Tag Archives: Dream Chasing

The Start of my Art Journey

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In 1973, fifty years ago I began my artist’s journey. Since I’d majored in music during my Junior and Senior High School days, playing the trumpet and conducting, I hadn’t taken any art classes. It wasn’t until my youngest son went to pre-school that I began stretching my wings.

My first step towards discovering that my life’s work would be an artistic journey was buying a Jon Gnagy, Learn to Draw set and experiencing a sensation that the charcoal was an extension of my hand, my arm and my body. It was thrilling!

After completing his entire set of drawing lessons, I decided to take painting classes at the local YMCA where I lived at the time in Queens, NY. So, I arranged for a babysitter, signed up for the oil painting class and made my first foray into Jerry’s Artarama art supply store with my supply shopping list in hand. How electrifying to be exposed to so many wonderful and exciting new products, widgets, thingies, colors, brushes, papers and canvas. Oh, the possibilities!

 

And that began my art supply addiction ;-).

Peach Still LIfe Painting by the artist, Mary Ahern

Still Life with Peaches, my second oil painting which was completed in 1973

Along with the small tubes of Grumbachers, some brushes, canvas boards and mediums, we were instructed to bring some pictures from calendars or notecards that we could use to copy. My first calendar photo was of a brilliant orange sunset with the silhouette of a house at the bottom. I still have these early paintings, some on walls, some tucked away.
The second oil painting I ever did I copied from a placemat that I had borrowed from a neighbor.

I so loved the image, not knowing at the time that it was representative of the golden age of Dutch still life painting from the 1600s. I had no formal knowledge of art history but, being Dutch, and having spent time in Holland as a child I had been exposed to the art hanging in the homes of my extended family. That still-life image spoke to me in a way I didn’t understand at the time. It spoke to me of family, of my history, of roots, of connection. It is also part of my art journey, not just another painting but the beginning of a 50-year adventure with all the ups and downs, zigs and zags. An adventure that, I’m happy to say is still unfolding!

This is my studio wall from some years ago with artwork covering a piece from many decades. Some are now in storage, some have moved to different walls. All of them speak to me of my life and artistic journey of these exciting 50 years of creativity.

Studio wall in 2019

One of my studio walls in 2019 with work from before college, during college and after college. Various mediums from oils to pastels to needlework to watercolor.

 

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Learning is Living

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Learning is living and since I’m still alive at 75, I’m still taking classes and workshops. I continue to grow in both technical skills and in mental comprehension constantly. Hubby Dave says that sharks have to keep moving or they die. Guess I’m a shark.

The hunger to learn is something I remember as a kid growing up in a non-intellectual family. Always the odd person out, nose in the book, tackling projects foreign to my foreign born parents. My drive was inexplicable to them and completely normal to me as water is to a fish.

Looking back on just the last few years there’s been an interesting assortment of topics. Two years studying digital painting with an artist in Louisiana which is interesting since I’ve been painting on electronic paint systems since 1986, well before he discovered the medium. But he had a different approach than I did so I learned quite a bit. I also learned more about southern culture during the workshops he held on a southern plantation. Hope he learned to appreciate some of my yankeeness too.

Purple-Phalaenopsis WIP

I could have signed it at this stage of the painting, but I knew it wasn’t speaking to me entirely yet. I didn’t work on it anymore for an entire year & then, after taking an abstract realism workshop I knew where it was taking me.

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Mary Ahern Artist Biography

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VORACIOUSLY CONSUMING LIFE

Mary Ahern Painting in the StudioThrough the twisting paths and obstacles in life, the two constants for me have been my Art and my Garden. These are my anchors. They keep me balanced, complete, secure. The arrival of spring flings me from my studio where I’ve been creating my Art all winter, into the emerging garden surrounding my studio.  The colors shout optimism to me. The joyous season has begun again. This is where I grow my subjects and gather the imagery for my work.

I’ve been an Artist for eons, exploring as all true Artists do, a myriad of subjects and with enough mediums that fill drawers and cabinets throughout my studio. I’ve been zigging and zagging throughout my journey with all the bumps and joyous bursts I could grab. Some of my work through the years has had autobiographical underpinnings, some of it was icy flat. I’ve worked big and I’ve worked small. But when it comes down to it, I love color.

RIFFING ON CLASSICAL ART

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How the Art World Has Changed For Me

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As a person involved in creating art for the past many years, the opportunities and revelations keep coming.

Mary Ahern - Floral Park Art League 1975. The Art world has changed.

Mary Ahern – Outdoor Art Show with the Floral Park Art League 1975

The art world has changed but so have I. I’m more self-assured about my work than I was at the beginning. Through a lifetime of hard work, bumps, skids, rashes, pain, zigs and zags I’ve developed the thick skin needed to have confidence in my skills as an artist and as a person running a small business selling and showing my art.

We all know the tremendous changes that the internet and social media have introduced into the careers of artists. We are now independent enough to take our careers into our own hands rather than rely on galleries as the only outlet to selling or placing our work. I’m sure that for some artists, galleries are the central force in placing their work in prestigious collections and museums. For most of us though, galleries are not the only answer any longer.

Gallery representation isn’t for everyone

One of the obstacles for me is that I have 3 distinct bodies of work in which I like to create & promote. One is digital, one is in traditional mediums and the third is a combination of both. Even though they all focus on the same subject matter, flower and gardens, they all have very distinctive looks. I love the freedom that being independent affords me so I can create in whichever medium I choose.

As a lifetime entrepreneur the thought of having a gallery owner tell me what they want and when they want it is abhorrent to me. There is a benefit to being a working artist for many, many decades. I have the emotional and financial security to remain an independent artist. Having spent my former career in sales and marketing and also having had my own graphic design business for decades, I have the skills that many artists don’t possess. 

I’m committed to creating my own art styles, exploring new mediums, enjoying the process of experimentation. But I’m just as committed to running my art business. Because of the tools now available through technology, the internet and social media I can do that myself at an affordable price. It’s a game-changer.

Recently I was asked what advice would I would give to my 21-year-old self on how to get started and keep motivated?

I can’t speak to my 21-year-old self since I was married and the mother of a baby boy by then. I didn’t put myself through college until my youngest went to nursery school. By the time I graduated from art school I was a 32-year-old single parent. A career was foremost on my mind in order to support my sons but I knew that I needed to focus on the arts in some way to follow my calling. By creative thinking & sheer guts, I got myself into the nascent computer graphics industry in the early 1980’s as a salesperson who had to use and demonstrate graphic devices and electronic paint systems. This gave me a toe-hold into the conversation of creative arts. 

Critical as well was that I always maintained a working studio in my home, even sitting in it & studying art history books when I was too stressed to pick up a brush. Because I kept my focus on the artist part of me more than the technologist part of me I was able to transition into creating my own art more often as my sons grew up and life became easier. Maintaining this tangential association with the creative arts was the reason I’ve been able to now focus 100% of my effort into my artwork.

Keeping motivated isn’t difficult when you’ve burned with the desire to create your whole life. What does help however is having artist friends and mentors who understand the struggles to carve out the time to express yourself in an ever-busy world. Accountability partners help me to keep the balance needed to make room for the creation of art and the running of an art business. Either one of those activities is all-consuming but without one you don’t need the other.

Mary Ahern-Artist Talk. The Art world has changed.

Mary Ahern giving an Artist Talk at The Firefly Artists Gallery in December 2019.

 

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What I Did After Art School

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As I mentioned in a previous post, Professor Louis Finkelstein, the Art Department Chairman abruptly walked out on me at my senior thesis show when I mentioned that I was about to be a single mom declaring it to be impossible that I could also be an Artist. He previously had offered to sponsor me to the notable, Robert Pincus-Witten for a Whitney Museum Graduate Fellowship program but suddenly I was anathema. That event took my breath away for quite some time until I began to gather the pieces of me that felt flayed and strewn to the wind.

So what did I do to salvage my heart and soul? Since 4 years of art school didn’t train me for anything remotely connected with making a living, I knew I needed more education. I also found out that if you worked at a college your tuition was free. So I made a list of colleges I wanted to attend & found a job in the career services office at Barnard College. During my lunch hours, I attended computer programming classes at Columbia School of Engineering. Going from such intense right brain to left brain work was so difficult it often physically hurt.

Barnard at the time was a bastion of feminism and my boss, Martha Green guided me and untold numbers of other women into successful and rewarding careers based upon skills which, I for one did not know I had. She recognized in me untapped horizons and restored my confidence.

1986 Mary Ahern sells the Chyron Chameleon

Mary Ahern demonstrating the Chyron Chameleon electronic paint system 1986 at the Cablevision television studio in Woodbury New York

 

From the support and direction I received from the women surrounding me at Barnard, I launched my career into sales, because that’s where the money was, and computers, because that’s where the future was. I zig-zagged my career in computers over the years to capitalize on my Fine Arts degree by selling computer graphics equipment to the creative departments in the television broadcast and industries. My art helped me sell those systems.

So here I am, still painting, still an Artist, proud of having supported and raised my sons on my own. Now I work every day in my studio surrounded by the gardens I created that inspire my Art.

I kept my eyes and ears open and when one mentor slammed the door another mentor opened it for me so I could charge through. Success is the sweetest revenge. Thank you Martha!

Mary Ahern's studio February 2018

Mary Ahern’s studio. Still painting after all these years!

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Chasing Dreams, The Long Hard Road

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You would think that if you were given the gift of reinventing yourself into a career which would be more personally satisfying emotionally and without consideration of financial income, you would instantly jump into the deep end of the pool.

Well, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t work like that. When my new husband Dave, gave me the gift of reinventing myself at the age of 50 I felt overwhelmed. What I found was that for all the years as a single parent when I was working without a net, I put my blinders on and just charged forward.

Yes, I had morphed my career repeatedly to keep it tailored to my strengths and to keep it as interesting as I possibly could. Yes, I had given up corporate America to form my own company when I got a concussion on the glass ceiling. Yes, I was more aware than most of what parts of my careers I enjoyed and what parts I did not.

So here you are at midpoint looking for a new career that will fulfill you in a different way than your original career. You may have enjoyed your work and the environment and friends you made along the way. But you may have outgrown it or outgrown the need for the tradeoffs you made in order to pursue the work.

My Garden BootsYour children may have grown and college is paid for. Your health status may have changed or you no longer want to be on planes four days a week like I did for many years. Your marital status may have changed for the worse or for the better as mine did when I married Dave after 17 years between my two marriages.

Chasing your dream is not easy. It takes courage to look deeply inside yourself. It takes courage to be honest about your long and shortcomings. It is a long and often hard journey to rediscover yourself.

The journey begins with just one step. Take it.

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Searching for the Dream Seems Easy. It is Not.

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On January 5, 2008 I was featured in an article in Newsday titled “Dream Chasers.” The subject was the choices and sacrifices some people make when deciding to step off the corporate treadmill in order to pursue more emotionally or spiritually rewarding careers without regard to financial restraints.

The author of the article, Arlene Gross, wrote about the choices, decisions and sacrifices of five different individuals. The various paths we chose to explore in our second careers are as different as our paths in our initial and primary wage earning pursuits.

Noel Rubinton, the editor of the Act Two section of Newsday, however, hit on a different issue when he encouraged people to use the New Year as an opportunity to explore yourself even if you couldn’t at this time make the giant leap of a whole new career.

Noel wrote that, “A line that really resonated in our cover story came from Mary Ahern… finding that switch took work. ‘The hard part at first was trying to find inside myself what that dream actually was. You spend so much time marching forward and doing what you do, you lose the essence of yourself’.”

When my husband Dave gave me as a wedding gift, which coincided with my 50th birthday, the opportunity to re-invent myself you would think I would have immediately jumped into my studio. Instead I whined and anguished for a months over what I wanted to do with this great new vista open to me.

I was so overwhelmed with the immense possibilities I now had available to me that I suffered each day trying to make the right decision with this precious gift. I spent so much time trying to fathom what makes me tick, what intellectually interests me, what direction would support my value system, what new career would be feasible and sustainable for the next 30 or so years, what would not impinge on the home life that we had just found together and cherished so much.

I talked about it endlessly. I beat it to death. I’m sure there were times that Dave wished he hadn’t made the offer since I was so annoying in my pursuit of the “what if’s”. Massage therapist? Lawyer? Chiropractor? Quite frankly, I never even considered Artist.

I knew one thing for sure. I was tired of computers and wanted to become a Luddite. And then one Saturday morning, sitting on our deck, having coffee while surrounded by the gardens I designed and have worked on for decades, Dave suggested that since we loved the gardens so much and they gave such joy to people, why not design gardens for others.

BANG!

2002-05 Mary planting her tropical garden Ten days later I was enrolled as a full-time student in the Ornamental Horticulture Program at Farmingdale. I knew I wanted to be a landscape designer and this was the best beginning. Two years later I graduated with my degree and a new career.

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Over Thirty Years of Chasing My Dream

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After seeing the photos and reading the article Dream Chasers, written by Arlene Gross for Newsday, which featured myself among others who have turned in mid-life to careers which are more personally satisfying, I have enjoyed revisiting my journey.

Mary Ahern showing her oil paintings at the Floral Park Art League in 1976

Here is a photo of me with my Award winning oil paintings at the Floral Park Art League in 1976. I painted them all before I began my college Art education. For a year I took oil painting classes on Wednesday evening at the YMCA in Bellerose Queens NY and from this experience I found my life’s calling.

Each year I looked forward to showing my work at this outdoor art show and each year I sold some of my works. What a wonderful experience it is to realize that work you created from your own imagination and from assorted colors in tubes moved others in such a way that they will give you money that they earned so they can hang your vision on their walls. I am still moved that my skill and vision will enhance their lives each and every day.

2007-05-28 Mary on cell phone answering questions at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show, NYCThirty-one years later I’ve returned to selling my Artwork outdoors at festivals. This shot of me was taken while I was taking a call on my cell phone at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Festival in New York City in May of 2007. I still enjoy getting out of my studio and meeting people. Speaking to my customers energizes me and personalizes the selling experience. At shows I always enjoy seeing some of my former customers who come by to say hello and tell me where they hung the Art they’ve bought from me and how much they enjoy seeing it everyday.

It doesn’t get better than that!

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Dream chaser Newsday article

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I was featured in a Newsday Business section article written by Arlene Gross. The excerpt focusing on my background and my life choices is copied below. If you’d like to see the article in it’s entirety you can see it on my website in the Press section.

Dream chasers

At midlife, taking lower pay to begin more satisfying careers

By Arlene Gross

Special to Newsday
11:07 AM EST, January 4, 2008

Newsday photo of Mary Ahern at ComputerMary Ahern had (experimented) in art for many years, but had never been able to actually make a career of it. Until four years ago, that is, when she made the switch to full-time artist.

“I had always been a creative artist,” the Northport resident, explained. “Life, however, intervened, and as a single parent, I was never able to create my art on a full-time basis.”

Changing careers at midlife is no small feat, and switching to one with substantially less earning potential is more difficult still. According to Randy Miller, founder and president of ReadyMinds, an online career counseling service, downsizing a career can be a source of great anxiety.

Newsday photo of Mary Ahern painting in studioYet for some people, any fear or hesitation is mitigated by the yearning to follow a dream. Seeking more spiritually uplifting endeavors can be the ultimate challenge, and Miller said any attendant loss of income is often compensated with a renewed sense of purpose and newfound happiness.

“There are a lot of people who go through life and think, ‘What if?'” Miller said. “With a strategic plan, coupled with the new passion and ultimate objective of doing something different, one can more easily achieve their ultimate goals.”

For Ahern, a new husband provided the impetus and financial support to move forward. Income, the couple concluded, was less relevant to the quality of their lives than the legacy they wish to leave behind.

“When we married, Dave urged me to follow my dream,” she recalled. “The hard part at first was trying to find inside myself what that dream actually was. You spend so much time marching forward and doing what you do, you lose the essence of yourself.”

Once their five children — all from previous marriages — were finished with college, Ahern felt it was OK to follow her calling.

“My income from my art doesn’t yet come close to the money I’m used to making in either my career in computer graphics equipment sales or my own graphics design firm,” she said.

One of her greatest sacrifices was a big dip in retirement savings, which now come exclusively from her husband’s salary.

“We have a comfortable nest egg,” she said, “but by coming out of a conventional career, I no longer have the extra cushion to add to my existing portfolio of tax-advantaged savings vehicles.”

Despite her diminished earnings, Ahern says she is happier. “I am living the life I am meant to live,” she said.

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