My First Sale
I didn’t grow up in an art appreciative family but I was drawn to it like a magnet, spending hours looking at art in encyclopedias and books in the library, and looked forward to my once a week art class in school.
When we moved to Texas I was allowed to enroll in Distributive Education (DE), a program where you went to school half a day and then worked (mostly retail) the other half. After the DE teachers discovered I could do more with a pencil than just write, they found me a job at an art supply store where there were studios and teachers that became my first exposure to painting.
My family was very supportive (if not a bit surprised) of my artistic endeavors, but never remotely considered I would pursue it as a career (successful people were doctors and lawyers and stuff). However, not long after completing my first painting (https://www.instagram.com/p/CjeEcHePFhp/?hl=en) I started on this horizontal canvas, called “Le Vacher.” The image came from a photo in a National Geographic and I created it specifically to sell. The shop let me hang it in their display window and with a hefty $150 price tag.
My mom, on the other hand, felt it was her prerogative – after 9 LONG months of pregnancy and a prolonged birthing – that she get every painting I did (she still has several). So, my dad bought it – no negotiating, no haggling – and gave it to her for Christmas. We conspired to send her on a mad, clue-filled goose chase looking for her Christmas present, which I had hung while she was in another part of the house, taping the end of the string she was made to follow to her treasure.
It is one of my favorite memories, and that painting still hangs in the same spot I hung it almost 50 years ago.
Thanks for taking the time to get to know me a little better. You can see more of my work at www.georgeevanart.com. I hope you’ll share this page, follow me and watch for my next journal entry.