My focus at art school, when I first went to art school, I was in advertising design. But a lot of my instructors suggested that I go into illustration because I really loved more the painterly kind of thing.
So I did that, and when I graduated, I got a job in Grand Rapids, Michigan at a place called Designer’s Workshop. And that was a great job because I learned how to build furniture. We did all these funky restaurant interiors.
And I learned how to make lamps and do electrical, how to wire lamps and carve and everything. And my husband was my boyfriend then and so, because he’d pick me up from work every day and chat with the guys there — they were all from the Netherlands and they all were skilled craftsmen, it was a small company — they hired him, too.
So then he learned how to do carving and he did a lot of carving and now he does sculpture. But that all started from working at Designer’s Workshop. And then we just were freelance artists for years and years, doing all sorts of different things, anything where we didn’t have to have a nine to five job.
So I’ve always been in some form of arts here and there. I taught for a very brief period for the City of Toledo, taught arts and crafts. And for a brief time, I traveled to New York and I worked for a craft company, was a designer, but I also demonstrated craft products at toy fairs and things like that. So I would just pick up different things, but all art-related.