The Beginning of My Art Journey

People often ask me when I first realized that I had talent. I remember my mother told me I had a special gift when I was around 4 years old. By first grade, several teachers noticed that my talent was beyond average and would talk to me about it. One time they even called my mother in to school to discuss my abilities. It was a good thing that God gave me a special talent, because like many artistic types, I found it hard to concentrate on traditional school work!

To this day I still subscribe to the Mark Twain philosophy of learning - "Never let your schooling get in the way of your education."

Early on, the most influential person in my life in terms of art was my grandfather.

He started painting when I was little and he bought me my very first pastel and color pencil set. I used to sit by him and draw as he would work on an oil painting. Even though I was just a young boy I could see things wrong in his painting but didn’t know how to explain to him how to fix it.

He used to always say to me “Billy, I wish I could draw like you.” And then I’d say “Grandpa, I wish I could paint like you.” I remember when my dad, uncles, aunts, or cousins would ask for one of his paintings — he would light up like a Christmas tree. I’ll never forget that look on his face.

Many years later I had the privilege of putting some of grandpa’s work in an art show along with some of mine, and at 91 years old, he won his first award. The tears that rolled down his face that day left a lasting impression on me and have helped me over the years as I have taught people of all ages. I certainly don’t think it’s ever too early to start a child painting, but I also believe it’s never too late for an adult to get started either. So I always tell people “Don’t tell me you’re too old! My grandpa painted until he was 94!”

When I was young, there weren’t any PBS artists on TV. But there was one guy named John Nagy on after school. He worked mostly in charcoal. The only other art I got to see was Norman Rockwell on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. When I looked at Rockwell’s work, I knew I wanted to make my living in art.

When I was fourteen, I submitted my work to Rockwell’s “Famous Artist School.” Some men from the school actually came to my house, talked to my parents, and said that I would be accepted into their program! I couldn’t believe it – I had the opportunity to study at the school where Norman Rockwell worked! Unfortunately, my parents didn’t have the money for me to attend, but just knowing I was accepted helped bolster my confidence.

Throughout grade school and high school, I exhibited and won in state and national shows. I had my sight set on attending Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

Little did I know that life was about to change for me in a BIG way. The comfort and ease that I had always known at home were about to be completely blown out of the water.

You Can’t Run From Art

With all the great things going on in life and all the tremendous success in my art, I thought the good times would never end. I could see fame and fortune right around the corner. I thought that someday I’d be a household name all across America.

But, like a lot of young people, I got sidetracked with a lot of other pursuits in life, some good, some not so good. To this point, things had come easily for me. The discipline I had excercised in my art failed to transfer to other areas of my life.

You know from experience that there are dozens or even hundreds of moments in your life that you could characterize as truly “life changing.” But what I’m sharing next are what I would describe as “defining” moments that shaped the course of my life – not just my art, but certaining spilling over into my art and ultimately determining the course of my career.

You're What?!

In the blink of an eye I was married and had a daughter, not necessarily in that order. I was only 18.  Realizing the enormity of my life change, I subconsciously began to put my art on hold and got a “real” job. It’s amazing how quickly life can change.

For a while I kept dabbling in art, attending classes through a correspondence school. Even though I kept saying I was going to commit to my art, deep down I knew I had given up on my dream. I began to work at the very same factory where my father and many others from my family worked. In fact, most of the town worked there.

Even though that business was a great business, and provided a living for many people in the area, I just never thought that I would work there. I was supposed to be an artist. As you can imagine, I was absolutely devastated.

I thought my life was over.

My mother kept telling me that God had given me a special gift, that he wanted me to be using my talent. I just refused to listen to her – or to him.

Feeling the Pain

But it’s amazing how persistent moms and God can be. While working in the factory, I injured my back, spent 5 months in traction, and was in and out of the hopital. My mom and my sister Phyllis kept telling me that this was God’s way of getting my attention. I always promised him that if I got better I would follow my art, but when I did get better, that promise was quickly forgotten.

Finally, not too long after recovering from my back problems, I blew out my ankle really bad while playing basketball, and the doctor told me I may never be able to play again (a lot of guys said I never could play anyway!). He said, “You’re going to lose a lot of your mobility. Do you have any other hobbies?”

Did I ever…

Spiritual Transformation

There is one thing that is critical for me to mention. It was the day I turned my life over to Jesus Christ. I’m certainly not asking you to agree or disagree with my spiritual beliefs. I just need to tell you this or you won’t really know who I am as a person or how I’ve come to the point in my art where I am now.

I had been down a dark and lonely road of drinking, depression, and suicidal thoughts. That’s why I’m writing this today. I truly believe that if the Lord hadn’t found me when he did, I wouldn’t be here today. I’m not trying to preach, but I want you to know why I’m an artist today. God never gave up on me and he won’t on you either. One thing I’ve found out – you can run and run but you can’t get away from God.

Anyway after I was told I’d never walk right again, I got down on my knees and asked God what he wanted from me. Isn’t that amazing? – I had known since I was 4 years old that this was my calling, and now here I was at 28 years old, asking God what he wanted me to do. But I already knew.  I also remember arguing with him about it. He won, of course, and I said “yes.”

At that moment the course of my life changed.

Back to School

It was at this time that my wife encouraged me to call Indiana Wesleyan University, where I began to study art. My professor was only a year older than me, and we really hit it off. One day he said to me, “Why don’t you get your degree, and then you could get this professorship. I’m getting ready to switch schools.” I remember it like it was yesterday. That was when I uttered those famous words that have since defined my life – “I’LL NEVER TEACH ART.”

On the Road Again

In order to pay my way through college, I went to truck driving school so I could make a living while studying. I started working part time driving trucks while going to school. It was working out really well because the routes were local and I could work around my school schedule.

As I was beginning to get settled in, I got a call from a trucking company that specialized in “over-the-road” long haul driving. They were trying to fill spots for their two-man teams. I was really struggling with the financial end of my life at that time, so I figured the money was too good to turn down. Of course, I had to quit school, since I would be gone 10-14 days at a time. Just as I was beginning to work my way back into my art, I allowed myself to get sidetracked again.

As I was pulling out of town with my partner on my very first run across country, I looked down at the pictures I had brought of my family and said, “I can’t do this.” Everything and everyone I cared about was back at home and I would be driving all over the country. The experienced, somewhat crusty, trucker I was with looked at me and said, “You’ll get used to it.” I replied, “I don’t WANT to get used to it.”

On one of my layovers back at home, I got together with my pastor and explained to him the situation. He assured me that God would give me another opportunity.

Amazingly enough, it happened sooner than I expected.

This Isn’t An Art Gallery!

I wanted to get away from over-the-road truck driving. I needed a different job.

A car dealership called. I don’t even remember how they got my name or how they knew I wanted a different job. I went in to the interview praying I wouldn’t get it because everyone knew the reputation of car salemen.

You guessed it. I got the job and worked there for two years. Little did I know then how the job would teach me to organize. I also learned to be honest in a dishonest profession. I knew that when I sold a car to someone that I still had to be able to look in the mirror without turning away in horror.

You’ve got to understand – it was hard selling cars then because interest rates were very high. It was very tough to get loans.  My claim to fame is that I actually sold the first “buy here pay here” car in the state of Indiana. I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of, but I tried to treat those people like I did the Cadillac buyers.

Management told me I was spending too much time with my customers before AND after the sale. Customer service wasn’t as high on their priority list as it was on mine. A normal work week for me was 60-70 hours so I still wasn’t seeing my family that much. To top it off, there weren’t a whole lot of sales either.

At that point, I started showing my artwork in my office at the dealership. The way I figured it the walls needed to be dressed up and it might as well be my work! That’s when one day the owner of the dealership told me to “get that crap off the walls. This isn’t an art gallery.”

(Little did I know then that 10 years later that very same owner would buy 140 of my limited edition prints for gifts and become one of my top collectors! It’s funny how God works…)

However, when it happened, it was one of the true low points of my life. I couldn’t believe that someone would use that terminoloy to describe my art. I wanted to quit work right on the spot but couldn’t. Finally I was called in by the owner and asked “Why don’t you do us a favor and quit? You’re not a car salesman.” To which I replied, “You’re going to have have to fire me because I’m not a quitter.”

Lousy Salesmen Make Great Artists

I couldn’t believe that my boss had urged me to quit. He didn’t offer to help me. He didn’t offer training. He didn’t offer encouragement. Instead, he offered me asphalt. Hit the road, Jack.

This was another low moment in my life. I disagreed with him and told him so. His reply was pretty clear. He said, “Not only are you not a good car saleman, you are not a salesman AT ALL.”

Not too long after that I was called into the office on a Friday night and was fired. They told me to clear out my desk and head straight for the door. I wasn’t even able to say goodbye to the co-workers that I had worked with for the past two years.

Needless to say I was devasted. I felt like a complete failure. I went home, closed the curtains, and sat in the house for 3 straight days without going outside one time. On the bright side, my wife and children were happy to have me back in the real world. They would actually be able to see me a few hours a week.

Shortly after all the turmoil, my wife checked into unemployment for me and said I could get it for 18 months because the economy was so bad.  Perhaps that was God’s way to say “go for it, this is what I‘ve got for you.”

I then called my friend who was already a professional artist and asked him what he did to turn professional. I just figured I would have to join some association or sign papers at the courthouse or something.

He told me that he would never forget the three things someone once told him about becoming a professional artist. You have to have:

1. God given talent
2. Desire
3. Commitment

I wrote those three things on a piece of paper and put it in my studio…I still have that paper.

Movin’ on Up

Who would have ever thought getting fired would be the best thing that ever happened to me? After solidifying the decision to turn professional in my mind, I called my two biggest supporters, my mom and my sister. They had always been a great encouragement to me, and I wanted them to be among the first to know.

After that I joined a local art guild. The president of the guild said I should join the board, but I said there was no way I would do that. That was a Friday night and the next Tuesday they held nominations for the next year. Wednesday morning they called me and told me that I had been elected president. Say what?

At my first board meeting, I met a lady there named Judy. She looked at my art work and asked me to start teaching her. Of course there was no way I was teaching anyone anything. That was in September and I taught my first class in January.

During that time, I began to read anything I could get my hands on about marketing, not just art, but all marketing. I was a sponge.

I entered as many art exhibits as I could. I remember one time I drove to an art show and I didn’t even have one dime in my pocket for the drive home. I knew if I wasn’t committed to it, it was never going to happen.

I was blessed to start out well, winning a lot of awards, but also brought back to earth through a lot of rejection. I did outside shows, inside shows, and in-between shows. Throughout it all, I had a lot of support from my family, which kept me going through the hard times, and also through the self-doubting times.

That’s when I REALLY got into teaching, realizing that travelling every weekend to shows was not the way I wanted to go. I started to book more and more classes around the state. During that time, I also investigated  getting into the limited edition print market and began to read about publishing, and what it meant. I didn’t have a clue. I found that information about publishing art was fairly scarce. Finally, little by little, I started to gain some understanding about what it was like to be a publisher.

I released my first print in the early 1980’s and continued trying to find leading printers of fine art work, all the while continuing my study of fine art publishing. In 1987 we relocated to Indianapolis, IN, and I formed my own publishing company called Artistic Expressions. I started to run small ads in trade magazines, newspapers, and radio spots. At this time, I was also entering national and international art exhibits.

It was then, in 1990, that I was accepted to exhibit with the Phoebus Touring Artists at Hellenic Art Institute in Athens, Greece. I was selected as the most popular artist of the 14 artists by the public. That year I was also accepted into the prestigious “Who’s Who in American Art,” after being turned down the previous three years.

I was beginning to experience success in the world of art, or more precisely, the fruit of success. I think I became successful when I began to do what I knew all along I should be doing. Not only “should” I have been doing it, now I wanted to do it. I thought I was on top of the world.

Roller Coaster Ride

Things were really beginning to go well for me now. I was publishing, painting, teaching, and travelling. It was time for me to intensify my marketing. The next step I took was to bring in a business partner, who invested money into my publishing company. In the early 90’s, we signed four other artists to publish their limited edition prints. We also continued to advertise in the major trade publications and to attend publishing conventions. Within two and a half years, we became one of the leading publishers in the limited edition print market.

Even though I was experiencing the “success” I thought I wanted in the art world, in an ironic way I was actually pushing my art to the background once again as I made sacrifices to get our other artists into the trade magazines. Anyway, things seemed to be going well for a couple of years.

That’s the end of the good news...

In 1992, I went through a terrible partnership breakup. It was then my depressing duty to call the four artists that we published (who were also my dear friends) to tell them about the “divorce.” Needless to say, it was devasting to their careers. One moment they were with a leading publishing company, the next minute they were each unemployed artists.

My career spiraled downward right next to theirs. I had travelled oversees, been published in leading trade magazines, was an up-and-coming publisher myself, and had even had my work featured on the front of a magazine. Now all of that was gone. Although those were extremely challenging and tense times, I’m very grateful for my business partner, because he helped me do things in the art world I would have never been able to do alone.

With that part of my career behind me, my teaching began to take on a whole new significance, since the majority of my income was now coming through my classes. I had never wanted to be defined simply as an “art teacher,” so this was a pretty severe blow to my ego…

It was just what I needed.

Adjusting the Course

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I am now convinced that this was from God’s hand. He had a different path for me to take on my art journey, and now I was being directed in that way.

At first, I was teaching only because I had to pay the bills, not because I derived a lot of satisfaction from it.  I was fighting depression. By 1994 I could hardly get out of bed, other than to go to art class, yet always faking it by wearing a smile. Maybe you’ve been there.

I began to force myself to study fundraising, since I had donated artwork to charities before. I didn’t realize how much of an impact that would have on where I am now. I continued to work on commission pieces and put on “one man” art shows. But to be honest, I was struggling big time.

Because of my stuggles, I lost focus on my art again and  started working in many network marketing companies, trying any way I could to make a buck. But I found out quickly that the MLM’s I tried to work with made money off of people, rather than help people make money by being successful. The insights I gained from that experience actually helped me to rethink how I did my teaching and publishing.

Because I hadn’t yet embraced art teaching, you could classify the next several years of my career as “coasting.”

Several big life events took place after my publishing company fell apart:

• In 1997, my father suddenly died.

• Because of his death, I moved back to my home town of Gas City, IN to help take care of my mother, who had just been diagnosed with cancer.

• My first time back to art class, after my father died, I realized how therapeutic art was to people. I had wondered if I would ever be able to laugh again. But that night, in the course of my pain, I began to laugh in those few brief hours of class with my students.

• I finally made the commitment to become an art teacher, and to embrace it, even though years before I had said, “I’LL NEVER TEACH ART.”

The Years of Sleeping

As you’ve already read, I had disappeared from the print market. Not only had I crashed and burned professionally, I had also crashed and burned mentally. Officially, the art world did not even know I existed.

I basically started coasting from early 1992 all the way through the latter part of 2006.

The commissions, demonstrations, and classes were going very well.

That was good and bad both – good, because I was earning a living – bad, because I had lost my vision. I was no longer looking down the road at the possibilities. I was just existing in my “job.”

The demonstrations were in front of groups, guilds, churches, nursing homes, business groups, home parties – you name it…I’ve been there. I started to realize that I actually had a gift to make my demonstrations lively and interesting – always keeping the crowds alert.

During many of my demos, the group would take the painting and auction it off and make money. This got me thinking about the fundraising opportunities available in the art market.

All during this time my mom fought three bouts of cancer… and I was travelling a lot for art classes. It was like a blur.

Mom died in 2001.

I kept up with the teaching and travelling for another 5 years before I began to recapture my vision.

Awake, O Sleeper

In 2006, through a series of events, I decided it was time to recapture my vision.

This time I wanted to do it right. So:

• I wrote a business plan – I highly recommend this, by the way.

• I incorporated with a corporate lawyer. He said to me, after looking at my work, ”Here’s my take on you…you’ve been asleep for about 15 years and you’ve finally awakened.”

• I created my first website. 

• I started to plan for my first oil painting DVD – and finally in 2007 I filmed “The Art of Illusion” at WIPB on the campus of Ball State University, in Muncie, IN. This is the same studio that the legendary Bob Ross filmed his “Joy of Painting” series years before. In the Spring of ‘09, “The Art of Illusion” aired on PBS.

The opportunities for artists are endless. This is a great industry to be a part of. 

With the advent of social media, who knows where the ceiling is. It is truly a great time to be an artist.

I have made thousands of mistakes along my art journey. I have left the path on several occasions. I have coasted downhill on that same path without looking to the future. But the funny thing is, I am more excited now than I have ever been about art and teaching. And I want to pass along my experience and enthusiasm to you! I hope you will find me to be contagious.