I AM A LIFELONG FINE ARTIST, A PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED GRAPHIC DESIGNER, AND A SELF MADE CAKE ARTIST.
I’m a life long southerner, but my true roots run deep and hold strong in the arts. As far back as I can remember, I was drawing, painting and creating anything my mind decided needed to exist.
My fine arts youth propelled me towards studying graphic design at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. And so, my adult viewpoint on art began. After college I landed a design job for a small, powerhouse design firm which then, a couple of years later, propelled me on to the world of corporate design. There, at Alltel Wireless (later Verizon), I created corporate promotions and national ads. I was fortunate enough to see my work circling the track on Sundays in NASCAR and my packaging design on the shelves of Walmart all around the country. My favorite work during that time was designing the Alltel Words of Wisdom scholarship luncheon invitation as a collaboration between Alltel and the late, great Maya Angelou, who inspired so many with her own form of art.
Like so many other women, having children took me out of the “normal” work force for a few years, but it gifted me the time to discover my childhood love of imagination becoming reality again. In 2010, I started baking as a way to use my hands and be on my feet, and that idea quickly turned into my own business, Sweet on Cakes, LLC. SOC, was a high concept, high design, cake business where I intentionally chose to quite literally fold together the worlds of fine art, graphic design and baking. Over the last 13 years I’ve created edible art for over 200 clients and high end event coordinators and used my talents to raise money for organizations like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Make-A-Wish. These are both organizations that are extremely personal to me.
In baking, you only get one chance to get it right. So that industry taught me how to plan as much as possible and then execute with extreme accuracy. That’s a skill that time, experience and owning your own business will teach you. In this next stage of life, I want to take my first love, art, my second love, design and mix it with the experience of owning my own business to create new design, from a new perspective, with a new organization.
photo by John David Pittman