I'm Back but I'm Sick About the Reason

March 9, 2012 was my last journal on deviantART. I didn't go out with a bang but I did go out wishing birthday wishes upon someone I hold dear: The lovely and talented artist . She is the reason I'm back here today.

Before I get into that, it's worth mentioning that I didn't quit dA out of some perceived slight or outrage or issue with the site. It's entirely possible that no one will remember me so I'll just remind anyone who cares that back in the day I was mostly here commissioning art. My gallery is all commissioned art, in fact, and I still love all of them. But after enjoying this hobby for about a solid year or so, my wallet really could no longer stand the strain. By the time I was making this realization, I had also done some extra work on The Guild, some convention work with Team Unicorn, and was about hip-deep in a metric fuckton of new friendships which taxed my time and finances. The baby steps I'd taken over here at dA reconnecting socially with the world were actually paying off and with Facebook taking over as my default social media medium of choice - it was really tough to be on dA and see all the awesome art and not be able to afford it anymore - something hard to give. I let me premium membership slip away and just occupied myself with other things.

The other day I was feeling pretty nostalgic about deviantART. I have a few Facebook friends that originated here and they are important in my life. I owe this site a debt of gratitude. It fulfilled a deep seated need back in the day to desperately find some beauty in the world. And while the art did that awesomely for a really long time, it was when I started to see the beauty in other people that life really started to turn around. Again, one of those people was Anna Marine.

A couple weeks ago, Anna and her sister discovered that their father Sergey has lung cancer. All things considered, he has a real chance at a full recovery but the news came at a horrible time - Anna's sister just lost her job a month ago and only Anna is working right now. In Russia, treatment for cancer is very expensive and after much convincing, Anna agreed to let me set up a GoFundMe for her father to collect part of the money. It isn't everything the family will need - treatment will be be somewhere in the neighborhood of $34,000 to $38,000 - but Anna hopes to sell her car and is really pushing her commissions and print sales. After a great start, we had a bit of a slow day but I am still confident that we can reach our goal.

We need donations and no amount is too small. If we could just get 4700 of Anna's watchers, followers, and customers to part with $5 each, we'd hit our goal easily. But what we need every bit as much as donations is shares. The successful GoFundMe campaigns tend to have shares in the hundreds or even thousands. Any help spreading the word or fundraising ideas are greatly, greatly appreciated.

Save Sergey GoFundMe Campaign

Anna's Etsy Shop

Thank you all so much for your time and attention. It feels good to be writing a dA journal after so many years - I just wish it was for a happier reason.