Have you ever had a wild dream?
Something that was stirring in your heart that you felt you just had to do?
A vision that to others sounded crazy?
Well I am here to tell you the legend of my wild dream.
As I write this I am in my art studio on General Pershing Street in the Milan
neighborhood of New Orleans. But just four months ago I was on
Winham Street in Salinas, California. Different life. Here’s what can happen
if you dare the dream.
It all started with listening to a part of myself that began to speak to me,
a part of me, I now affectionately call Gator Girl. Gator Girl had her
beginnings on a blank canvas. I was looking for an art class in Monterey County in California. I didn’t find any classes offered by artists or at the junior colleges. That is strange, given where I was living. My sister sent me an email about an artist she saw in Mendocino, Shiloh Sophia McCloud. She mesmerized me and Googled her.
I started my journey by driving to Healdsberg for a weekend workshop. Shiloh showed our group how to write and illustrate a business plan. My plan included retiring in 3 years at 55, moving with my husband and grown children and their families to New Orleans, paint full-time and have Brad and Angelina buy one of my paintings. I think right now I will amend that to include Sandra Bullock also buying a painting.
So far, everything has gone as planned. I am just now putting my paintings on the web, so the Pitt/Bullock thing hasn’t happened yet.
My oldest daughter, her husband and 2 little children live 2 doors down, which is very close, because there are no side yards on our side of the street. My youngest daughter moved to New Orleans, fell in love on the Internet and moved to Los Angeles. I have a house picked out for her next door for when she wants to move here.
My husband, David, is a teacher at Harriett Tubman Elementary School across the Mississippi Bridge in New Orleans. They are busy changing the face of education, changing lives and changing the world.
New Orleans is our journey and our destination. The city fits all of us to a T. For me, I like the artistic bohemia of the city from alligators to angels. My husband loves the music. My son-in-law wants to rebuild (literally) New Orleans.
This is a beginning; the beginning 0f our uptown life and the beginning of the blog. Stay tuned.
Gator Girl Art 