Today we’d like to introduce you to Brette Williamson.
Brette, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
It was in January 2020, as a newly single mom, that I decided to quit my job and try to make a career in painting. I was eager, motivated, and determined to provide for my kids and myself on my own, and felt hopeful when I booked my first few commissions in those winter months. Then, when everyone’s worlds, priorities, and perspectives flipped with the coming of the pandemic, I quickly realized that maybe it wasn’t time to rely on everyone purchasing art when they were worried about their own careers with the economy on the line. I went against every artist bone in my body and got a job working at a dental office (safe from lockdowns) to provide for my kids.
Fast forward to June of 2021, I met my then fiancé and he invited me to a wedding for his best friend wherein he was a groomsman. I had seen some live wedding painting videos circulating online and offered to paint their wedding as a gift. I had been itching for a reason to paint again and simply wanted to try this for fun. Well, it was not just fun, it was exhilarating. I witnessed love, I painted, I danced, and I received a boost of confidence that my artist self was lacking in the recent year.
Many won’t believe this, but that wedding was actually the FIRST traditional wedding ceremony I had ever been to. I grew up Mormon and most marriage ceremonies were non-traditional and done within closed doors of a temple where only members could attend. My own first wedding, as a 19- year old bride, included. I find it fitting that my first wedding experience was one I got to paint. One that marked another “first” since leaving the Mormon church.
And I was hooked. For the first time in a while, I felt what it was like to celebrate love post-divorce, to believe in love again. I posted pictures from that wedding, painted other weddings from photos to practice, and tried every day to reach someone to take a chance on booking me for their wedding. I booked a handful of gracious brides for the 2nd half of 2021 and from there, used my little experience, content, and whatever business skills I learned from my business school graduate father to launch “Art by Brette”, my live wedding and event painting business.
I didn’t book any weddings by choice during the first half of 2022 as I was knee-deep in planning my own wedding. On June 4, 2022, I married the love of my life and am now stepdad to my 2 beautiful kids. The minute I returned from my honeymoon, I dove headfirst into booking whoever I could for the rest of the year all while managing the dental office I still worked at. Now, at the turn of the first quarter of 2023, I am happy to announce that my business has become my main source of income, I am booked the majority of the year, I have painted celebrities, and have gone viral on Tiktok and Instagram.
If you would have told all of this to my 2020 self, who spent many days stressed and crying in fear that I wouldn’t make enough to solely provide for my 2 young children, she simply wouldn’t believe it. But thanks to the couples who took a chance on me, my husband who always said it was a crime for me to do anything but paint, my friends and family, and my late mother and the reliance she left me with, here I am.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Like the song by Tom Cochran, made popular by the hit country band Rascal Flatts suggests, “Life is a Highway”. Am I right? And while I wish it was a smooth ride, it definitely comes with its bumps and potholes. One of the most unspoken challenges that most artists especially face, is the feeling of inadequacy. Sometimes the largest hurdle you have to jump in your own brain. Imposter syndrome is REAL and if I told you that my husband has never had to tell me to stop being mean to myself, I’d be lying. Mix in my already present struggle with general anxiety disorder and you have the recipe for a mud pie of a brain some days.
The other challenge that I have had to face is the time I lacked to dedicate to my business. Along with being a business owner, I am also a dental office manager and Mom of a 5 and 7-year-old. With that in mind, being a wedding painter is so much more than the painting itself. If I could just show up and paint, I would. But I’m not just the artist, I am the head of marketing, the accountant, the designer, the customer service, and the content creator. Boss-Babe is way too cute of a term to really capture what it entails. More like Boss-Barely surviving.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
With my business being so new, my art style is still blossoming into something that I am becoming more and more proud of. In my art career and education, I had always been known for my technical training in portraiture and figure painting. I started drawing and painting faces before I can remember. With my many years with this as my focus, I have become more confident in my ability to paint portraits. The next challenge was to paint these portraits at the level I wanted to in the time constraints of a wedding. Luckily, this is where my ADHD becomes a superpower and allows me to hyper-focus on my painting to finish mostly on time. If I look like I could murder someone while I’m painting, I promise it is just my focus face.
I believe what also sets me apart is my love for landscape painting and color. I love painting the faded purple mountains in the background, the bright lime-green spring leaves of the trees, the pure sky blue of a clear sky, etc. Picture this: you turn the last corner of a long day’s hike, the one that reveals the view you have been trying to reach. You see everything at once; the green rolling hills, the light fog on top, and tumbling clouds with the blue sky in the spaces between. This is the feeling I’m trying to capture when I paint. If I can successfully make someone feel this way, then that is when I am most proud of my work.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
My first and greatest source of happiness is my children and my husband. My family is my greatest inspiration, purpose, and everything else is just as cheesy. I am growing my business for them. I am growing my business to be able to quit my weekday job and stay home with my children during the weekdays, painting the weekends they spend with their dad.
I don’t want to be the dinner-homework-bedtime mom anymore. I want to pick them up from the bus stop, make them after-school snacks, and ask them how their days were. I want to spend summer weekdays at the pool ordering pizza for dinner just a beach chair away from their laughs and splashing. I want to be the mom my mom was for me: creative, free, and present.
A wildflower mom. She was a sandwich cut into a heart shape for my after-school snack kind of mom. She was a warrior for the arts and my greatest muse. She was the best of us. And sadly, my time with her was robbed of me when she passed entirely too soon when I was just 18. With this in mind, the more the minutes stretch being away from my kids, the more I work towards this dream. Wedding painting has opened this possibility into reality: to be able to spend every waking free minute I have with them. To be just a beach chair away.
Contact Info:
- Website: Artbybrette.com
- Instagram: @Artbybrette
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100080370077716
Image Credits
Madeleine Johnson with Madeleine Johnson Photo and Storyteller Photography
