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In a nutshell, I’m a relatively new mom who has decided to pursue my dream of being self employed, doing something I love. I painted my first “mural” (and I use the term loosely) when we bought our first house in 2002. Our guest room/ play room/ library was inspired by a sun and star print quilt that my sister-in-law had made. We painted the room in four different colors with random geometric boarders between, and then I painted a sun in one corner and a moon and stars in the other. I got a lot of satisfaction out of the project and was eager to try another, but I wanted to do something fun, and the rest of my house was much too grown up and serious. When my best friend became pregnant with her first child in 2004, I knew just what to give her as a gift. I hauled my paints and supplies down to Philadelphia and in a four day weekend the two of us completed “Maeve’s Jungle". Friends and family were impressed and kept telling me that I should start a mural painting business, but I didn’t seriously consider it at the time. Then a year later I was pregnant with my daughter, and was thrilled with the opportunity to paint again, this time the underwater theme I had been dying to do. Once my baby was born I decided not to return to my “real job”, and I began thinking seriously about starting a new career as a children’s room mural painter. I met another mom shortly afterwards who mentioned that she had been looking for someone to do a mural for her daughter’s bedroom, and so began my first paid project.
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(Who I am not)
There are some very impressive mural artists out there; people who are actual artists with degrees and training in art who work out of studios. The bad news: I am not one of these people. My degree is in biology and my resume includes jobs like animal shelter ambulance driver and adoption clerk, boarding kennel manager, and corporate trainer. I have always loved to do “artsie” things like drawing, scrapbooking and crafting, and I have even taken some basic art classes in high school and college, but I am by no means a professional artist. I don’t have a vast portfolio, just pictures of the few murals I have done to date. I don’t have a long list of references, but I can assure you that I have a strong work ethic, an eagerness to please, and a desire to get more work under my belt so that word-of-mouth becomes my primary mode of advertising. The good news is that my prices reflect my lack of experience.
