I love reading how peopleย got to where they are today, so here's my backstory and how I started Total Eclipse of the Art ...
GETTING MY HEAD AROUND A SIDE HUSTLE / SMALL BUSINESS:
When I was home on maternity leave with our second daughter, I didn't want the pressure of returning to an office zombie job since I burned myself right into the ground with my previous job (and many jobs before that). Not to mention the cost of childcare, so I decided I wanted to work for myself here and there.
I thought for a long time about what exactly I could do.
I've done occasional workย in interior design over the years (writing, styling, sourcing, blogging etc.), but I wasn't sure I could do it as a source of income. The market is so saturated with DIYers and interior designers who are absolutely nailing it, so I didn't feel I could bring anything extra to that market.
Another avenue I considered was flipping furniture, but again, that market was saturated. I felt like every second listing on Facebook Marketplace was a flipped piece of furniture. Other factors with furniture flipping that gave me big womp-womp feelings were: we have a basic 4-door car. How would I transport furniture regularly? I also don't have a drivers licence (don't @ me. We've lived in cities up until now, so I haven't needed to drive). Also, the space. Flipping furniture is a physically large business. I couldn't mentally handle large pieces of furniture cluttering up our home, so that was a firm 'no'.
I thought long and hard about the physical side of a side-hustle: postage. I wanted to create something kind of smol. Something that could be mailed to people and relatively easily. I didn't want to be fussing with giant boxes or crate loads of trips to the post office I see some small businesses doing (well done to them! It's just not for me). I knew I wanted to work with something smaller. Something flat enough to put in a drawer when I'm not working on it, as well as be able to easily put in my handbag and carry on my way to the post box, while chasing a toddler.ย
This is where I came to decide on art.ย Art isย accessible and handle-able and would have a relatively small mental load. It wasn't for a few months later that I reached my lunar conclusion, when I painted a moon phase for our neighbour who just birthed the sweetest little girl, Luna. It wasn't my first moon phase to paint (more on that below), but it was the first one that clicked in my head, thinking this is something I could do. This is absolutely not a saturated market (in fact, there was no one else I could find doing hand painted custom moon phases, so I got excited).ย
THE NAME ITSELF:
I'm not going to lie - wine was involved. After I gifted our neighbour Serreh the custom moon phase I painted for little Luna, she urged me to do something with this idea. It was something I was considering, but only just in the beginning stages of rolling it around in my head. Serreh's pep-talk pushed me to actually doing something.ย
I think it was that same day, over a glass of wine with my mom (who was visiting at the time), we talked about what I would name what I do. The very first thing to pop into my head was Total Eclipse of the Art. There were no other contenders. So, like the good Elder Millennial I am, the next day I jumped online to secure all the handles online and start various accounts.ย
It wasn't until the next year that I opened my Etsy shop, and another year until I started this.ย
MY FIRST MOON PHASE:ย
My first moon phase was way back in 2015, and wow. It was rough, butย I was proud of it.
The first time I actually painted a moon phase that coincided with a date was for one of my closest friends, Maria, after the birth of her daughter Emily. In our group chat before her daughter was born, Maria had mentioned her love of L.M. Montgomery books. One of L.M. Montgomery's books was Emily of New Moon, which I tried to see if I could get a first edition copy of (SPOILER ALERT: I didn't. They're very expensive, welp). So in a moment of creativity, I looked up Emily's birth date to see what moon phase she was born on, and wouldn't you know it - Emily was born on a full moon. My small mind was very impressed, so I got to painting. I put my heart into that moon and mailed it off to Maria. That was my very first custom moon phase.ย
As it happens, Maria's second child, Max, was also born on a full moon so I just about shit myself when I realized it, and painted him a moon too.ย
Luna's moon was my third custom moon phase and by then, I knew I was going to do something with itย ๐คย
Alex - Total Eclipse of the Art
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