All About Sockii: Jane of All Trades

When people ask me what I do for a living, I've always found it difficult to give a simple answer beyond telling them I consider myself a "Jane of All Trades." After finishing graduate school, I knew the 9-to-5 life really wasn't for me, so I began exploring different avenues for earning a living creatively and by working for myself. I decided to pursue a career in the arts, exploring my lifelong love of painting in watercolor and later studying classical oil painting methods. I became interested in jewelry design and started selling work at various conventions, craft fairs and art shows around the United States. For a number of years I co-managed an art gallery in Philadelphia, where I also co-managed a small rental property. To help pay the bills - and to help out my sweetie - I also began working parttime in my now-fiance's podiatry office.

After moving out of Philadelphia, I started devoting more time to my budding interest in freelance writing. I started at Associated Content and have spread out from there to writing for other on-line content sites, which give me a great opportunity to share my knowledge on the various subjects which interest me most. In between juggling all of these other pursuits, I also maintain several websites for clients - including one for my fiance's podiatry office in Woodbury, NJ, of course. It's a busy lifestyle but one which I enjoy, and I am certainly never bored nor left without something to work on!

Although I have only been writing for Squidoo for a short period of time, I am quickly becoming addicted to the site for many reasons!

1. The format. The lens format is so flexible, it really makes creating unique and interactive webpages incredibly easy. Instead of a flat prose article, you can combine link lists, slideshows, recommended products and even related video. It's also one of the best formats for "how-to" style articles I've found on-line, which is why I'm focusing on publishing most of my art tutorials here instead of elsewhere.

2. The community. It's clear already to me that Squidoo has a great, helpful community full of individuals willing to assist and encourage each other, no matter their experience levels writing for the web or otherwise. I have to say that's a pleasant change of pace from the communities associated with some other content sites, where there is such a high level of snarkiness, ill-will and readiness to flame those who have differing opinions.

3. More ways to earn money. I love that Squidoo allows its lensmasters to earn money through more than just "page views" or advertising hits. Being able to incorporate links to Etsy shops, Ebay, and Amazon gives you more opportunities to earn revenue from your writing, which is great. I also appreciate that I can link to my articles elsewhere on the internet without penalization - something forbidden by certain other content sites which won't allow you to link at all to their "competitors."

Art has been one of my passions since I was a small child. I self-taught myself drawing and watercolor painting, but when I grew interested in becoming more of a professional artist I knew I needed to invest some time into actual art classes. I began taking classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, which has a wonderful continuing education program with advanced courses in portraiture, figure drawing, still life painting, and classical art techniques. In fact, it was in a course on "Secrets of Realistic Painting" where I would meet my fiance, David! Together we took many art classes together, both at PAFA and at workshops with Frank Covino, the late Joanne Liliedahl, and at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. Through these classes and workshops I developed a real passion for classical art techniques, reproductions and realist portraiture. Even so, I still occasionally enjoy doing more surrealist and abstract work, inspired by some of my favorite modern artists including Yves Tanguy and Giorgio De Chirico. You can see many different examples of my artwork on my personal website, and many of my lenses here for Squidoo are and will be focused on art and painting techniques.

Although I am much less involved in it today then I used to be, media fandom has long played an important part in my life, both on-line and off-line. I started going to science fiction conventions in the mid-90s, where I met many people who would become some of my best friends for life. I also got to meet many of my favorite actors, including Dwight Schultz (who played my childhood hero, "Howlin' Mad" Murdock, on "The A-Team.") My first experiences writing and designing content for the internet were dedicated to different fandoms, and I established the very first A-Team fanpage (which was featured in various print publications and TV shows) during those years, along with various other projects. I became interested in writing and publishing fanzines, which although mocked by many professional writers gave me great experience and training which I use in my freelance writing today.

I still provide free on-line hosting via my sockiipress.org domain for media fans who need a home for their creative works. I also still attend several media conventions a year including Dragon*Con and MediaWest*Con, although mainly just as a dealer selling my artwork and jewelry.

My favorite actor for many years has been John Glover - perhaps best known for playing Lionel Luthor on "Smallville" and The Devil on "Brimstone." In 2004 I had the wonderful opportunity to convert my original unofficial "fan page" for John into his Official website. John is a wonderful person to work with and truly one of the nicest people around. If you're curious, you can read my story about how I met and got to know John, which was a fabulous experience getting to go from "fan" to actual "friend."

My favorite rock band of all time? Easy: The Police! I've been a huge fan since I was about 15 years old, and in particular a fan of drummer Stewart Copeland. I was too young to get to see The Police tour back in the 1980s, so their 2007-2008 Reunion Tour was a dream come true for me. I will admit to attending 14 shows on the tour, from the announcement "rehearsal" at the Whisky A Go-Go in February 2007 to the farewell concert at Madison Square Garden in August 2008. I had a lot of crazy adventures during that tour with my friends, some of which perhaps I'll write about in more detail later...

As part of my Police fanaticism, I run two fan sites related to the band. The first is The PoliceWiki, a wiki-based resource devoted to all things Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. My Stewart-specific site, Too Kool To Kalpso, has a large image gallery, lyrics, and text archive.

I love to travel both internationally and domestically, whenever I can get away either for a weekend or an extended stay.

Italy is one of my favorite places in the world. David and I have traveled together to Florence, Venice, Rome, Milan and Siena and hope to explore other parts of Italy together in the future, including the coastal regions of the Marches, Sicily and southern Italy. A trip to London may also be in our near future to see the upcoming Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit at the National Gallery. My mother and I have regularly enjoyed visiting the Caribbean since I was a young teenager. I learned to windsurf on Montserrat and have taken multiple trips to St. Kitts and Nevis. We've also enjoyed visiting Puerto Rico and Virgin Gorda, and would love to visit other islands including Tobago and Dominica in the future.

Domestically, some of my favorite cities to visit include Boston, New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I've been known to fly cross country just for a concert or special art exhibit, although all my new home expenses have made that a little more difficult than in the past. Other places I'd like to visit in the future include Hong Kong, Montreal, Amsterdam, Paris and Scotland.

In November 2011 I was very happy to be accepted into the Squid Angel Program at Squidoo! It's wonderful to be able to "pay back" the blessings I've received from so many other lensmasters since beginning at Squidoo, and to seek out new lensmasters as well worthy of a little "boost"! I try to spread my blessings around to many different areas of Squidoo - sometimes checking out the homepage, sometimes browsing my favorite topics, sometimes looking for interesting new lenses in the Squidu "Critique Me" and "Lens Spotlight" forums. So you never know where exactly this Angel will come sprinkling some Angel dust!

I will say that being an Angel is something I do take very seriously. I will not bless lenses that contain any "Squidon'ts", that isn't at least moderately well-written, or that contain completely non-credited images or images of dubious legality for use on Squidoo. As an artist I take image copyright very, very seriously and it's one of my biggest pet peeves on Squidoo how many lenses contain copyright violating image content. OK, I got that rant off my chest! I also don't play the "Bless-me-and-I'll-bless-you" game, because blessings should be for true merit and quality work, not just swapping around to boost each other's lensrank.

SquidAngel graphic by Greekgeek.