Last month, I finally resigned from my last paying (non-art) job. It was for a client in Vermont that I had been working for for 10 years. My goal is to dedicate my time exclusively to painting and selling my art.

It got me thinking about all the jobs I’ve had in my life. Counting and remembering them wasn’t easy. Since I lived in Vermont for most of my adult life and worked freelance for many years, there were many times when I had multiple jobs at once. Making a living in Vermont wasn’t easy, you had to be flexible and master many skills. Here are some highs and lows of my career: (Not to be confused with a resume).

• Office worker for 40 hours a week in a window-less building at Kodak that made motion picture and sheet film.
• Spent a ski season as “Suzie from Sugarbush” calling radio stations to report snow conditions each morning.
• Helped open a high end sportswear store on Madison Avenue in NYC.
• Worked on the 39th floor of the GM building for Estee Lauder.
• Spent many years as a marketing manager in the “hay day” of the ski business working mostly for French and Italian companies.
• Managed a team of shoe designers for a boutique design firm.
• Corporate communications for a start-up “green” electricity company that moved to Texas six months after I started working there.
• Managed sales and marketing for a development company that was building (and trying to sell) high end condos during the 2008 recession.
• Was fired from a job at a toy company that in 2012, insisted on keeping their data in a DOS- based system.

Through it all, the only constant was my painting. Even in my busiest years, I’d keep my studio active and crank out at least a few works a year, occasionally exhibiting at local galleries and art shows.

It’s been difficult making the mental switch to being a full-time artist. For one thing, my e-mail volume has decreased dramatically. Now it’s mostly spam or bank and credit card statements. I can now work in my studio both before and after lunch! I’ve signed up for 5 art markets this summer and just finished taking a really interesting painting workshop.

I’m grateful that all those years of crazy jobs and hard work have enabled me to paint now without the worry of actually generating a living-wage profit. However, for the first time this year, it looks like I actually WILL make a profit on my art. So, as Carrie Bradshaw would say, “Just like that”, I’m an artist.

Photo by RhondaK Native Florida Folk Artist on Unsplash