Painter
"One day I received a hand written letter from an old client that I worked with on many commissions. She expressed her sadness that I was no longer painting. That shocked me. The idea that abandoning my work was affecting someone else hadn’t ever occurred to me. Her words would remain with me for a long time." - Laura Browning
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"I worried a lot about my daughters not seeing me in my professional career like I had when my first was little but with the girls watching me create a new business and find such joy in painting I feel incredibly blessed. They are seeing me build a business that fits into our lives, their lives, and makes me happy. I feel they they will take away excellent life management skills from watching their mama. I know that painting makes me a much better mother. I am happier when I am able to explore my creative side and also put to use my business skills. I love raising three independent girls and always encourage them to seek out what makes them happy and remind them that they are responsible for creating a life they love." - Kristin Try
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"It's important to me to show our children that I'm are being brave and truthful with my life. I want my children to know they can pursue their dreams and face fears they may have while pursuing their goals and they need to see me doing that as well. Hopefully my kids will remember seeing me being passionate about my art and will see how it fed me and that it was glorifying to God." - Maria Kamara
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"I’m not great at being super organized, but I realized that if I wanted to find the time to myself to be creative, I HAD to make myself a schedule and get help with childcare AND that it was crucial for me to have an area separate from my kids to work in. I got lucky last year and had a friend offer me a room in her studio to use at my convenience. That was really a turning point for me in realizing how important my art is to my well-being and how worthwhile it is to spend my energy carving out time and resources to continue making it a priority. My advice to anyone else in my situation would definitely be to sit down and look at your schedule really closely and see where you could fit in a few hours here and there. Honestly, I probably only have 5 hours a week or so to paint, but that’s five hours I didn’t have last year, so I’ll take it and hopefully grow with it!" -Jenny Kersting
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"I pinpoint the moment my daughter was born as one of the most inspirational moments of my life. They say that emotionally draining, difficult or overwhelming moments can spark creativity in a person, and I think that’s exactly what happened to me. I’ve always been creative, secretly, and self-critically. However, when Amelia was born I decided to just roll with it… to own it. I became pretty prolific, mostly because I had little time to create, but also because I never went to art school or anything so I felt like I needed to teach myself so many mediums, techniques, and to learn so much in such a short period of time. I wanted to get into a groove right away." - Jaime Derringer
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"I think having children has definitely made me more inspired! Since being at home with the children I have painted and drawn more than I ever did when working full time in my previous career (I was a psychiatrist). I also feel I'm much more open to new ideas, and able to appreciate the small things, as drawing makes me look more closely at the world around me." -Sonia Brittain
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"It makes me a better mother because it allows me to do what I love, which makes me happy, which benefits everyone. If I’m not happy, I notice it carries over to the rest of the family. Plus, my kids see me working hard to try to earn money for the family and I feel like that is good for them. Especially my daughters, I want them to know that they can do anything."-Beth Allen
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"I created the hashtag #carveouttimeforart in hopes that people may use it when they are able to find some time for themselves to create. We all have the same 24 hours, but this is dedicated to the hustlers, the dreamers, and the people that get things done. Sometimes 5 minutes at a time. I'm rooting for you." -Marissa Huber
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