I’m sitting in the surprise sunshine that pours through the sliding glass doors of the kitchen of Lauren’s house, watching her paint Christmas scenes on a collection of river rocks.

The sun is a gift—it was supposed to rain all day—and it feels nice. After you’ve lived above the 49th for a while, you get used to the “Hurry, the dark is coming!” mentality of native Canadians, an attitude that prompts residents to power wash, replace roofs, and cull flowerbeds of any hint of summer, all before the oppressive clouds and rain move in for a protracted stay.

Lauren’s kitchen doubles as her studio; there is an L-shaped work table, paint of every imaginable shade, splatters on the floor tile from wayward squirts onto the palette, and products of her artistic output in various stages of completion.

This one’s waiting for snow on the trees; that one is waiting for a final coat of varnish that will protect it from the elements should the lucky owner decide to place it in the garden.

The palette is clean today (she washed it yesterday, something she feels compelled to do now and again), the little paint wells filled with red, black, yellow, white, orange, a festive green, a deep eggplant, and a custom color of her brisk mixing of a few of the aforementioned hues.

She just added a fabulous turquoise-ish color for the scarf of one of the snowpeople on the rocks she’s working on. She’s painting, and even though I’m sitting a mere three feet away, she’s in her own peaceful little world, creating scenes she hopes will pique the senses of the buyers at tomorrow’s Harvest Festival market.

Above the musical stylings of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, I break the solitude by asking Lauren random questions about her journey as a mom, wife, and painter. This last occupation is relatively new in its incarnation.

She went to art school as a young adult in South Africa and found work as a preschool teacher during the death throes of apartheid-heavy Johannesburg, but instead of lobbing herself into the fickle, penurious scene that is often the art world, she instead followed her fiance to Canada where finances dictated that she get a job.

Like many women, she worked through two pregnancies and deliveries, juggled daycare and work schedules, mealtimes and cleaning routines. It’s a reality that women who work are faced with. Hell, even if you don’t work at a job outside your own four walls, motherhood is an exercise in controlled (or not) insanity. It is what it is.

When I asked Lauren how long she toiled in the catering industry, her answer was candid and sadly comical. “Too long, Jenn, too long.” That “too long” was, in chronological terms, just over ten years. In 2008, at the behest of her then-employer, she attended a three-day seminar that sounds similar to something one might find L. Ron Hubbard sponsoring.

It wasn’t scientology per se, but it wasn’t far off—the seminar was meant to help attendees get in touch with themselves on some far-out, unchartered plain. After the first day, Lauren had seen and heard enough. “The course was not my thing, but it made me look inside myself and opened up so much pain,” she recalls.

“I had no other option than to quit [my job].” This probably wasn’t the result her employer was looking for when she sent Lauren and five of her colleagues to the $300-per-head gathering of souls, but it was the catalyst Lauren needed to see her life for what it had become: unfulfilling.

So what next? “When I went to sleep thinking about painting and waking up thinking about painting, I knew I had found my passion. And I had to make it my reality.” And make it her reality, she has. The definition of “reality” is as diverse as there are people in the world, and Lauren considers herself lucky that her husband of sixteen years was supportive of her choices, in his own way.

“He wanted to be supportive. He saw that the course had an obvious impact on me—he may not have realized what a bad place I was in, and he was the only person I wanted to talk to about the experience,” she says.

With this reawakening—her decision to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire—the most pressing concern for her husband was financial. Lauren’s income as a catering manager had its place in the family finances, but without it, things were going to get very tight, very quickly. “I’ve always been such a workaholic, I think he was fearful because he’d never had to worry about me making money.”

And the transition hasn’t been easy. Without her steady income, sacrifices have been made by all the members of the household. Less money means fewer trips to the mall for clothes or shoes, fewer video games, and dinners at home instead of out.

“The kids have been very supportive. The financial situation wasn’t relevant before, but they’ve adjusted. They don’t expect or ask for anything,” Lauren says of her children, ages 8 and 14. But it’s not just about the money. She is now available for her kids on a more regular basis.

Instead of rushing about arranging daycare and cooking in advance so the family has dinner in her absence, she is at home painting, just down the block from the elementary school where her daughter attends third grade.

Where before, her son, now a freshman, was alone for three or four hours every day after school, he now comes home to his mom who is eager to ask about his day and chew the teenage fat. “I’ve only got a few more years with him, and I don’t want to miss this time. I’ve had to change my way of life, but I’m OK sacrificing material things because I can’t sacrifice who I am.”

This foray into the entrepreneurial, self-dependent lifestyle has been one major learning experience after another.

Lauren is a shy woman, very diminutive and quiet, and tiny to boot. If you weren’t paying attention, you might not even notice her pass by, not because she’s a wallflower but because she’s quiet and keeps to herself.

But once she opens her mouth or shares a smile, you know you’re dealing with a powerhouse, a woman on a mission to succeed. “My whole life, I’ve worked very, very hard for other people. Now I work for myself. And I’m the best boss I’ve ever had,” she laughs.

“Catering did not fit my personality—it caused an immense amount of stress… Now I can do anything, go in any direction. I set goals for myself every day, every week, and I create. I don’t feel good if I don’t paint something every day.

And I can start and stop as I need to, take care of my kids, even when I push myself to work ten-hour days. I can do it until 3 a.m. if necessary.” She often does—I know because I’ve been at her house until the wee hours on many occasions watching her paint, helping apply varnish, or writing price tags.

After leaving her catering responsibilities, she booked a two-month exhibition at a busy cafe in posh West Vancouver, complete with an opening-night reception for friends and potential buyers to view the fruits of her endless toils.

“The exhibition was a huge goal for me and served as the formal launch for Back to Earth Designs,” she says. Lauren sold a respectable number of pieces and took a few commissions for paintings as a result of the exhibition, but of greater significance was that she had pulled off a coup of sorts, one that took her from “hobbyist” (she loathes the word “hobby”) and legitimized her as a bona fide artist, not only to former colleagues and her family but also to herself.

In a moment of reflection about the exhibition and her choices to walk away from her former hectic existence, Lauren is frank about her emotional state at that time. “The unknown is scary, but I’ve learned to let go.

I let go of that bimonthly check,” she says. “I have no clue where I’m going to be in a month, but every single day, I’m working toward something. I may still have to get a job, but I’m going to keep going until I can’t anymore.”

Lauren also knew that sitting in her kitchen painting, day in and day out, wasn’t going to be self-sustaining for very long. The exhibition and launch of BTE Designs was the starting point from which she really had to put herself out there in front of the consumers who have become her bread and butter, but for an introverted creative, approaching potential markets was difficult.

Lauren has had to force herself into unfamiliar territory by networking with a whole new scene of people. Her efforts have been fruitful: she is now a regular vendor at farmers’ markets, nursery open houses, and arts & crafts fairs around the Greater Vancouver (BC) Area.

Her weekends and the odd weekday afternoon are spent setting up her mobile “shop,” as she calls it, an inviting 10′ x10′ table-and-tent arrangement of her products, which include original acrylics on canvas, painted rocks and plant pots, memory boxes, eco-friendly hand-painted canvas bags, and handmade greeting cards.

“I’ve had to adapt my product to what people are willing to buy, what the market demands,” she says in her ever-positive, South African accent. “If I don’t have money to buy paint, I paint in black and white. If I don’t have canvas, I paint on rocks. And people buy them. It blows my mind, but it’s wonderful!”

The word is out in the neighborhood, as well; often people phone to see if Lauren has product available for a last-minute gift purchase, or if she is going to be offering a schedule of children’s art classes in the future.

Lauren and I have had heart-to-hearts over the last year about the experiences that have lead her to this stage in her life. She notes that becoming a small business owner isn’t for everyone readily admits to having those moments where she feels lost.

“Sitting and worrying about money is stupid if I’m not setting goals and searching for opportunities to actually go out and make money,” she says. “And the little bits of money I do earn at these markets is very powerful. I feel more in control of my future because I’m creating something that only I can do, and I can only get better.”

There are those days when Lauren feels insecure about what she’s doing, which makes it tough to go to a market and set up shop.

However, she is able to talk herself out of the pit, pack her car, and move forward. And with each measure of exposure, she is a better person for the experience.

“Every time I get out there, it seems to open doors. I’ve got hope…I’m meeting people and they’re opening doors for me.”

As we speak, the quaint Inlet Bay Retreat on the Burrard Inlet in Port Moody, BC, has a cross-section of her art decorating their bed-and-breakfast, available for purchase by their guests. She met the owners at a market, one she almost didn’t attend.

There are those out there who, upon reading about Lauren’s unconventional choices, will say, “Well, that’s nice for you but I have to work.” Lauren concedes that she was one of those people. “I felt the same way, and it’s been tough. I used to have the attitude that if you needed money, then you should work for it. And work hard. I was a manager… There was no room for excuses.”

When asked about advice she might offer to others with similar, as-yet unrealized passions, Lauren insists that the time to take action is now. “If you’re going to wait until tomorrow, then you’re on the wrong track.

Set goals and then do it. Every day, make something happen. Don’t just talk about it. Get up off the couch,” she says. “If you’ve got time to watch TV, then you’ve got time to make a phone call and research the opportunities. There are so many people out there looking for people like you! But you are your own worst obstacle.”

Just because Lauren has experienced this renewed commitment to maintaining the shards of her sanity doesn’t mean she’s standing on the suburban street corner proselytizing the benefits of ditching your job to become a reclusive painter of landscapes.

What it does mean, however, is that she’s focused her energies in a way that is healthier for herself and ultimately, for her children. We all know the saying: “When Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” And these days, Momma is a lot happier.

To learn more about Lauren’s work and how you can get your own special piece, visit http://btedesigns.com/

Writer and editor Jenn Sommersby Young is a former Los Angeleno with webbed Oregonian toes who lives with her movie-industry husband and collection of children and creatures in the ‘burbs of Vancouver, BC, Canada.