We left New York right after I had my second son. After moving to the Bay Area we started coming to Nevada County where my husband’s family lives. His father and mother both grew up in Nevada County, and they are very hard working people with strong roots here. They also own a lot of property, including a mortuary, and my husband’s father is chairman of a bank here. Every time we would come to Nevada City we would leave asking ourselves, “What are we doing? Why are we leaving this beautiful place?” During one of our visits, we saw a house with a wrap-around porch, white picket fence, claw-foot tub, and big back yard. It was what I had been dreaming about. We ended-up buying that house.
I had gone from being a high-powered business woman in New York City to being at home with 3 ½ year old and 3 month old sons. I quickly realized that alone wasn’t for me. My husband came home one night, and I told him that it wasn’t working. About the same time my brother-in-law was looking for work. He let me know he had interviewed for a job that he thought I would be perfect for. I went and interviewed for the position and got the job for a dot-com company called Tristream, based in Grass Valley. I became their primary salesperson at $60,000 plus commission for four days a week. I didn’t know anything about the internet because it was 1998. But I love a challenge, so I learned every acronym under the sun and ended-up working there and riding the dot-com wave. I was the company’s 8th hire and we grew to 30+ employees. My clients were Cisco and start-ups. I would wake up at 5:00 a.m. Monday morning, drive to San Jose, and get back home when my children were asleep. I was learning and making money while being successful. But I came to realize that I had once again gotten caught-up in a world that was driven by the money motive rather than being home with my husband and kids. I remember being at a meeting with several new employees where we were going around the table introducing ourselves. I burst into tears because I started sharing how I never got to see my kids. I was back in the world I did not want to be in.
Then my dad died. I hadn’t had a lot of experience with death, so it made me stop and realize mortality is real and you only have one life. I had always wanted to own an art gallery so I called my mom and asked if she would help to make it happen. She said she would, so I quit Tristream and mapped out what I was going to do. I opened a contemporary art gallery in Grass Valley called Julie Baker Fine Art. Art was my passion and I enjoyed being around it. Because I understood marketing and sales and how to deal with people and manage employees, I felt I was ready to make the gallery a success. My task was to curate the shows, select the art, market and sell it. From the beginning I knew I couldn’t only depend on Nevada County to buy art. I went to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and took the art I was selling on the road. People would come who were decorating their home, major art collectors, curators of museums or corporate collections. I could go, and within three days do $80,000 in business. That’s how my business was built. Then, it got to the point where I realized most of my business was out of town. Those that I sold to locally, I could do by appointment. So I decided to close the shop on South Auburn Street and open a small shop in Nevada City. More than 400 people came to my opening, but then September 11 happened. Given the economy and the fact that people were no longer buying high-end art, I closed my business two years ago.
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