Getting back to the roots

As you have all figured out by now retail has not been good of late. Here I am at the top of my career and they pulled the rug out from under me. I am not saying that work has disappeared completely, but just a year ago everything was fine....now it's not....I still have design work on the board and there are clients endeavoring to update and even a few brave souls attempting to open new stores, so that's a good sign, but I think it will take a very long time to return to pre-recession numbers. As they say "Every cloud has a blah blah", and in order for me to make up for the decline in work I have decided to return to my roots. Once upon a time I was an "artist", yes I attended art school and yes I had all the visions of Paris skylights and New York lofts, somewhere along the way I got sidetracked, it's called eating, so retail display was the closest I could get to a creative career and receive payment. Gone were all the fantasies of Warholian chic . So...here it is 40 years later and I am back to where it all started, making art. Painting and drawing has always remained a part of my life, but as a vacation pastime, a refuge from the retail world. After a barrage of encouragement from friends and family I have applied myself to art with a vengeance..."Pet Portraiture" is due mainly to my sisters menagerie, horses, dogs, injured birds and anything else that wander on to the property. Because of the lack of funds, I deemed it an art as gift year. I thought rather than bore my sister with still another landscape of Cape Cod, I would paint portraits of all her animals, the results were better than I expected. The response has been very postitive....TAA..DAA!! I am an artist again... so here it is... My first promo piece. Click on ad to enlarge