Night Sky Murals started "officially" in 2001, but It really got it's start years prior to that as a hobby. I fell in love with the night sky while camping in the redwoods with my father and brother... when I saw, for the first time, what a real nights sky looked like.
From that moment, when I saw my first "real" night sky... I always thought about how nice it would be to be able to fall asleep under that same kind of a night sky, just while in your own bed. Years went by before I finally took some glow in the dark paint and actually tried replicating that night sky I had seen years earlier. Major fail. It was horrible... but, it didn't stop me from trying again.
I painted another ceiling in the apartment we were renting, then another... then a neighbor saw one of our ceilings and asked if I would paint one for their daughters. They were still awful (compared to what i can do today), but I said I would, and I did. They loved it, so I guess that's all that mattered then. I mean... it WAS just a hobby.
I would eventually start a couple of businesses that I worked for about 20 years before taking a job as a loan officer for a mortgage company. That was probably the best thing I could do... because I hated it!!! I detest paperwork and that job was all paperwork.
I can remember sitting at a traffic light, behind a car whose driver was afraid to make a right turn unless she had a green light... and thinking, "Dang, I hate my job! I hate everything about it. What can I do that I would really enjoy?" Before that light turned green and that nervous driver finally budged... I had the idea that maybe... possibly, I could paint murals of the night sky. Or, I could at least give it a shot.
Well, I got excited. I couldn't sleep for a few nights just thinking about the idea. That's how I get when I get a new idea... I obsess.
So, I had the idea, but there was a problem... I still painted awful murals. Sure, they were slightly better than the plastic stars that everyone had as kids, but nothing that I could charge for. So I went to work on our bedroom ceilings... again. I painted murals on them, painted over them again with white paint and then painted another mural. Then got better and I thought, "Why not see what happens?" So, I put out an ad (I talked a local restaurant into letting me supply them with paper placemats that had crossword puzzles and other fun things that customers could do or read while they waited for their food... and it also included ads around the outside. I put two on it for my murals)... and actually got a call from a couple of people. My first job got me $200. It took me 2 hours to do and I pocketed $200. I thought I was pretty dang cool when I got home, too.
I still needed to get my mural better if I wanted to go anywhere with the mural business... so I started offering to paint murals for friends, family or friends of friends and family... for next to nothing. The only catch was that they had to be brutally honest with me in what they really liked and what they really didn't like. I got such good feedback from those first 50-100 murals that I painted. I tweaked things here and there and eventually I got to the point where I was really starting to be impressed with the murals I was painting... especially since I have zero artistic ability. :)
Now, almost 20 years later (2017), I have traveled the world painting my Night Sky Murals, painted for one of the wealthiest people in the world (Nope, I won't name this person), I've seen things I never would probably be able to see otherwise, I've met the best customers around the world and I truly enjoy what I do.
For now... it's still just me who does all the painting. I am, however, planning on starting to train others to paint with the techniques that I have developed. I mean... I'm getting too old to be up on a ladder and painting on the ceiling all the time. Especially with a bad back and neck!
When I was 8 years old I was sleeping out under the stars in the redwoods of California... a place that we went every summer. On this particular night, something woke me up at around 2 AM. As I opened my eyes... I was startled. The surroundings were pitch black and above me were thousands and thousands of stars, with the Milky Way stretching across the sky between the redwoods. I couldn't move. I was star struck... literally. I lay there for what seemed like an hour just looking deep into space... mesmerized at the scene before me. That was the beginning of my love for the night sky that would continue to this day.
