By the early months of 1990, I was almost starting to feel like I could make this freelancing job pay off. A few of the national clients I had picked up in the previous year began using me for repeat business, and I started picking up several new clients that would keep me busy for the next decade.

The ‘Worldwide Church of God’, a publisher of various religious magazines began giving me regular assignments using my ‘cartoon style’ for their ‘Youth ’90’ Magazine, and another religious publisher ‘Strang Communications’ started handing me multiple assignments as well. This would prove to be just the tip of the iceberg as far as evangelical work over the next few decades. Being an atheist, this sort of work didn’t exactly enthuse me, but I found that their money spent just as good as more secular clientele. By the end of the decade I would find myself working for nearly every denomination you could name.

One of the biggest clients I picked up in 1990, was MacMillan Publishing. I was given several college textbook cover assignments over the next few years, and then thirty years later would be given the biggest assignment of my career from this client.

I also began working with a local Christian book publisher, Eerdmans in the summer of 1990. I was given the first of 3 book assignments (which is detailed in a separate posting).

Another highlight from this year was my appearance in an article about pastel portraiture in ‘Artist’s Magazine’, which came about because they had seen my self portrait on the cover of one of my self promotional mailings.

And, in the ‘it’s a small world’ category: The following year I was at a party and got to talking with a woman who was also a local artist, and it turns out that she was featured in the very same article, on the following page.