Necessity is the Mother of Invention
When I found out what chronic pain was, and that I had it, my reality crumbled. What do you mean most people don't have a baseline level of pain? It was at this time that I found myself at the beginning of a divorce, and unsure how I was going to navigate making an income while keeping up with my declining health. One day my, then, five-year-old asked for a nightstand. Since we'd be moving soon, I didn't want to buy one so I decided to make one out of a space heater box. I glued a frame to the top, but wanted to cover the space heater "look". I had stickers and decided to wallpaper the sides. As I did it, I realized that it was not a mainstream craft. After six months of handmaking bookmarks I decided to try and make a landscape scene out of stickers (see the first picture). After that, everything changed. Suddenly, I was a "sell my work for hundrfeds artist". I was invited to do a local tv interview, and invited to vend at events by coordinators who found me online. I ventured into print-on-demand and suddenly I was wearing my own art less than six months from my landscape scene experiment. "Necessity is the mother of invention" and the invention has blown my own mind as much as anyone else's. I had no idea one could do this with stickers, least of all that I'd be the one to do it. My experience has been incredibly surreal, and someday I hope to support myself and my daughter off my art alone. In the meantime, I want to thank everyone for all the support and reviews. I can't say, enough, how much I appreciate any progress I am able to make toward that goal.