Q and A with Patricia from Phoenix, Arizona
“Introduce your self to people. You don’t know which one will be your friend for life.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I am a photographer who started drawing this year and am taking watercolor lessons through Zoom from our Baltic Sea detailed artist, Oksana.
Moved to the Phoenix–Coronado art district in March 2017. In March, 2018, my one-story house burned from an old lamp while I was running errands. I decided to add a personal photo gallery on one side of the top floor. I had an opening March 7, 2020, but closed the gallery the next day due to the COVID pandemic.
Then a year after that, my Sri Lanka artist friend [who depends on my help to make a living], his wife, and young daughter were starving. He would love to leave that oppressive country, and I would like to help them more.
In 2022, I converted the photo gallery into an art gallery. After that, 21 artists found and joined our gallery. We are a consortium of Arizona, Southeast, Northeast, and Hawaii artists, plus artists from five countries.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: My childhood, travel experiences, jobs, hobbies, and friends have impacted my life. The biggest incentive was to show my mother I could succeed.
As a child, I thought we were poor. My mother didn’t buy much, besides simple groceries and household items. [It was a] simple existence. I had no allowance, a really old radio, an old record player, and couple of games. My room was 9×9 feet, my haven to escape.
I attended junior college one year, worked one year to pay for university tuition, then attended KSU, and worked during full-time college. After my bachelor’s degree, I worked another year in Kansas City, but cleaned out my desk, flew to Hawaii for a vacation, got off the plane and in the airport, I wired and quit my job.
I wanted to live in Hawaii since I was a child. When I started my business, I joined a professional women’s network in Hawaii and gave a motivation speech called, “Living my Dream Now” to 200 women and received six letters of thanks for inspiring them to start their own business.
In Hawaii, I worked for a computer company. I quit and flew to Singapore and Hong Kong. When I returned, I asked myself, “Now, what am I going to do?” I decided to start an employment agency. I passed the employment exams and obtained a license in Hawaii. I managed this business for 25 years, working up to 16 hours a day, which supported my photography/travel passion. I traveled to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand several times and visited all but two of the 50 U.S. states, including three times to Alaska.
I have over 300,000 photographic images of animals, scenes and models.
In 2012, I wanted a change and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and built a 400 sq. photo studio. In 2017, I bought the east side house near downtown. A year later, it burned. I decided to add a second story room for a photo studio, and that became Gallery Coronado–original art, sculptures, and photography.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: 1. Everything happens for the best.
2. Watch your back, hard to know who to trust sometimes.
3. Don’t spend money on art magazine ads. It might be useful if you can afford them monthly for an extended period, but they are thousands of dollars.
4. Write press releases and hope a newspaper publishes them.
5. Be kind, generous, and fair. Compliment and help others. Help now; not later.
6. Smell good.
7. Introduce your self to people. You don’t know which one will be your friend for life.
8. Travel now when you are younger. The less iPhones you buy often, will give you money to travel.
9. Hire self-motivated people. Independent contractors work hard then many employees.
10. In your job, do more than expected to get ahead rather than back-stabbing your coworkers.
11. Be gregarious and playful. Above all, have fun.
12. Write a thank you LETTER or email after an interview stating what you will do for the COMPANY not all your demands. You will be the only one and you most likely will get the job.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: On feminism, I am very much for women getting ahead. Most of the private industry jobs I had, women made less money. I am sorry to say, I didn’t think Kamala was competent to serve as President. I saw interviews of her, and I can think of five other ladies in government who are high-profile people who would have been great.
I found in my business that some women are not supportive of other women.
MORE FROM PATRICIA: I would say I am from Hawaii, since most of my life was spent there and I couldn’t wait to leave the Midwest and snow. My mother would not pay for my college because she thought I would not finish (I finished with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees). I worked before college to pay for it.
Thanks for reading!
Connect with me here:
https://www.gallerycoronado.com/the-blooming-garden-of-mystery-book ($35 on line; $30 in gallery.)
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