About the author
I always believed in art. Above anything else in life art has always been there for me. Even when I would abandon her, she waited for me.
It hasn’t always been a great relationship. Like any other aspect of life, she requires my constant attention to get the most out of her.
We’ve changed. I discovered her early in life through the pages of comic books as an adolescent boy. Prepubescent and hungry for more I would spend every dime I earned mowing lawns to be able to absorb more of her.
I studied every image closely tracing her outlines in sketchbooks strewn haphazardly upon my bedroom floor.
My teenage years found me taking every art class in high-school I could get away with. It was not the best map for academic success but I was mastering something. I was training myself to become one with my art. My ambitions were heightened by the grace and intellect emitted by those whose works I studied.
Something happened along the way to adult hood. I found other mistresses in more mundane acts of maturity. I left her without looking back.
She never left me though. Haunted by her appearance around every corner in every aspect of my life I grew angry and scorned. I vowed at one point that I would never create again. Truthfully the hardest parts were when old cohorts would ask about my latest or newest works and I had to confess that I had given up or given in. I had believed too many naysayers that it wasn’t responsible or even attainable to become a paid artist.
When a happenstance opportunity to work at a photography studio emerged out of the blue a newer fresher spark for my love of art had been introduced. Not, coincidentally I met the woman of my dreams as well. Love was in the air.
A few years later, camera in hand and no funding to speak of we started our own studio. Sweat, blood, tears…
I had never in my life imagined that being an “photographer” actually meant being a business person. I learned it all. All of that nonsense I learned in the few classes of substance that I actually took were to pay off. You in fact do need math in the real world.
You also need to know marketing, sales, taxes, etc.
Not exactly what I signed up for, but I met it head on. I became a prominent person in the social business person community and held functions and art shows at our studio. It was a great cross marketing strategy that brought tons of people to the studio.
My business partner was a great photographer but a poor business man. It was like the blind leading the blind. Then we realized we were both trying to pull the studio in different directions. I left.
My wife and I moved to the DFW area to start anew. Once again I was to leave art behind for a little while. This time I had every intention of coming back into her warm embrace when the time was right.
Fast forward to today. We have moved to my old hometown (Midland, TX). I haven’t lived here in a decade. I swore I would never return.
I’m not sure where we’re headed this time. But you can follow me if you wish. I have art with me and I’m not letting her go this time around. I take my camera with me wherever I go, because I have to.
Damien Franco
