sjm05

Hi there,

I spent 20 yrs. as a psychologist followed by 19 yrs. as a database programmer.  Now I’m retired doing production artwork and enjoying life.  Happily Married with 4 adult children 2 boy, 2 girls.  We had homes located in NY & NC USA. I am a 77-year-old white male with a recent sketch of me on my home page.

Most of my life I have worked in human services in New York State (NYS) USA Division of Youth, Department of Mental Hygene, Health Department as a counselor and psychologist for 20 years working with High School, College, and Young Adults, Mentally Handicapped people. The last 19 years I worked  for NYS Health Department and as a database programmer (DBA) creating Disease Tracking Database Systems. I’m now retired and planning to start up an artwork production business. Growing up I was always interested in art, however by the time I was in high school I met a few students who were truly gifted and were way better than what I was likely ever be, so I never considered making art a career.

I was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war and when I got out, I went back to college in Oneonta NY, which is a college town in upper NYS with two colleges, where I opened a store called Love Records. It was a record store that sold gifts, art ware, posters, head shop stuff. My wife and I initially lived in the back of the store until we moved to an even smaller town of Delhi NY where I open an artist studio producing metal and clay sculpture production artwork. Production artwork is where one makes many copies of the same piece that you know will sell. The kind of home decorative stuff that you see in Target, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, etc. I hired several high school and college students that I trained to make production artwork. I supported myself during Graduate School making many hundreds of pieces of metal and clay sculptures. We had a wholesaler who traveled up and down the East Coast of the US selling our artwork to the gift stored and art galleries in tourist’s area.  One thing about making 50 pieces of this and 25 pieces of that, etc. is that your skills become very good and when I had the time, I created some nice individual pieces that I sold in galleries and artwork stores for in part for my personal satisfaction.

When I completed my masters, I moved to Albany NY began working for NY State Div. of Youth and eventually the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, and eventually the NY Health Department. When we moved to Albany NY, I left all the art equipment in Delhi NY to a number of the student employees, some of whom went on to become professional lifetime artists.

 In more recent years before retiring, I was a major contributor to ArtSIG.com which was an on-line service where artists from around the world submitted their work to be critiqued. Critiques on ArtSIG.com were much more extensive and in addition to the rating of the artwork submitted, the critiques of the artwork were also rated by the members. Most of my submissions were in digital artwork and I was one of the most highly rated artists with many works submitted. I did those pieces working late at night listening to New Age music.  I have attended the NYC Art Expo for many years, and I have assisted several artists to help sell their work and I still doing that.  I'm in a holding pattern now waiting to build a new house with a studio included. I plan to begin marketing Artwork again at that point in time.