought I was pretty professional. I was volunteering to photograph graduations, reunions, anything just to build my experience and portfolio.

I had taught myself how to use my camera in full manual mode, as well as external flashes and reflectors for lighting. This was not easy, but through passion for learning, and desire to get better, I was able to enter any situation and come out with properly exposed, well composed images.

That first wedding, I took this photograph of the bride’s grandmother, who was in silent prayer just before the wedding ceremony began.

This photograph alone got me three more weddings that year. Thus started my 6 year journey as a wedding photographer-on-the-side.

During my busiest year, I shot 22 weddings, plus endless amounts of elopements, families and events. I learned many lessons the hard way, and also had countless successes. But it didn’t take long to get burned out. As an introvert with social anxiety, I was buckling under the pressure, (before I even knew what anxiety was).

I had my “day job,” and was making so much money as a wedding photographer. I was getting published in online and print publications, including the largest in the country, The Knot, where one of my gay weddings was featured (my favorite wedding that I shot). This led to more bookings. I had increased my photography fees to minimum $2,000 per wedding, and family sessions were at least $300. That kind of money was allowing me to upgrade my gear and travel, but I started to realize it might be the wrong business for me. As much as I wanted to do all the things, I was burning myself out. On the outside I was a success, but internally I was falling into the abyss. I transferred to a new job at an architecture firm, where the pressure kept building.

Plot Twist

Then one day in late 2014, while watching the Sunday Morning show on CBS, I heard about a website called Twitch. My nerd ears perked up, and I ran to my computer to see what it was all about. How could this thing - this glorious website for the video-game-obsessed - exist without me ever hearing about it?? My whole life I had played video games, primarily the Halo series, and even played in gaming tournaments over the years. It was one of my favorite pastimes outside of art.

Twitch allows you to log on and watch someone playing your favorite video game. Thousands of streamers playing every game you can think of, LIVE. But that’s not what makes it special. What was truly unique was that it allowed you to chat with the Streamer, in the real time, through a clever chat box next to the video player. They could answer questions or joke around with their viewers.

This opened my eyes to a whole new world, a huge community full of like-minded people who shared many passions. Many of whom suffered the same social anxiety I was experiencing. It was actually on Twitch that I first heard the term “anxiety” being discussed, and how Streamers suffer from it too. They found solace in their online communities, and through the deep relationships that form between community members there.

It wasn’t too long before I was dipping my toes in the Streamer waters, playing various games and gaining a small but loyal following. My viewers and I would have hours of fun chatting, while I kicked butt, or got my butt kicked by other players, all in front of a live “audience.” It became my daily oasis. Something fun and relaxing to take my mind off daily stresses.

Soon after I joined Twitch, I found another streamer who was painting - yes, PAINTING - live on her channel! I was blown away, sitting there staring at my screen, watching this incredible artist create a beautiful oil painting, talking to her viewers about video games, art, life in general.

This changed EVERYTHING.

This moment would be the catalyst for my new life as a full time artist, and I didn’t even know it yet.

Halo "Elite" Character. Acrylic on canvas, 2015.

As a creative, I had always been dabbling in various mediums and one of those was acrylic painting. I decided to give it a try, and to do my first Creative stream. This meant I had two cameras, one for people to see my face while talking to them, and one for people to watch me paint. In the early days of Creative streaming, I was painting a lot of video game characters, because that was popular on Twitch. What I realize now is that it’s not about what the Streamer is doing. It’s about the connection between the Streamer and viewers, between the people in chat, and the sense of a close-knit community, unlike anything I experienced in my every-day-life.

2015: The Year I Quit My Job

At this time, I was taking steps to reduce my photography schedule for the following year (2015) because I was purely overwhelmed with my social anxiety. At my design job, I was making it day by day, but there were many days when I was beyond my limit of anxiety that I could handle. Then I would have to photograph a wedding or a family photo shoot after already feeling stretched thin.

Time went on and I did my best to balance it all. I was basically working three jobs in hopes my path would become clear to me. Eventually…I’d have to choose one.

In April of 2015, I was making enough money through my photography business, my Twitch channel (through donations from viewers), art sales, and art commissions to consider quitting my day job. I had already decided to stop photographing weddings and families (pretty much anything involving large groups of people) by the end of 2015, and I had saved enough money to last me more than 6 months in the worst case scenario (not making ANY money).

Although I enjoyed the challenge of design, I was growing increasingly passionate about painting. Painting was freedom. Painting helped me get all my intense inner visions out into the world, to express myself in a way I never knew possible. The more I painted, the more I increased my skill, the easier it was to use my artistic voice to express myself. I found total solace in the feeling of raw creation, more than I ever felt in photography or design.

I knew deep inside my choice was clear. I made the choice to quit my day job in May 2015.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, because it meant losing the security of a paycheck and any success or failure after that point was all on me. I had been successfully running my photography business for almost 6 years, but could I achieve this success doing something else in a new industry? That scared me. But I had to try.

The Challenge

Creating artwork is not enough. You need a way to get that art out into the world, and a platform for sales. When you first begin your freelance artistic career, visibility is everything. Since I already had been streaming for several months, I had a strong viewership/community. Streaming helped my art be seen by hundreds of people every week, and since I was streaming around 40 hours per week, painting the entire time, I was making a LOT of art. This, in time, led to lots of growth and lots of sales.

The people that watched my streams liked my art. Enough to buy some of it. But soon they wanted more. They wanted to learn how to do it too. Teaching entered my mind.

I started my Patreon account, which allows people to sign up on a monthly subscription in return for monthly tutorials.

In September 2015, Twitch decided to “partner” with me, which meant I could start making money through my streams. In addition, my sales were high, my custom commission requests were high, and I was still financially stable thanks to my remaining photography jobs. Things were going well.

In October 2015, Twitch launched the official Creative section - meaning there was a dedicated category on the website for artist-streamers like me to broadcast! This gave so much validity to what we (there were hundreds of us by then) were doing. Everything from painters to woodworkers, glassblowers, musicians, professional concept artists, and more! Even Adobe had a presence on Twitch Creative. It was an incredibly diverse and supportive artistic community that was growing by the day.

By living and breathing my art and talking about art on Twitch, I was discovering so much about myself at such a fast pace. I was meeting so many incredible individuals. Finding love and sorrow along the way. Gaining friends and losing friends. The tides of internet relationships ebb and flow much like the ocean. People join Twitch for many reasons, and use it for however long it is helpful and useful in their lives. As a Creative Streamer, I put myself out there - both physically on the screen, and emotionally while talking to people. This draws in some people, and pushes others away. I was discovering patterns in how people use Twitch. People get close, and then they disappear. They have their own lives. That was hard to accept. But I realized how powerful a tool something like Twitch can be in healing and self discovery.

By putting yourself out there fully, you start to learn about yourself. Whether it’s self-discovery, or others holding up a mirror to your flaws. You start to see what is out there beyond your door.

2016: The Year My Next Life Started

Painting at Stonehaven, Scotland. February 2016.

My wanderlust was bubbling. I booked a “Europe trip” in January 2016 with a one-way ticket to Scotland, from where I planned on backpacking to Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Fueled by a dream of seeing the world and meeting up with some people I knew through Twitch.

I learned that not everyone I meet can be trusted, nor will they stay close after I let them in. I learned to believe in myself - that through hard work I can maintain financial stability that allows me to live my dream of being a full time artist. I learned that one of my greatest passions is to inspire others, and I wanted to do that as often as possible. A lot happened during my travels and made me realise I needed to get serious about my art if I wanted to survive. Not just financially, but emotionally and even spiritually. I wanted to commune with nature and learn about Druidism. I started down a new quiet path in life.

When I returned from my two months in Europe, I moved into an apartment (in my friend’s basement) and I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. But there was something from my travels that I couldn’t shake.

So let’s go back to Scotland for a moment…

The Train

I met my current boyfriend on a train the day I left Scotland. It was such a random and seemingly innocent moment.

I had given him my business card, we exchanged info and it eventually blossomed into something more. At the time I was heartbroken from a recently ended long term relationship. Did you know it’s possible to be heartbroken, and in love at the same time? I didn’t either, until it happened.

So much has transpired since we met almost a year ago. At first I was stubbornly against being with anyone. I wanted to be totally independent. At the time I didn’t think I was allowed to fall in love so quickly. But we cannot fight against our heart’s desire and still hope for any kind of happiness. Eventually I gave in.

Now we live together in the highlands of Scotland, and have an amazingly easy, uncontrollably magnetic love for each other. I don’t mean this to sound condescending to anyone, but I honestly think most people would be better off if they waited until they turned 30 years old to get married. Before that, most people are still figuring out who they are. I was. I’m about to turn 32 and just barely starting to understand myself. The scary thing about love is that you never know when or where it will appear. It can be the hardest thing to accept, but when you find a perfect match, you do anything in your power to make it work. That includes packing everything you own into a storage unit and moving across the ocean.

Through all of this self discovery, I’ve learned that I’m allowed to be truly happy on my own (if I want to be). But I choose to open my heart and be with someone. I choose to be vulnerable on the internet as part of a passionate art community.

And my art will take me somewhere special, I know it.

So, hello, 2017… I can’t imagine the things you have in store for me. I only hope I have the clarity to understand your gifts.

Please comment with any questions. For the next few blog post, I’ll share some of my travel photography and stories behind them!

001. Year of the Blog