By Kari
I've always loved to write and draw for as long as I can remember. I can fondly recall my sister and I making up stories and drawing accompanying pictures as we sat outside in our grandfather's yard. That was our way of playing when we were young.
Now after several moves away from my native New England, I found myself in South Carolina. I have one daughter from a previous marriage. Wanting to stay home with her was only one reason for my beginning an at-home business. The other was wanting to pursue my creativity full-time. After having previously worked as a secretary, I didn't relish being part of that world anymore. The rigid rules, low pay and lack of real authority, made me cringe whenever I thought of going back.
As an artist/writer, I've slowly become a "jill-of-all-trades"~~always having one or more jobs while pursuing several interests. For instance, I've worked as a reporter, feature writer, ad copy writer, illustrator, crafter, sales rep, secretary, designer, and typesetter, at one time or other.
After taking several classes in web page development and creating my own web page, I discovered a job where I could merge my two loves of writing & art! I went on to take a further class in HTML and my resolve was strengthened.
Now, together with a former teacher/now-friend, I have launched a new facet of my art career. I put an ad in a local newspaper and that very weekend was an exhibitor at a craft show. My first customer happened by in the form of a fellow artist who wanted a web page done. And she hadn't even read the ad. We got a few more customers from the ad, which we followed up with further ads. From my ad rep days, I learned never to just place one ad~~four in a row is the minimum when looking for new customers.
Although our web design business is still quite young, we have hopes of growth and plan to advertise in other publications and also pursue word-of-mouth customers.
When we have gained enough web page samples for show, we plan to contact big organizations and businesses.
But for now, we're happy~~I in particular, am greatful to be able to be creative, work at home, at my own pace, and not have to make that rigid transformation from 9 to 5 to at-home at the end of each and every day.
For further information, you may contact cari864626@aol.com
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