In the year 2019 is when I took these pictures of the artwork that I did on the wall with my airbrush gun.

It was the beginning of the shop that I am currently at today, which has transformed its name to “Pearls Beauty and Airbrush”

At first, we were going to be doing Virtual Reality, recording music, printing services and airbrush art services. It is why I thought I had chosen the colors and designs that I had chosen at that time.

The goal was to give it a look of a gaming room, but that would also reflect everything else we would do here but didn’t. The VR, music, and printing kinda snuck out and airbrush had to pay the rent, lol.

It has been the same since that time. Airbrush has been paying the bills in this location since the year 2019, when we opened up the spot. It is crazy to think it is going on 3 years now that we have been in this location, 2010 Gessner Road, Houston, Texas 77080.

It is taking a new direction, because it was not the intention for airbrush to manage the bills of the shop and fall back so far behind, due to the VR, music and printing companies not paying their portions of the rent. We are trying to keep it, with a new idea that my daughter has thought of to do for herself, and that is to open up a beauty shop.

This is her first new business and she is very excited in really getting started. Lately she has been practicing her craft and working for tips at the moment until she graduates high school and then can get her licenses and permits. I see the potential and recognize that it is necessary to give her time to learn as much of the beauty business as she can before she can feel confident to charge and make money so that she can pay her rent.

Therefore, at the moment I am still offering airbrush services here at the shop, which seems to make great income for me as an individual. But when it comes to having to feed the family, pay the rent and mortgage I have, and support my daughter in her business challenge she is embarking on, it has gotten difficult to keep up with ALL the bills and I have fallen behind on the shop rent. The lights are still on and all our assets are still ours, and my daughter is really preparing to take it over soon. But at the moment, that is where we are in this location. Fighting to keep it. Raising money in any way that we can to pay the 3k owed at the moment. I have been blessed to have a patient management of the property and I am grateful that she has allowed me to fall behind that much and still have the opportunity to keep the spot. But that is where we are now. Catch up or get out. I am determined to raise the money to keep it, and believe I will somehow.

Anyways, that is the reason that the shop outside now has the lettering “Pearls Beauty and Airbrush” Again, the airbrush has been the company that has put the effort to service customers and make money, so it is the service we will keep offering at the moment along with the beauty services.

The reason for me writing this now though, is because of the photos above. I was searching for a particular picture and in my search I ran into those pictures, of the wall when I had just completed it before we moved furniture and equipment into it. Before all the changes it has gone through before it hits its 3 year anniversary. Before the fear of losing it and the goal of creating it into a beauty shop for my daughter. The intentions I had for them when I did the walls were completely different than they are today. When I saw that the gaming room was not going to happen here at the shop, I had given thought to how the walls did not represent me as an airbrush artist. It is difficult to really capture my essence in a piece of art, and I be satisfied with it. I am so much more than a small creative artistic illusion. It takes several layers of images and designs to really capture and represent me on art.

The best I have gotten to are the tattoos on my leg that I have done. I love my tattoos on my leg. I did almost all of them except for the Shamrock that I had done by an Irish tattoo artist in Dublin. I got my first tattoos in Louisianna when I was there, and saw only fitting that I get a tattoo in Ireland when I was there, and especially since it was in the back part of my leg that I cannot reach. But my leg has the best representation of me and what I represent in my life. Lets see if I can quickly remember the words I came up with to describe it. It is Sun/Moon, Man/Woman, Night/Day, Angels/Demons, St. Michael defeating the devil, young and old, fire and water flowing through space and time with the planets in our solar system with a wheel/compass leading the way by the blind lady of justice up the stairwells of knowledge and enlightment, which looks like the logo for 4biddenknowledge by Billy Carson. Right in the middle is the definition of all the artwork that surrounds it, the Libra sign. Representing the birth in the month of October, the scales of good and evil, that is me, Alexander Luna. So if you ask what do I like. Well besides doing bodyart on beautiful women, that is what I like as an artist. But if you look at my tattoo, you will see that I can get overcrowed with my actual work that I create for myself.

So this pink highlighter wall with bright glow in the dark yellow sun and lots of purples just did not represent me as the artist that I am. The door with the design on the front is one that I would have around the shop if it was all for me. But somewhere along my brain, I have believed that the services we had set out in the beginning would make a comeback. I had hope that it would be achieved one day and the airbrush wouldn’t be the one holding the tab the entire time. I did not change the walls. I let them stay as they were, partly because I had spent so much time doing them, partly because I have been lazy at the thought of starting over, and partly because I was still dreaming it would come true. I think I wrote on one of my blogs in the beginning, which explains the airbrushes part of Airbrushes & Airplanes, I have been living in this old model that I have instructed myself to do in 1999. The Airplanes is the new model in progress now as we speak. Point being, I kept the walls the same because some force told me not to touch the walls.

As my daughter began the conquest of taking over the shop, I started her with the ideas of starting fresh and repainting the walls. I told her to take pictures and use apps to figure out exactly how she would want the shop to look for her. That was about a year ago, and she is ready to take it over, on its 3 year anniversary, here in September. The timing aligns so well, it is awesome and fascinating to me, but I’m getting into numerology and interconnections throughout space and time. But anyway, one day I told my daughter that it needed to be done, so that she could really start on the process of manifesting this shop to look how she could possibly envision it. If she designs it, we can make it happen, I would tell her. So when she hadn’t done it yet, I asked her why. She said she wanted to keep it like that. She liked it with the artwork just the way it is.

I kept saying well this is so 80s style, retro and arcade type artwork to represent the old and new age of gaming with the virtual reality systems and all that. That is what the walls were designed for. But she felt it was what she wanted for her business. I thought she just didn’t want to give it much thought. But here we are on the 28th day of August, 2022, and she has added many things to the shop to make it more of a beauty shop. The walls do compliment her work and gives her shop a much different look than any other beauty salon, I would say. Damn, she is getting away with what I would charge a client about 10k or more to make it look like it do. Especially cause I am not joking, the sun glows in the dark, lights up in the blacklight and shines in the light. There are details in the buildings that glow in the dark and on the planet Saturn. So yes, for a client asking how much would I do that work in their location, it would be along the line of 15k. I can’t wait till my brother D Swift gets me the client at a bar who wants to get custom work uniquely for his business and already agreed it is a $16k project that would look great on his spot.

But anyways, yes the art on the walls turned out looking great at the shop for my daughter’s beauty shop. She has also learned to use the cricut to make her own signage of Pearls that compliment the work, and that she can also offer her clients as well. It seems that she is not only thinking on the scale of offering beauty services to her clients, but also printing and marketing services for other beauty companies and young individuals whom I have already seen start imagining ideas after seeing Tati doing her thang. Seeing how it all looks now, I can see that the artwork I made, never was for me. If Ms. Lim ever gets to read this, I apologize for the inconvinience it might have caused you, but I have been meant to hold on to this spot for her, I feel now. I tried to get music, the printing and the virtual reality to help support the airbrush and all together we make profits and pay our shares, but it didn’t work out as planned. I have had something keep me holding on to this location, and I just now understand why. At the moment when it is almost lost. If you have ever read “Think and Grow Rich” the author mentions that the success of many have come from the moment we are facing today, when my daughter and I show that we will not give up. We will continue to strive to achieve success, be in good standing with our obligations, and move on to our next chapters in life and business.

For my daughter, it is taking on the full responsibilities of owning and managing her own store. For me it is to learn to fly airplanes, fly where I need to work, do the artwork and fly for hire anywhere in the world I am destined to go. Adventures are right around the corner. As I have read in my book for pilots several times, I can see the horizon. I am excited for the new journeys!