A black-and-white cat named Little One sips cafe au lait at New
Orleans' famous Cafe Du Monde, parties at Mardi Gras and plays
a mean jazz piano. Sure, Chamain DiPascal O'Mahony's
2-year-old feline may live these adventures only in her owner's
imagination, but O'Mahony has made New Orleanians feel that
wherever they are, Little One could appear, too. O'Mahony, 38,
has turned her whimsical musings about her
cat—"minou" in Creole—into humorous notecards
and prints that sell faster than jambalaya in New Orleans and
beyond.
How did this director of information research for the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce turn her cat-inspired paintings into a thriving
part-time business? Here's how it all unfolded:
June 1991: O'Mahony
takes her first and only watercolor class and begins painting and
drawing in her free time.
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December 1999: O'Mahony
tries acrylics for the first time and creates caricatures of her
relatives as Christmas gifts. Her 9-year-old nephew requests that
he be pictured with Little One. "I had her waving a banner,
and she just came to life," says O'Mahony. She begins
painting Little One in a variety of local scenes.
January 2000: O'Mahony
learns that the city's new theme park, Jazzland, needs works
for its gallery. In a rush of inspiration, she makes the decision
to start a business selling her pictures on posters and notecards.
Even before approaching Jazzland's owners, O'Mahony invests
$5,000 of her own money to print a batch of notecards and 1,000
limited editions of her four paintings. She explains, "I
wanted to get things going and worry about distribution
later."
April 2000: O'Mahony
lands her first client: Jazzland agrees to sell 100 of The Creole
Cat prints and cards on consignment. O'Mahony purchases
accounting software for $100, and her husband, Sean, develops a
Web site
that will accept credit card sales.
May 2000: While acting as
her own marketing director, O'Mahony sends letters to local
media and gallery owners.
June 2000: Gallery owners
call O'Mahony, but she declines some of the offers. "I
just don't want to flood the market," she says.
"It's so easy, when you're starting out, to fall into
the trap of saying OK to everyone who wants your work. But if you
take control, it really makes a difference in
negotiating."
July 2000: The business
gains momentum. O'Mahony appears on a local TV program in June
and is featured in the local newspaper. In preparation for the
increased sales brought on by the media attention, O'Mahony
spends $2,000 to print 1,000 new lithographs. By this time,
she's recouped her initial investment.
When the newspaper article appears on July 26, the artist has to
return home early from vacation to handle the flood of orders made
through her Web site. She's on such an adrenaline rush that she
often wakes up at 5 a.m., her mind overflowing with ideas. But she
also has a secret fear that the public will discover she's not
a trained artist. "I've seen people who are much better
artists than I am," she says. "But if you don't treat
what you're doing as a business, you won't make
it."
August 2000: O'Mahony
spends $5,500 to print three new scenes featuring The Creole Cat on
both cards and prints. She also meets with a major New Orleans
gallery, Vintage 429, that agrees to feature her originals.
O'Mahony's prints are currently positioned in 11 New
Orleans galleries, and a strong marketing program has increased
sales on her Web site. The search is on for other outlets
nationwide. With $80,000 expected in its first year, it's safe
to say O'Mahony's business is solidly underway. She's
already begun work on new paintings that depict the cat at
well-known sites in other cities, including New York and Paris.
"Hey, this is America," O'Mahony says. "You
can't be afraid to try something new."
Pamela Rohland writes about the joys and tribulations of
entrepreneurship for a variety of regional and national business
publications.