Father's Day Thoughts

This is a post I submitted for a Father's Day blog for an online art business blog.

My name is Doug Baltz, and I'm a professional artist. I'm also a dad. As Father's Day approaches I thought I'd put some of my thoughts on being an artist/father down for posterity, on the off chance they might be of interest to some one some day. Unlike some artist/fathers, I was an artist long before I was a dad. I never had any children until I met my wife, who had three. It has been quite an adjustment sharing my life with them, but I'm just going to concentrate on the art side of things.
Before I met them I lived in a three bedroom house with a full basement where I had my studio. I had no one else to answer to, except for my cat Monty, and he was pretty good about letting me do what I wanted when I wanted as long as I fed him when he got hungry. I got used to sleeping when I was tired, getting up when I wasn't, creating when the mood struck, eating when I got hungry (well, you get the idea). Things worked out pretty well and I did alright for myself getting my work seen and sold.
After I met and married my wife things changed quite a bit. I had to sync my schedule with the rest of the family, which has worked out pretty well over all. At first my creativity suffered due to a lack of defined work space and a definite lack of organization on my part. Not long after I moved in the two oldest kids had moved out and I received, thanks to my lovely wife, a whole bedroom for my studio. The only problem there was fitting in a full house full of art supplies into one room, but I've also overcome that obstacle.
Perhaps I should take a moment here to explain a few things. My wife often prayed for God to send her a good man and her youngest daughter (11years old), who never knew her dad, prayed diligently for God to send her a father. I tease them and tell them if I'm the answer to their prayers then God must have a warped sense of humor.
I will admit there are a few things about this arrangement that aren't ideal artistically, but there are things that more than make up for it. The joy in my daughters eyes as she stood in front of my easel painting a painting just like a 'real artist', or hearing all her ideas for promoting and selling my art. Hearing her refer to my creativity cave as “Big Daddy's Art Studio”or seeing her face light up as she views my new paintings for the first time (that always makes me smile). She can't seem to imagine that there's ever been a better artist than me (okay, I admit I often feel the same way) and she can't understand why people aren't beating down our door to buy my work.
I've had to carve out time to create lately, especially when I was home schooling my daughter, but it's made me concentrate more on getting work done when the time presents itself and I've actually gotten more productive as of late. It's hard to put a price on having two of my biggest fans living with me and supporting me every single day. I feel very blessed.