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How did DanceArtist.com come about? How did I get here and why? ...
It seems like another's story or a fable at the least where pretty decent retail & one-time distribution manager
walked away from the craziness of working under someone else. 'Craziness' is a mild description, even as a senior director, a training supervisor for company visual managers, a district manager, my life was far, far from my own. In fact, the deeper I was buried in the operation's systems, the more I was responsible to so many nameless & faceless 'talking heads' who were bereft of even an iota of what their operations &/or their people wanted and needed.
So...... I left.
I chose to pursue a dream -or- more like a vision I'd had since I was a kid, yet avoided because it was (of course) the last vocation my parents would allow to even be discussed as a potential career direction. I wanted to be an artist, and shortly after I accepted this as my new direction I also admitted I wanted to study dance, specifically ballet. But that's getting ahead of myself.
It wasn't an easy or uncomplicated change of occupational direction, and at the outset I was completely ignorant of the many (a few very significant) pitfalls my 'new direction' would introduce me to. But that's enough information to fill volumes, lets fast forward and suffice it to say we survived the initial period of harsh adjustment. Ultimately I was able to transition to a place I was responsible to me, where I did the work I loved w/o allowing it to infringe upon my home life.
I began a dog portrait business "..creatures great & small..." meeting dog breeders, dog show people, horse people, attending functions & festivals and not too slowly built a sizable clientele. Then I met a young, gregarious dancer who agreed to meet and be a subject of a new body of work - the type of which had been nagging at the back of my brain for quite some time. Together we created several dozen of my favorite drawings and paintings. (One of which "Transparent Dreams" -a watercolor- appears along side this post)
She was the first Jennifer, there were two more Jennifer's to come later - and no, I did not search out dancers of that name, it just happened that way.
These led to a abundance of performance commission work (photos, drawings & paintings). I worked with the directors of a dozen Atlanta Dance Schools, and the Atlanta Ballet for Mr, Robert Barnett. All this led to a significant realization in that I was not properly schooled in ballet therefore did not know what to look for -vs- what to look beyond in selecting vignettes, poses, etc to work from. I had to learn the process - which began 7 or 8 years of molding myself into a rudimentary adult male dancer.
This and my need for social awareness ultimately led to creation of The Festival of Life, a very successful, annual multi-disciplinary AIDs Benefit Concert series that I produced and directed for 6 years before I moved into Arts Administration. However I never lost my deep appreciation for dance and movement. I'd become good friends and associates with the owner of the website www.DanceArt.com where at one time, he hosted a large portion of my portfolio and I provided his site with maybe 10-12 articles for new and aspiring professional dancers/directors on topics of Art (performance & otherwise) as a business. I made most all the errors, so I wished to make that info available to others so they might learn what to avoid........
Shorty thereafter I found the URL "Danceartist.com" was available and snatched it up. I used it for my personal website and later for my blog. My work has diversified greatly since those early days but my love of dance, movement, passion, expressive choreography, and even understated physical communication has more than intrigued me, it grabs my soul.
So, today, I've left all that Administration, Management, & Business "stuff" so far behind me, it's like it was a different life or at least it occurred in a different world. My focus is my students and my work. Both defy definition, each new work & each student is unique - my 'job' is to learn and to appreciate that individuality for what it is without categorizing or labeling. While there may be definite similarities between present students and those who've moved on, focusing on those would be a grave error because I'd loose my perspective of all that makes that one person special and unlike all others.....
The same is true for my work. I admit I choose subjects, medium, size etc to please myself. I try to work every piece as it's own 'keeper of the artist's focus' w/o attempting to visualize how any one piece 'fits' in with others.
Several could be pulled into groupings, or maybe something of a collection but that is more happenstance than purposeful actions on my part.
And this is the short description of how DanceArtist.com came about and to some degree how I ended up where I find my self today.......