AJ Tivol, gold country in northern California

[AJ Tivol]

Hi,

I grew up trying all kinds of crafts and arts and have spent most of my life trying to find my medium. I did a lot of things reasonably well but I never had anything to say with them -- until I found metal. I took an art metal class at Sierra Community College a couple of years ago and I suddenly had a voice and could see things in metal. I had a job that was boring, painful, part-time, dead-end, mind-numbing, soul-killing so, with the encouragement of my husband and as much savings as I could stash away in a year, I quit my job (yay!), got a skills certificate in Entrepreneurial Welding, and started an art metals business. I learned a lot in school but I quickly discovered that I don't know nearly enough and have been finding online resources to correct that. I have only a few tools so I focus on small projects that can be completed with those tools until I can sell enough things to buy bigger tools.

I'm really new to posting on forums so I really hope I got this right and apologize profusely if I mucked it up. Thanks for your patience. Oh, I'm an introvert so doing new things in front of everyone makes me really nervous.