After being assured she would be considered neither boring nor profound, Frantz agreed to talk about her career. "It's only recently I've realized some people find me curious, because I'm a working artist," admits Frantz. "Before, I just thought they found me curious, period." She laughs. "Seriously -- I've been around working artists all my life, so it's always seemed perfectly ordinary to me. On the other hand, I can't understand how anyone could be a proctologist.

"I suspect a lot of non-artists think there's something... oh... rare, about artists," she continues. "If they only knew! At the risk of sounding crass, a working artist is primarily a salesperson. Your job is to sell stuff. The only difference is, the stuff you're selling is your own stuff, not someone else's stuff. Which, of course, is the attraction."

When asked if her art isn't more than a mere commodity, Frantz smiles. "Of course it is! But I also have to make a living." She ponders a moment. "I do try to create something beautiful, always," she admits. "But by design I don't have an emotional attachment to my work. To the act of painting, yes; but not to the paintings themselves." She starts laughing again. "I don't want to become attached to them! I want someone else to become attached to them!"

People who spend much time around Frantz find that she laughs a lot. "It's true, I try not to take myself very seriously," says Frantz. "Life's too short not to have fun with it! However - when it comes to my business - my art - I'm very serious.

"I admit it, I don't play around much in that area. And I tend to get impatient with people who do. But, hey, that's my livelihood your messing with! It's important to me to maintain a certain level of professionalism." When asked what this entails, she thinks for a minute. "Well, there's the big things, certainly - honesty; fairness; honoring commitments. Those are pretty easy, actually.

"The devil's in the details. Things like projecting a positive attitude. Dispensing accurate information. Planning ahead. Keeping good records, meeting deadlines, producing neat work. Proofreading! Those things can be hard, and sometimes you just want to go 'ah, who cares!' But they're important. Those are the things that say, "I'm serious. I mean this. I'm worth what you're paying me.

"Sure, some clients won't care. But the ones who do - those are the clients you want, because they're the ones who come back. They're the ones who value your work over the other guy's." Frantz starts laughing again. "Listen to me. Half the time I don't even know where all my paintings are." She twinkles. "I call myself a working artist," she says. "I don't say I'm a genius at it."

Frantz's art background includes a B.S. in graphic design, followed by several years as a part-time free-lance artist. In 1991 she turned to art full-time and started Arcadia Art Studio. "It's tough," she admits. "I do get discouraged. Opportunities to sell your work are incredibly limited." Realizing this, one of the first steps Frantz took was to begin teaching. "I started out at the Taboret Art Supplies," she says, "and it worked out better than I'd hoped." She credits Robert Anderson, the store's owner, with being her biggest booster. "Bob could sell snow to a penguin. Someone would walk in to buy a pencil, and they'd walk out registered for my drawing class."

Frantz now has several classes for adults in a variety of locations around Prince William County. "I'm lucky; I enjoy teaching," says Frantz. "I enjoy watching my students make that journey of discovery. I'm kind of jealous of them, actually; I'd like to take a class too! I guess I'm just a perennial student." She laughs again. "I told you I was boring!"