I am an artist/illustrator/designer, with over 25 years of experience. I also paint wall murals with my long time friend and fellow artist, Penny Benjamin Peterson. We call our little wall-painting enterprise "Just Climbing the Walls", and we have a good time with it. Well, except for the part where we have to climb ladders and scaffolds. I generally end a day of wall painting by immersing my entire self into a large vat of industrial strength Absorbine Jr. I fear that my spring chicken has permanently "sprung."

My membership on AuthorsDen is an outlet for those days (or more often late nights) when I'm just plain tired of drawing and painting, and need to do something different, like write!

I am not really a writer, but that didn't stop me from joining AD, and so far, no one has thrown me out (whew!), so it looks like I'm here to stay.

I am also a partner with Stacy Mantle in a great business. Stacy is the writer, I'm the illustrator. We've worked together on one project or another for nearly five years and found that we make a great team. By 2003 we began talking about starting a business together, by '04 we actually did it! We formed an official LLC partnership...

...and that's where the real adventure began.

Over the last 3 years we've learned plenty of hard lessons, met some truly wonderful people (and a few evil stinkers), and had lots of memorable, often hilarious experiences. Our company has quite an entertaining history now.

In today's economy, to begin a small business from absolutely nothing takes a tremendous amount of energy - and faith. It requires courage (nerves of steel?), patience without end, determination and tenacity (dare we call it stubbornness?), flexibility and versatility, along with an unquenchable sense of humor.

The ability to communicate and listen well comes in handy too.

Another necessary skill is knowing how to learn the right lessons from mistakes, because it's very easy to learn the wrong lessons if one isn't careful. For instance, if you allow mistakes to overwhelm you, discourage you, weaken your confidence, or cause you to feel permanently distrustful or bitter towards others, then you've learned the wrong lessons. The truth is, there's simply no time for indulging in any of those sorts of negative thinking when there's a business to run. When mistakes are made, just chalk 'em up to experience, be thankful they weren't any worse, get back to work and try not to repeat them.

Building a successful business is a long process and we are still in the middle of it, neck deep in learning, working at full speed, determined and focused.

Humor keeps our little boat afloat, optimism speeds us along, creativity is our fuel, family and friends are our foundation. Today we have a much better support structure for our business; talented people to work for us, as well as loyal customers that are gems to work with. This year thousands of the privately sponsored “Children's Learning & Activity" books that we have devloped about responsible pet care, are being donated to, and distributed by, humane and rescue organizations across the Southwest. Life is good these days. Very busy, but good.

Through the trials and tribulations of those early days we not only managed to survive and keep working, but also acquired a bit of polish. We're feeling tremendous pride of accomplishment now as we watch our company expand its horizons.

The very best part of surviving those tough times is that, rather than causing damage to our partnership, it merely reinforced our beliefs in the importance of loyalty, friendship and teamwork.