Business Happy Hour 2024-07-28 - Heather Tapia Fine Artist

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Business Happy Hour radioshow with your host Frank the Bank Kodo,
President of Lincoln Lending Group and eightWon three mortgage for twenty years right
here in Tampa Bay, joined byhis incredible co host Rosa Bahiti and Sinia
Akishna, top producing real estate agentswith Mahara and Associates. These three bring
nearly five decades of experience in thelocal real estate market. If you're looking

(00:24):
for real estate or business advice,no matter what your experience level, the
Business Happy Hour team has been therefor you for almost a decade right here
on news radio WFLA. Now sitback, relax, and get ready for
some serious real estate and business talkwith three of Tampa Bay's top experts.
Here's Frank the Bank. Hey,Tampa Bay, welcome back to the Business

(00:44):
Happy Hour, your number one showfor all things business and entrepreneurial. Boy,
I am excited. We have agreat show for you guys today.
We've got great stories, we've gotgreat guests, we've got great stats.
But first we're going to introduce theMahara Team. Send mekeish Hello, glad
to be here. You guys missedme last coming back. Sania flying all

(01:06):
around the world and where'd you goto the Kremlin? Ha ha? Did
anybody else get that? It's beena while? I love it, She's
like, ha ha ha. Andof course my co favorite co host,
Rosa. How are we doing,Rosa great? So happy to be here

(01:26):
and so happy to have our gueston today, Heather Tapia. Yeah,
thank you for introducing Heather. Thisis great. Heather, welcome to the
show. Thank you, thanks forhaving me. I'm very excited to be
here. And I heard this isyour first time on radio. It is.
I've done some TV, but neverradio, So we'll see how this
goes. I love it. Ilove it, And you know what we're
gonna do. Maybe Senio, let'sadjust her mic so she can look into

(01:47):
the camera if possible, so wedon't get that side shot of her all
day long. That would it'd makeit. Oh oh wait, oh does
he have the camera over there?The camera's messed up. Oh well,
then don't listen to me, becausenow that I'm looking at the camera,
Heather, you are looking right intothe camera. Good job. Oh I
just moved it. Oh no,you're good, You're totally fine. Everything
looks great. Now I should actuallylook at the screen. You see her
face, and she's got the facefor TV. I know she sure does.

(02:12):
I can see it over here.She's looking She's looking great over there.
Heather Tapia, don't be confused withTelapia, my least favorite fish.
We have a whole story on Telapiatoday. If we run out of anything
to talk about, anybody's seeing thatdirty jobs. By the way, yeah
google that later. Heather Tapia,You're gonna have to totally watch that one
and tell your kids this is whywe did not get named Telapia. I
will tell them. Yeah, SoHeather has great has a great business.

(02:36):
We are going to be talking aboutit. After we do our stats.
We're going to catch up with allyou guys because we missed Sennia last week.
She was out world traveling. ButI know she has even more stats
for us this week. And thenRosa, we had a we had a
pretty awesome show last week. Kindof funny. We we for the first
time ever, we decided to gothrough the entire home buying process on what

(02:57):
it would cost. And she's laughingis of what happened at the end,
what it would cost to buy ahouse? Right? Did our best?
We got through it. We gotthrough until the very and what did you
say to me? I don't evenremember, because we get to me,
we did all the cost. Yeah, we broke down the cost, how
the seller cover's closing costs, howmuch you have to put down payment,
all these things, and we getto the very end and Rosa goes,

(03:20):
what about the payment? The mostimportant thing we want to know the monthly
Morgan payment. And I can't imagineour listeners are probably sitting there like,
damn, I gotta listen to thewhole show just to find out the payment.
And then in the end, theother thing is Burlander was out right.
We had the other producer, James. We're actually gonna have to check
into this because it might be prettyfunny. The question is did he extend
the show and fill in where weactually said the payment, or did Rosa

(03:44):
go what about the payment? Andthen goes, we'll see you next week,
Senya, did you listen to theend? I was just gonna say
I didn't. I got a call. I was almost done with the whole
thing, and now I'm really sadthat I didn't finish. Well, we'll
find out. We'll find out.But if not, you know what we
should do. We will recap thatat some point in the break, I
will go back and I'll look atthe scenario that we wrote down and then

(04:08):
we'll just tell them what the payment. Yeah, we'll just do a quick,
short version, very short, veryshort, because we took an hour
to get through the other stuff.So listen. We love doing the Business
Happy Hour. Don't forget. Wedo have a YouTube channel We're starting to
upload all these videos into so youcan check out past episodes. Just go
to the Business Happy Hour. Ithink it's the real Biz Happy Hour on
YouTube. We're gonna have to doublecheck that. We have a little bit

(04:30):
of marketing stuff we got to fixa little and then the podcast, so
we are a radio show every Sundaymorning. If you're listening live, thank
you for joining the podcast. Youcan go to iHeartRadio anytime. iHeartMedia,
sorry, and you can just lookfor the Business Happy Hour and listen to
our podcast anytime. And we dotry to title them, which I've been
personally doing on the videos for us, which is funny. I listen to

(04:51):
them, I'm like Rosa talks aboutthis today and it's a great way to
do it. But check us out, like and share it. If you
are on our Instagram right now,please share this out. We want more
listeners and we're looking for social mediaexperts, yes, an Instagram expert,
specifically Instagram experts. You said itlast week. We want somebody to come

(05:14):
in who that is like their thing, and I did interview somebody yesterday,
okay, which I'm going to makea note right here, Okay, and
I'm gonna because I think she mightbe our girl perfect. Maybe I'm excited,
maybe she's having less issues today.I'm impressed with you guys, all
three of us, all three ofus, and we got a guest which
is going to be amazing. AndI can't wait to interview Heather. We

(05:34):
We've got some you ladies put togethersome great questions with her. We're gonna
and I have an awesome story before. I'm gonna tease this a little.
Then we're gonna get into our realestate stuff and some stats. But Heather,
Heather, why don't you just telleverybody what does your business do?
And then we'll bounce back in thesecond segment. Okay, Well, I'm
a fine artist. So one specialtyniche I started years ago, like twenty

(05:58):
five years ago, is ating ultrasounds. So that's kind of basically, you
know, one of the main thingsthat really I started and it took off.
Of course, I also have myother fine art that I do commissions
things like this for people, butthe ultrasounds has always been very special.
All right, well, I can'twait and I can't wait to share with
you my favorite ultrastoun ultual sounds story. See if you could paint a picture

(06:19):
for this, all right, I'mlooking forward to it. It would probably
go viral, especially in these days, this day and age, so we'll
find out. But before that,don't forget. The ladies are with Maharran
Associates and we're going about to learnsome stats about the production and what's going
on because I think the market's gettingbetter. Sinnia is looking at me like
maybe maybe not, Frank, butI think things are good. And if

(06:42):
you if you hear anything you wantto get more information on, the ladies
have an amazing website which is theReal Deal Tampa. I'm gonna try it
one more time. The ladies havean amazing website which is the Real Deal
Tampa dot com boom. That's whereyou go to find out anything about real
estate. You are you allowed toput listings on the Can you do that?
Yeah? We have our listings onthere. Oh heck yeah, thirteen

(07:02):
ninety five Davis read. You cansearch that on there. Oh, I
got some information for you for later. We'll talk about And I'm and I'm
looking at maybe doing an auction aswell. This word auction is popping up
in my head. So I'm gonnawrite these things down anyway. Let's go
into stats with Senya Akishina. Well, first, actually, I want to
make an announcement because Maharan Associates wegot the We've got to be the winner

(07:29):
for the Bust of the Bay realEstate Companies. Yes, oh my god,
is it done? Is it like? We got the official Yeah?
So how long is that contest on? For? What do you mean they
do it every year? I meanthey probably have been voting on guessing for
a month. They do it everyyear. Yeah, I don't know when
the voting started, but obviously wegot a lot of votes. And yes,

(07:50):
I think in the beginning of thecrowd. I'm going to look it
up while we're hanging out here,because last year we actually entered that and
Lincoln Lending that you guys, Yeah, I saw, Yeah, you have
some wins on that. You know. I don't know what the website said,
but sadly I was not ahead ofthe game this year, so we
didn't put ourselves in the ready.So congratulations to Maharran Associates, well deserved,

(08:11):
ray, great job. Welcome toU Instagram. Mister Tony Ciderella known
that guy for twenty five years checkingus out. He used to own a
political magazine, actually two sides magazine. Very interesting, Tony. I bet
you that magazine would be way populartoday. He tried to do it when
there's like not really two sides,but now there's definitely two sides anyway.

(08:33):
So what are you asking me about? Stats? Yeah? Stats, Yeah,
let's just get through that real quick. I mean, no, market,
market's going good. It's definitely,you know, it's quite down a
little bit in terms of activity.A lot of agents that I talked to,
we're just calling it like a weirdmarket. Can't really say seller's market,
even though you know, numbers wisetechnically should be. But you know,

(08:54):
it's just we're we're getting through it, and I think it's it's for
the best because it's just evening outand getting us to you know, back
to a normal market from COVID,the correct inventories and all that. Yeah,
but closed sales and Hillsborough are upthree point two percent okay, and
Panelas are down two percent. Nowthat's the number of sales or the price
of the homes. This is closedsales, so sales count yeah, count

(09:16):
wise okay. And then Passco uptwo point eight percent. And then for
the median sales price and Hillsboro we'reup two point four percent. Okay,
Panelas is up seven point eight percentand Pasco up three point six percent.
Wow, Panelas is I find thatinteresting. Huh. Panellas is almost up
ten percent. Panelas has been,i mean popular for for a while.

(09:37):
I love Panela's County, especially likethe Saint Pete of downtown area, and
it's so beautiful. Beaches. Imean, we have the best beaches in
the world here. We really wereally try to paradise. I had a
friend at we are at the beachCondo Madere this weekend and he's like,
you know what, he goes,I've been to beaches all around the world,
and he said, the sand hereblows my mind. He's like,
you guys have He calls it thefluff, right, the fluff. It's

(10:00):
the fluff like you can pick itup and toss it in the air and
it just disappears. We don't knowwhere it goes, but it's it is
the fluffiest sand in the world.You go to all these beaches, you
know, you go out of town, you go to Saint Lucia, go
to all these other countries, andit's like volcanic beaches. It's not the
same. Ours is made of quartz. Did you know that quartz? I
did not. Yeah, it isquartz sand. A lot of our beaches

(10:20):
have ground up quarts and it's supposedto be really good for you. Ever
heard of grounding before? Yes,right, my wife is into all the
health stuff. It's been grounding.Yeah, grounding. Yeah. I actually
what's grounding? So don't quote meon any of this because I don't actually
really know. I just have anidea. It's something about putting your feet
to the ground literally and just groundingyourself. So there is science to this

(10:43):
about our body and the energy andthe and the our body has electricity in
it and things like that, andwhen our feet touched and I think you
have to do it for a certainamount of time. I don't remember the
name. Hey, is there anygrounding expect that wants to come on the
sand? Is that why you broughtthat up? Oh? Actually you don't.
The sand is great. The reasonI say it is because quartz,
it like, has good properties andstuff. So it's a good thing to

(11:05):
put your feet in. Right.But literally, my wife will be like,
you should go outside every day forten to fifteen minutes and walk barefooted
and you ground. So I don'tknow what do we get? Do we
get something? Do we win something? Honey? When we rock walk barefooted?
I don't know. You feel betterinside. I feel so much better
about myself now that Rosa does ita lot. She'll always take a little
trip somewhere where she can get herbare feet. I thought you shoes,

(11:28):
she didn't wear shoes anywhere. Yeah, don't own any shoes. Something tells
me she owns shoes. A lotof shoes, A lot and a lot
of shoes. Let me see whatshe's wearing today. Cute high heels.
Oh, those are nice? Thoseare nice? Are those red bottoms?
What are those there? I don'thave red bottoms? Yes, well,
some of our listeners know what thatmeans. Anyway, Well, if you're

(11:48):
curious, I'll finish it up justthe median price, because that's always good
to know. Millsborough County four hundredand thirty five thousand, Panela's four hundred
and eighty five thousand, and Pascoat three hundred and ninety THO, my
god, we are almost at ahalf a million dollars median home price.
That is I mean, like goodface, bad face. It's like,
wow, so forty you said fortysix salesbro four thirty five hills Brove.

(12:11):
I mean it's still you know,it's up from last year. So with
those, we're going to take abreak here on the Biz Happy Hour.
We're gonna be back in just aminute with Heather Tapia art dot com.
Stay tuned. Now we're back withsome serious real estate in business talk with
three of Tampa Bay's top experts,your host of the Business Happy Hour,
Frank Bangkoto, Rosa Bahiti, andSenia Akeishna. All Right, ladies and

(12:35):
gentlemen, thanks for watching the BusinessHappy Hour, watching, listening, liking,
sharing, forwarding, whatever you're doingover there. We appreciate you,
guys. We have a great showand a great guest guest. Last couple
of weeks, we mixed it upa little bit and talked mostly real estate.
We're back to having fun with ourguests. Ladies. I'll let you
introduce Heather and then let's let's findout what she does before we talk some

(12:56):
crazy ultrasound stories. Yeah. Sothis is Heather Tappyet and she has been
in business for over twenty five years. Right, yeah, and tell us
a little bit about where how yougot started. So I guess, well,
my son is turning twenty five thisball, so probably about twenty six
years ago. I went to schoolfor art my whole life. Actually there
was like special art programs in middleschool, high school, college, but

(13:18):
I've always done art, like evenbefore that when I was young. So
when I was pregnant with my oldestson, who turned twenty five next month,
my teacher was like, why don'tyou paint the ultrasound? Just because
I was in class and you know, I had nothing else to do.
I'd finish all my work, Andthat was kind of how it started.
I painted it, didn't really thinkanything of it, gave it to my
husband as a gift, and thenevery time people came over, they were

(13:39):
like, oh, my god,you should do this. And then from
there it just like took off,you know, and the ultrasound technology advanced
as well. Like in nineteen ninetynine, they kind of looked like little
aliens, you know, you werelike, oh my god, I was
actually kind of afraid. I waslike, missy, my son an alien,
you know, and then probably shoulddepend on your husband. Yeah,

(14:00):
let me first ask you. Butactually he's totally normal. And then you
know, in the early two thousandsthere the three dimensional technology came out,
so the paintings, everything is evolvedwith time and it's just been a great,
you know, great I guess experienceand just continues. And you mentioned
something earlier that I thought was interestingabout your upbringing. So you said your

(14:20):
parents got rid of TV, andyeah, you just did art and sports
and how you go down is whatI want to I know. I know.
I was probably about seven years oldand my stepdad, who wasn't happy
with I think the prices they werecharging for cable TV, and he was
like, hits a monopoly. Idon't even know what that meant at like
seven years old, like that game, I know, and he's like,

(14:41):
no more cable. So like wehad like some videos and things like that,
and of course I went to myfriends. I could like, you
know, as a teenager go watchnine oh two one oh, like very
exciting, you know, but Ididn't. Yeah, we just didn't really
have TV like you. We hadsome movies. Everything was very limited.
And my stepdad was the president ofthe Florida Youth Saw League in Polk County
where I live part you know,part time, so we all had to

(15:03):
play soccer basically, so it waslike soccer sports. And then I was
always drawing and that was kind ofyou know where they decided, I guess
when I was about twelve to putme into art school. Oh so you
were you like went into a specialart school at twelve, Like you didn't
go to a regular school. No, there's a school like that's for the
arts, so you can, youknow, go there, and then after

(15:24):
that you can audition for a specialart high school as well. So like
at the when I was in eighthgrade, they were like, oh,
you should put your portfolio together,and I was like, I don't know,
and then you do like a littleaudition. And so my high school
was actually in a museum like halfthe day, half the day was a
regular school and half the day wasa museum. Wow. Yeah, what
was the name of that. It'sPolk Museum of Art over in Lakeland.
Nice. Yeah. And then alsoso you are featured and a few exhibits

(15:48):
right now, yes, yeah,so very exciting. So right now I'm
currently my work, a new seriesof work that I did just for the
show is at the Imagine Museum inSaint Petersburg, Florida. I don't know
if you've ever been there, butit's the most beautiful, like glass museum.
You've got to go see it.So they have they did a whole
show. It's called Graphic Worlds,and it's exploring comic and anime art and

(16:10):
like the history of that and soit was very interesting to like to study
that subject and learn about it andmake art for it. So that show
is going to be up until Januaryfifth, so you should definitely go there
and see it. You'll see mywork. It's on both floors, which
is cool. Like I have somepieces in the bottom floor, some pieces
on the top floor. Now isit all ultrasound pieces or is it different?
Not at all? Something completely different. It's comics, like I made

(16:32):
comic books and then I made anime. I've never made anime before, so
it was like fun to like learnhow to make anime. Cares you have
to be Japanese to do anime,I guess. Yeah. My other son,
the little son, he just wentto Japan. He loved Japan and
my husband, so so it waskind of cool, like I us like
his experience, you know. Andthen for the comics, it's all like

(16:56):
women. Like I was like,okay, I thought of like women that
I know and like like admire,and I turned them into comics. And
so I actually commissioned you for fourcomic blocks of for different women. Yeah,
I love me, thank you,Yeah, thank you. O.
Yes, that's one show. Thesecond show is over in Lakeland. There's
a place called Union Hole, andthey did a show all about Lakeland,

(17:18):
A great a great city to live. I think it's called So. I
grew up between Miami and Lakeland,Florida. So anyway, so I did
some art for that. That's upuntil September. And then I just got
back from the Hampton's where I dida four day show at the Hampton's Fine
Art Fair in Southampton's my god,I'm actually on your website. Oh,
this stuff is unbelievable. Thank you. I don't even have all the updated

(17:41):
stuff on the website yet. Igot to do that when I get back
in town. I mean, Isee a couple of the ultrasound ones which
is which are incredible. But thefirst thing you came to mind's funny.
I'm getting off. I just gotoff the cruise ship and we're talking about
you guys going on the cruise shipon the Icon. And have you went
on cruises before? Yes, wewent on a symphony of the C's five
years ago. Okay, did youever do the art auctions or anything else?

(18:02):
Yes, Mark West, Yeah,okay, see what I'm talking about
right, Well, the first thingon your website is is the statue of
Liberty with a red, white andblue heart, and it reminded me of
that guy Max. Oh yeah.When I made that piece, somebody else
who I think goes on cruises toldme that that is a spitting image of
the and we always liked his art, but we never nothing ever spoke to

(18:22):
us. Oh that's so cool,But I thought that's like one of your
central pieces. It's an amazing piece. Thank you. So that piece is
actually okay, So one thing Ishould tell you about the ultrasound and that
piece and a few other pieces.I kind of have my own signature style
finger painting that I made up.So I use these oil pigment sticks.
They're like super rich, like likein color, they're just amazing, right,
and then I usually literally just usemy fingertips to paint them. So

(18:44):
that's how that statue of Liberty is. It was my first time going stepping
outside of the ultrasound. I guessarena with that into like can I do
bigger pieces? So that piece Imade during twenty twenty, you know,
very fitting, and when I wasso sick of like turning on the news
every day and just everyone is somean to each other, Like you were
saying, yeah, like the twosides, you know, and I was
like, I was like, thisis like ridiculous. So I kind of
just made that as like a giftfor America, you know, and sent

(19:06):
it to different politicians and things likethat. Wow. But the whole thing
you just like fingerpainted, yeah,like no brushes correct. Wow. Holy,
it takes a while because it's like, you know, it's be great
detailed. I can only imagine andwhat you made a bunch of them and
you sent them off to different politicians. Well, I sent prints of them,
yeah, and I just sent likea nice like letter, like basically
like thank you for what you're doing. Like, I mean, it's pretty

(19:29):
brave to have to be up there, and especially people just constantly like be
mean and like battering you. AndI'm like, Okay, at the end
of the day, we're all America. People can come to this country,
you can have every opportunity, youcan work hard, like my grandpa and
my grandmother not from here originally,you know, but it's like so I
just wanted to like spread the love. So that's why you see the heart
with the flag. Yeah, thisis phenomenal, and we're going to take
a quick break. So with that, I encourage all of you to do

(19:51):
what I'm doing right now and goto Heather Tapia art dot com and that
spelled tap i a Heather Tapia artdot com and go to the gallery.
I mean, I'm thumbing through itright now, and it is phenomenal.
You girls are gonna have to comeand see this in the break. This
is this is great stuff and itmakes me wonder about the different things that
you could be commissioned to do,which I have a couple of ideas for

(20:11):
myself that I've been thinking of fora long time. But when we get
back, we've got some more greatquestions about where you came from and about
the business, and then we'll talkabout some ultrasounds here on the Business Happy
Hour. Stay tuned. Welcome tothe Business Happy Hour radio show with your
host, Frank the Bank Kodo,President of Lincoln Lending Group and eight one

(20:32):
three mortgage for twenty years right herein Tampa Bay, joined by his incredible
co host Rosa Bahiti and Sinya Akishna, top producing real estate agents with Mahara
and Associates. These three bring nearlyfive decades of experience in the local real
estate market. If you're looking forreal estate or business advice, no matter
what your experience level, the BusinessHappy Hour team has been there for you

(20:53):
for almost a decade right here onnews radio WFLA. Now, sit back,
relax, and get ready for someserious real estate and business talk with
three of Tampa Bay's top experts.Here's Frank the Bank. Hey, everybody,
welcome back to the Business Happy Hour. I am I am loving the
art that I'm looking at right nowon heathertapia art dot com. And I'm

(21:15):
getting all these ideas for what Iwant to do, but I know everybody
wants to get to know you alittle bit better, so I'll let the
ladies come with some more of thesequestions. I mean I have questions too,
you know about you know, howlong does it take you to do
these things and stuff like that,But we do want to learn more.
And then I know that Heather alsohas some interesting real estate experience, so
ladies, yeah, well, actually, and I scrolled through your stuff before,

(21:36):
so this is my first time meetingHeather. But Heather Rosa's talked about
you for forever and I know thatshe just commissioned that beautiful piece for Alex.
So I guess my question, I'mgoing to steal yours because Christmas,
I think, is going to behere before we know it, you know,
holiday time. I think, like, what a great gift, you
know, custom artwork, especially ifyou can, okay, there's a sonogram,

(21:57):
you know, do something beautiful withthat. But yeah, in your
website, I mean, there's somany different things that doesn't have to be
limited to that. How long doesit take you so do a piece?
Like if I wanted to order one, you know, maybe there's a birthday
coming up because Christmas is still yeahtime, and I how you'read of the
game, but yeah, how longin advance should I reach out to you

(22:18):
and like what do you need?Like inspiration wise? Do you need pictures?
Or do we just talk about ideasand I tell you you know what
I'm looking for? Great, goodquestion. Okay, So I would say
for a commission, probably to besafe, I would say give me at
least, you know, four weekssomething like that. I try in on
the ultrasounds, say four to sixweeks because and if it's oil paint,
it could be a little bit longer, just because they are very rich,

(22:40):
high you know, high quality paintsand you have to give them the drying
time. So I do have likea process to speed it up with a
dehumidifier. We turn our house intolike a whole you know, drying area.
But there are technical things that mighttake you know, some time,
just as you want to have theartwork cured imperfect. So but sometimes if
you know, I'M my first lovewas probably always draw So like the piece

(23:00):
that Rosa just commissioned, I'M,you don't have to wait for drawings to
dry, you know, like it'sjust I can do that. So I
would say, if you contact meat least four maybe six weeks ahead,
I obviously will try and do itfaster. Like the way I work is
like I get the orders, Ihave my schedule, I have my daily
calendar, and it's like I'm justlike bam bam bam, getting like each
commission done. And sometimes there arephases, so it's like you go through

(23:22):
one phase and then you jump tothe next project. And then I also,
like on some pieces, I haveworked with the local framer and they
will you know, I'll go there, I'll pick out the framing samples,
I'll send it to you, andthe whole whole process is completely tailored to
you. So if I know Ihave a deadline, then I'm like,
okay, I have to get thework done by this time, and then
I have my framer like ready togo. Okay good. Then they have

(23:42):
like you know, usually they doit really fast. They're amazing and I
love them. Let's give them ashout out. My favorite art place you
can get frames art. I mean, they're literally the best. I've been
working with them for years. Funnystory the prior owner of that company had
a framer and I found out she'sbeen framing my paintings since I've lived in
Panelas County for twenty years. Yeah, so they're great. So I don't

(24:04):
know that kind of answers it andyeah, okay, so for inspiration,
a lot of times people will sendme like, Okay, I have this
photograph, I have this idea.There was a local realtor who sent me
literally a text message of a paintingand it looked like blobs of paint is
like a photo, like an oldphotograph, and he's like, make this.
So I had to like reverse engineerhow to make this thing like look

(24:25):
amazing and it does, like Imean, I have his video testimonial and
has written when they're not on mywebsite but they're on my Instagram. And
it took me probably one hundred andfifty hours to figure it out. But
I had to, like I wason YouTube learning all different methods. You
know, that's a very extreme example, but you know what that's so cool
though, Rosa, Yeah, yougave us ida you ever like, because
anybody ever asked you to just youknow, paint a house. I mean,

(24:48):
that's having a home, you couldyeah that or like, you know,
even it was funny, like Ihave a friend who she was like,
I don't have ultrasunds anymore, butcan you do something with my kids?
So she had a picture of herchildren at the sports field, which
is I'm a sports mom, soif you have sports children, it's like
the back of like her older sonand her younger son like standing together looking
at the soccer field. So Idid the same finger finger painting style on

(25:11):
that, and uh so it's reallyyeah, it can be any like literally,
your imagination is endless, so youthink of it and then I try
and duplicate it exactly into a pieceof art for you. Very cool.
What is your favorite? I guessway to do? Do you like oil?
I mean, are you into thefinger painting thing? Now? What's
your favorite? Uh let's see.Well, I do like doing the oil

(25:32):
and the finger painting, but alsoyou know, I also like acrylic.
I also really liked drawing, likefor this museum show recently, it was
the first time I had just goneback to like drawing, and I went
and got special markers and like coloredpencil. Also do mixed media pieces a
lot where people send me their photographsand that's colored pencil, so I think
like that is Yeah, I knowit's hard to pick. I can't because

(25:52):
I've been doing art my mony,I don't have to, you know.
No, well, in mixed media, I did have a question about it
because I'm on the website. I'mnot really looking at the mixed media.
Is it? So somebody sends youa picture and then then you're like literally
coloring it in. Is that kindof what you're doing? Are you changing
the picture or it depends on whatthey want, so it'd be both,

(26:12):
you know. So like sometimes andsometimes someone has a very old photograph,
like let's say it's fifty years old, right, Like there's a picture on
the baseball player that's my grandpa.Oh wow, And when I gave it,
my mom gave it to him asa surprise of my aunt and his
reaction is priceless. It's also myInstagram. It's the sweetest thing ever.
But yeah, and there's a pictureof him with his friends and his siblings

(26:33):
too, and it's like the photographswere so bad themselves, but then you
can take them and make them intothese cool, like vintage kind of looking
pieces of art. Yeah, thisis phenomenal you are. You are a
real fine artist. Thank you.I mean, you do some amazing,
amazing stuff. Well I love it, so thank you. Heather. What
is your Instagram? It's Heather TapiaArt. I kept everything so simple.
That's awesome. Yeah, I toldwhen I asked their website, I was

(26:57):
like, if you don't own thatwebsite, have a problem. I surveyed,
like, do you just you know, because all times like you should
just brand your name. And Iwas like okay, And it was like
a fifty to fifty split of everyone. I surveyed Heather Tapia Heather Tapia Art,
and I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go with the
art that way. They know that'swhat they're gonna get. Absolutely, so
Heather Tapia art dot com. Andyour Instagram is Heather Tapia Art. Yep,

(27:18):
that's pretty good. For about yourMySpace? What's your MySpace? Oh
god, remember that was from whenI didn't have technology. I didn't even
have a my space. You guysactually use pigeons. That's where Twitter there
it is. They got it.Seve Burlander was checking me out right now.
Oh no, this is this isso awesome and so so then you
got into the ultrasound because somebody justwas like, hey, paint this.

(27:44):
Yeah. I was in school andI usually get my work done pretty fast.
Feature Yeah, and I could alwaysI was like with the one student
in class, I could talk andget my work done, which would kind
of cause a problem for the otherstudents. Yeah, that was me.
That was me. I had toonce go work in a separate room in
the museum so that other people couldget their works in. You start talking

(28:06):
to yourself, Yeah, I'm gonnakeep talking. There was a TV so
I put on Days of Our Lives, so it was cool. That was
the only soap opera I ever watched, by the way, it's anyway,
so yeah. So yeah, SoI was done and my teacher was like,
you have your ultrasounds, you shouldjust blow them up and make them
into artwork. And that was thatwas it, And that's so crazy.
Yeah, who knew that twenty sixyears later, I'd still be doing this,

(28:26):
meeting all kinds of amazing people,like the people that do the ultrasounds,
like especially one lady in Tampa.I'll give her a shout out because
she's in all the artwork. Hername is Susan Geedy. She's an advanced
ultrasound and we've been become like bestfriends over the past twenty years, and
she was like very cutting edge.She was the first one who did the
three D what's the name of hercompany, Advanced Ultrasound Services on Armenia in

(28:48):
Tampa. Yeah. She's an amazing, very inspirational woman. Like I was
showing you about her before. She'ssixty six, became got back into body
building, you know, just reallyall about like living life, which is
fitting because she does ultrasounds too.She looks amazing and you guys can watch.
She was on Gail Guyardo's show aswell, probably on her Woman's Health
edition, is what I was guessingthat was when I was on that.
That was in like two thousand andsix. Probably, Yeah, that was

(29:11):
a long time. I know youwere just on another show, right,
yeah last week, Oh Total TampaBay that was so fun. So that
episode aired last night with Christy Balderama'sso fun. The whole crew there,
like Ota, somebody find it's sonice. You just go to their website.
I think it's a ww dot TotoTampa baytv dot com and you'll see
the interview. It's all in Spanish. Yeah, but you'll see you'll be

(29:33):
able to see the other artists thatI went to the Hamptons with as well
the gallery owner, so you'll seeher paintings. And we also brought an
artwork of an Emmy how do Isay Emmy Award winning actress from Australia.
Her name is Emma Booth and she'son like four Netflix shows I think currently
right now. Yeah, so wetook a piece of her artwork, so
that's all on the show that airedlast night. And then we had a
musical composer. So the gallery's nameis Bula Barua. She's in Saint Petersburg

(29:56):
her gallery, and she does thisamazing blown glass on canvas art. It's
incredible, it's just absolutely gorgeous.And then Carla Dana is a musical composer
and pianist, so she wrote musicto go with bullets pieces. So at
our show in the Hamptons, youcould like immerse yourself in this whole world.
Oh my god. Yeah. Soanyways, just lots of fun,
lots of art, lots of creativity. You know, I have a feeling

(30:17):
it's going to be hard to getHeather on the radio show very soon.
Yeah, how keeps a special placefor you guys. Remember, So this
I got, I got two minutes. I want to tell this story is
a little funny, and we'll gointo the last segment. Just have fun
with the art and everything. So, so my wife and I when we

(30:37):
had my daughter, right, soshe's going to turn thirteen this December,
we went and got it. Howlong ago it was that that whatever.
Anyway, it's like in twenty ten, right, and we're going in and
getting the new five dealt resound,you know, this big fancy thing,
and we go in the room.I won't say the name of the company,
but anyway, we go in thereand you sign your paperwork and you

(30:57):
sit down and do it, andthey and they do the the whole ultrasound
and it's like on this freaking sixtyince monitor, you know, and it's
all you know, three D whatever, four D whatever you want to call
it. And they're like, oh, look look at this. Oh you're
oh, you're gonna have another son. Look at this. And they pointed
out the little ball and they're likethey're like, look at this thing right
here. Bah, but I'm kindof looking at it, and I'm like,
you know, I know, genetics, and I don't know that i'd

(31:21):
passed that on, you know,I kind of looking at it like that,
and but I was happy, right, So so we we get the
little pictures of the tiny little walletthings they give you, and you go
out of there, and I callmy brother in law, right, who
already had two other boys, andI'm like, I'm like, man,
I'm like to you, I'm like, we're one away from a basketball team.
Bro, Like we got this,you know, I'm all. You

(31:41):
know, we're talking about names,we're picking it out, we're picking colors
for the room and all this stuff. And fast forward. I got less
than a minute fast forward. Thiswas like at twelve weeks. Okay,
disclaimer, don't go at twelve weeks. You were at sixteen weeks to the
birthing center. We were going,didn't go to hospitals, a little birthing
center. And this like seven yearold woman rolls in her ultrastown cart with
a VCR and a six inch blackmonitor, black and white monitor and does

(32:05):
the ultra sound and I'm thinking nothingof and hold my wife's hand and she
goes, oh, you guys knowyou're having a beautiful girl, right,
And I'm like what hey, let'sjust say my reaction was less than loving.
And uh yeah, so long storyshort, forty five D sixty whatever
it was, showed me this thingthat was an umbilical cord in between his
legs, not the highly pronounced yeaso point six inch monitor and a freaking

(32:32):
VCR and she knew better than thefive D blah blah blah. So let's
paint that, all right, let'sdo it with the umbilical cord, with
the cord we're painting. We're gonnatake a break on the business happ here
and get back. We're gonna talkabout painting andbilical cords with Heather Tapia.
Stay tuned. Now we're back withsome serious real estate and business talk with
three of Tampa Bay's top experts,your host of the Business Happy Hour,

(32:53):
Frank the Bangkodo, Rosa Bahiti,and Senia Akeshna. So thanks for listening,
eybody. We're having a great show. I'm having so much fun with
Heather Tapia. I'm so glad Rosayou got to bring Heather in here for
us. Thank you, there youHeather Tapia art dot com. Guys,
she is a real fine artist.She's not like one of those people who's
like, I'm gonna go paint somethingwith my fingers. That's like my kids

(33:15):
and they suck anyway, No,they well they're not artists. But anyway,
Heather, this stuff is absolutely amazing. And we ended the show with
me talking about you know, theumbilical cord was not the genetic penis that
I was hoping, and I foundout. I went for a month thinking
I'm having a boy and then foundout I'm having a girl. So that
that turned out, by the way, greatest thing that ever happened. Love

(33:37):
you, Lily. Everything is youknow, wonderful, but that was stressful.
And we went to the birthing centerthat I think we share this in
common. Yeah, when you saidthis seven year old lady, I was
like, wait a minute, isthat Charlotte at Labor of Love? Yes,
yes, at Labor of Love.She's amazing. She was in Duneda,
that's actually a birthing center. Iwent for the last for our last

(33:59):
two. That's where they were born. And I think the third son,
he doesn't even have the three Dultrasound or anything. He just has her
little ultrasound that she did with theVCR. You know. Yeah, no,
exactly who it is. Right beforeI was about to give birth with
him, I'm like, I'm scared. I don't want to do what it's
gonna hurt. And she was like, oh, honey, that baby's just
gonna fall out of you. I'mgonna catch it. And she was right,

(34:22):
that baby just came out. Shedidn't have time to put her gloves
on. But she's amazing and thatplace is amazing. So wow, Okay,
there's something to this. First ofall, the labor of love.
We're giving him a major shout out. This is a major, major thing.
If you don't want to have abirth in a hospital, labor of
love, we should have him onhere and have you and my wife on.
That could be an awesome show.But anyway, speaking of falling out,
wife, don't kill me, sorry, honey. On our second right,

(34:45):
our only other one, Lily,she birthed at home because you're a
birthing center. You can stay athome and count you're con try that's the
best thing about it, and youjust go when you're ready. And then
we went in and we went andhalfway to the birthing center in Dunedin.
There she's like, oh yeah,you better step on it. She's like,
this baby's coming like right now.Like it was to the point where
I was blowing red lights because sheis like, if you don't get there,

(35:06):
you're delivering this baby. And I'mlike, daddy, don't deliver babies.
So so anyway, we get andyou know the setup, Like you
go in it's like a house rightin, all these different rooms and a
kitchen and you literally pick the roomyou want to give birth in. Right,
Well, we thought we'd have alittle more time, so we walk
in. She's like, pick aroom. Nicholes takes one step into the
first room, grabs onto the sideof the bed. Basically, the baby

(35:27):
fell right out and the midwife lady, nobody was there. The place was
still dark, her husband hadn't evenshown up. Nobody was another there,
and she hands me her phone.She's like, my husband's on the phone.
Tell them what's going on, tellthem any thing's under control. Meanwhile,
man, a baby is like literallyin her arms, fell out of
my wife. Right. So thenwe call everybody and we're like, yeah,
don't come here, we'll be homein an hour. Yeah, Like
and that's how it was for youtoo, Like crazy, this lady's got

(35:51):
a special touch, the labor oflove. Okay, you want to have
a baby fall out of you know, without any much work going, no
pushing, no drugs, no nothing. Babies fall out. Daddy cuts cord,
you know, in your home,special experience and you can eat,
like eat a delicious meal. Afterwards. We got a steak on the way
home. The best food I everate. Oh my yeah, I didn't
get the steak. I think Igot McDonald's on the way home. But

(36:15):
either way, it was a laborof love. It was wonderful. So
look him up. God, whatelse do we have for Heather? Heather
again, you can knock these?Oh we want to know? Yeah about
her? Your real estate story?Okay, real estate, so I guess
probably when I was still in college, also very I miss is about twenty,
I was like, let's get ahouse. So you did a lot
in college. I did I know, I did I know. I grew

(36:35):
up, you know, we webecame adults. We had our first son,
and uh I you know, Ifound this neighborhood in Lakeland where they
were building model homes. So Iwould roller blade there all the time.
And then I just started, like, you know, talking to my husband,
and then we used we had somemoney from our wedding, so we
use that to put it, youknow, get a first house. Yeah.
So we we, you know,at twenty one years old, had
a beautiful, like you know,four bedroom, two thousand square foot home.

(36:58):
Cute you know neighborhood families. Andit's so funny because they were like
in their thirties and you guys areso young, and I felt like they
were talking like they were so old. And then I became thirty and I'm
like, they're young, Like Idon't know why they're saying this. So
yeah, so we had that houseand then I decided to move to Panella's
County because my son visited a school. Someone told me about a school and

(37:19):
he was like he did one dayand he said, I never want to
leave this school. So I waslike, okay, honey, let's change
everything and move. Yeah and wow, wow yeah, I know, I
know. I love my kids andanything they want to do, it's like,
let's do it. Hopefully they're notlistening, I know, within reason,
within reason, I heard, yeah, no, no, yeah.

(37:42):
So we ended up being able tosell that house within two years. You
know, he sold it twice ina week because like the first buyer fell
through. So it was great.You know, you're twenty one, twenty
three years old by that time.Let's say made sixty thousand dollars, could
you know, take that and rollit into a new place in Panella's County
now at the time, fortunately wewere buying at the top of the market.
So and if you if you've everbeen to what year was that,

(38:05):
two thousand and five, I thinkthat I was moving. Yeah, yeah,
it was bad. So like weand no offense to Panella's County.
I'm sure there's a lot of beautifulareas, but we were coming from Lakeland
and there's a lot more subdivisions andlike beautiful like new construction. It's it's
just different, like pricing wise.So we come to Panella's County and they're
like, look at this house.It had a fire, there's no grass

(38:27):
in the front yard, and it'slike three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
And I was like what, LikeI wouldn't live there for free and you're
just beach. Yeah, So luckilyI would drive. I was driving up
and down mcmullanbooth. I think Isaw a sign and I found these town
homes that were kind of hidden backand they had just been built like the
year before. So anyways, atthat time, you know, it was
like you would go look at housesand they were selling before you even left.

(38:49):
So we were able to basically turnour first piece of real estate into
getting one of those places. Iwas like, all right, I'll pay
whatever you're asking. So we gotthis town home. Okay, then the
market crashes. My friends buy theall the houses. I had like three
friends and buying places in there forlike nothing. They reno them and I'm
like, okay, whatever. Sowe lived there and then the challenge was,
you know, we went from onekid to three kids and was like

(39:10):
okay. My husband started his ownbusiness, his own insurance company. I
was like, how do we doall of that and buy another property in
Panela's County? And obviously now youwant something a lot bigger. So that
was like a whole thing. SoI figured out how to do that,
and I think what I told Rosathat is interesting for buyers, I guess
was like I toured this house andthe guy was selling it, like yeah,
he was the kind of buy owner, but like with a maybe I

(39:31):
don't know, however, you dothat with a real tur or two.
And I saw like things he lovedabout it, like he had his dog
there and his cats. And Ihappened to take a picture of our two
younger kids in his in his kitchen. And anyway, so I found like
things that like they would love andI and I just wrote them a letter.
I'm like, look, I needyou to drop the price by this
amount so that then here's like fivereasons you should sell me your home.
And I wrote them like five reasonsand it worked. Yes, anyways,

(39:54):
that's how I got the next house. I have not heard anybody talk that
strategy in a long term state.Tips from an artist, Yeah, actually
from a book called Big League Salesby Listen Dane. Oh, and that's
where it's at. I learned iton the course. It absolutely works.
You tug on the heart strings andsales is about emotion more than numbers.
A lot of times is when wetell people smile when you talk blah blah

(40:15):
blah blah blah. Anyway, wegot thirty seconds left, ladies, anything
we want to end with, forheaven, you know what I do have
a shout out, so Stella justgot back from Kanton, Ohio Hearner team,
the Pirate Bay Crew. They gotthe number one spot in the eleven
You Girls Division. Proud of them. Yeah, it's busy with football,

(40:35):
but man, it's so worth it. Those girls are so elated and they're
all so good and they're such agreat team. So that's where croud honey,
Congratulations, congratulations still Heather. Ithas been so awesome having you on
here again. Guys. It's Heathertapia art dot com. Same for Instagram.
Your stuff's amazing. We're all gettingpaintings from you. Thank you for
coming. You're welcome, Thanks forhaving me. Thank you. Yeah, everybody b