I've noticed a trend in encouraging Artists towards collaborations, surface design and licensing.

And when you pull back the curtain of licensing, I'm uncertain why this is being encouraged by Artists to Artists, especially during a year of a Pandemic.

Well actually let me rephrase that, I do have some ideas why this is a trend, and I also have reasons why I don't recommend Licensing as the solution to all your passive income dreams, financial security, or validation as an Artist.

Join me for this week's podcast episode; Why licensing, and surface design aren't the answer to becoming a successful, thriving Artist, especially now~ and what is!

Ever want a behind the scenes peek of what it takes to be a creative working in the world of television and film?

Today's your day!

Be Nice ~ 

Welcome to episode 6 of season 2, and 198 on the podcast~

words of wisdom from my special guest this week.

Short and sweet, I write to you today ELATED! and thrilled to share that the final episode of the Creative Thursday; Conversations with Creatives series, is LIVE.

Not without more hiccups including additional video files missing, I finally wrapped this series. Just before the clock struck midnight on Thursday, episode 6 and a new podcast were published.

1 idea + 5 years + 2 kickstarter campaigns (thank you backers!!) + 12 inspiring stories (thank you to my guests!!)  + countless hours editing + lost sleep + extreme (self-imposed) stress, especially due to technical difficulties  + biggest lessons learned in my creative career (& video editing) so far (podcast forthcoming)   =  12 mini documentaries that I hope have brought you inspiration + the reminder of the dreams that are possible for all of us, and that the fulfillment that comes + positive impact you have when you follow your dreams is everything. 

As my guest today, Karin McGaughey said when asked about her choice to pursue a freelance career as a Set Decorator in Hollywood “ I would do it all over again” ~ and so would I.

Watch Karin's episode on YouTube or listen to it on the podcast below.

 Meet Karin McGaughey, Set Decorator aka Finder of Things.

So you want a career in Hollywood, or a career at all, just be nice. 

In the shuffle of every day life; and the extraordinary stress that we are experiencing today, spending even more time engaging from behind our computer screens~ the simple gesture of “Being Nice” seems to be getting lost, and it's a value that should never be forgotten.

One of the toughest industries to break into, today's episode is the story of Karin McGaughey, a girl from Virginia with a passion for Art and Architecture, who found her way to a career in Film in Television pursuing the work she loves most. 

Through dedication to her craft, continually learning, luck, hard work and being nice (Karin is truly one of the most generous humans with the biggest heart, constantly giving to and looking after our community. We are thankful every day that she and her son Roy are our neighbors) Karin built her dream career alongside her dream of having a family.

You can find all things Karin McGaughey at KarinMcGaughey.com

Happy Creative Thursday! 

So wait, how do you go from a Career in Investment Banking, becoming a Mom of 3, to Building your Dream Business as a Maker?

Pursue What Brings You JOY ~ (and makes your body hum! )

Welcome to episode 5 of season 2, and 197 on the podcast~

words of wisdom from my special guest, Maker + Designer + Author Anne Weil

Are you doing what gives you JOY? Are you having FUN?

Are you like me, do you sometimes save the joy for last? put it on the back burner and get to it when you finish this other "important", very serious thing.

Just this week I was sharing one of my newer missions with Creative Thursday, and it's to bring more fun to the work I do and share, to remind my fellow Artists that business is creative and fun. Is it challenging sometimes, yup, but does that mean it can't be fun?

When you sit down to do your work (or face your day), do you brace for the worst or expect the best?

And yes, I know, now may feel like an especially challenging time to expect the best~ but imagine if you can cultivate more of that attitude now, how amazing it's going to feel once we find ourselves on the other side of this time!

And my Creative Friend!! Guess WHAT?!! we have the BEST tool for this, hello? 

Creativity, Making~ getting lost in a project, making something beautiful with your hands, picking up a paint brush, writing your first novel, and yes making a YouTube series (even in spite of one more hiccup i.e. potentially lost files for episode 6...stay tuned.)

This is the powerful reminder Anne's episode brings us: finding moments of peace + happiness through Making. 

In honor of this episode & celebrating coming into the home stretch of this series which means I'll have the opportunity to start making Art again! I'm taking Anne's wisdom to heart, and am headed to the Art Store today to pick up some more supplies for my oil painting! 

Clearly as is evidenced by the photo above, I am doing what gives me joy ~ especially having these conversations.

Truly one of my favorite things; a great conversation (no small talk please + thank you) especially with a fellow Creative and Entrepreneur.

Also my favorite thing; sharing conversations + creative inspiration with you!

Meet Anne Weil Designer + Author + Maker & Lover of Beautiful Things, and Founder of Flax and Twine. 

An unexpected journey to finding and trusting her creative voice, enjoy our conversation along with a glimpse into Anne's lovely world filled with clean and simple designs in all of her favorite creative expressions from Knitting + Weaving + Crochet + Embroidery (and gorgeous photography!)

 Anne makes things for home, for play, for gifts or for fun and she loves nothing more than showing you how to make them, too! while encouraging you to find peace and a happy handmade life through making. 

*editors note from Marisa* this is the episode where I discovered I need readers! to check the sharpness of our close-up on not 1 but 2 of our cameras! either that or a bigger filming monitor - on the wishlist! thank you for understanding and just pretending we are intentionally fuzzy filtered.

You can find all things Anne Weil at FlaxandTwine.com and @flaxandtwine on Instagram.

You change a painting after it has been released.

I've proven to a very action oriented self,  that personal growth is directly correlated to business growth. It's not just about all the strategy + business tips & steps you take, that brings you your kind of success, it's the inner work, the reflection, the questions you ask, the willingness to start at zero, know nothing again~ and an ongoing openness to

 REINVENT and MAKE IT YOUR OWN.

All of this to say, I sometimes turn my attendance and listening time on certain coaching calls into a time for painting. (I often encourage The Expansive Artists to do the same)

Hours of guidance + wisdom have been poured into this painting since I released it the first time, and it now holds even more meaning than before.

I chose the animals to represent their symbolism specifically for this incredible time we are living in.

The horse represents FREEDOM

The white tiger represents VISION

The black panther represents VALOR

The raven represents WISDOM

I intend for this collection of animals to be a reminder of the qualities I want to stay connected to, especially now.

The additional time invested and insight woven into this piece now represent a transformative time, one that I've been wanting to experience.

If you know my work then you know how much I'm a fan of new beginnings, but this, this is much more than a new beginning.

From taking risks, jumping in to new ventures, pivoting + reinventing, meet Robert Mahar, one of the true Online Pioneers. Robert is an Artist + Designer + Master Teacher of Imaginative DIY projects, and "Making It" season one Alumni.

And he's also obsessed (Robert's words) with all things Vintage books + crafts.

One of the most talented, wonderful, warm, kind-hearted creatives + teachers, I tell you now~ that immediately following this episode you're going to want to head straight over to Robert's Crafted with Robert Mahar YouTube channel and start making.

If you can imagine it, in any discipline Robert can teach you how to create it. A midwesterner at heart, Robert has called Los Angeles home for over 25 years. When he's not virtually hanging out with Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler on the virtual "Making it At Home" Challenge (in a wig made of toilet paper rolls) you'll find Robert traveling to studios offering in person embroidery and weaving workshops as soon as we can all be together again.

Enjoy our conversation filled with life and business lessons from a wise, dedicated Artist who's been through many seasons of Creative Entrepreneurship.

Don't forget, to get a glimpse into Robert's creative world and see his beautiful work, you watch the video of our conversation at my YouTube channel

YouTube.com/creativethursday

how are you?

How are you?

Are you taking some time just for you? (even if you're almost August 2020 is looking nothing like you thought it would)

Last week I had a guest speaker present in The Expansive Artists, and as we ended our call together she shared some insight that had a huge impact on how I view time, and the (eternal) crossing off of to-do lists.

A mom, a owner of a creative company with 20 employees, I asked her how she seemed so calm and relaxed?

I mean, hello~  Is it just me or would the thought of managing 20 employees potentially cause you to lose a little sleep at night and/or feel frantic with demands of your team, and appointments.

Clearly it's time for me to look at my beliefs around growing a team of more than 1 or 2. (I'm working on it...!)

What she shared with me was this: she realized that she'd anxiously try to plan, and get ahead for the next day, as if one day she would reach a light at the end of the tunnel, the skies would part, breathing space would open up, and the to do's would magically not spill into the next day and the next. 

No matter how big her team grew, that day never came~ 

Instead she realized it was up to her to claim her time. The work would always be there, but she could end her day at 5 pm. She could stop working at the end of the day on Friday.

I share this story to say, I know this, but I haven't been living it as I'd like to because I've been waiting to get to.... But hearing this reminder, that day from this calm generous soul sitting across from me (on a Zoom)~ it stuck.  

While I know time will look different for me when I finally complete the episodes in season 2~ I'm not waiting until thento begin taking more deliberate pauses.

I took the weekend off. I did something just for me, I sewed a dress (not my first and definitely not my last as now I'm re-inspired to keep sewing!...and gently make my way back to fabric design) - the dress! is the Wilder Gown by Friday Pattern Co. 

Nope, I didn't post episode 4 today and I almost didn't post a podcast for the first time in a year. But I felt inspired to share a little more insight on this topic.

Wishing you a beautiful weekend. Comment below and tell me something you are doing just for you!

 Happy Creative Thursday! Sit down, relax, make yourself comfy, grab a beverage this is a long one.

Just Pick A Thing ~  spoiler alert from last week's episode; you can't balance it all, don't even try, just focus on one thing ~ hard earned advice from today's Creative Thursday guest Emily McDowell (and if I may second that advice, I wholeheartedly agree)

Season 2, Episode 3 is here! and I'm excited to introduce you to

another creative extraordinaire, writer, illustrator, aka feelings translator, Emily McDowell, living in Portland Oregon.

This episode is ALSO SOOO GOOOD!

Can we keep it REAL for a moment.

Creating, editing, launching this episode has been a BEAST.

Before I dive into this part of the email that I am writing for the second time today (as my 2 hour draft from earlier did not save) let me preface this message by saying: I'm coming to you from what is now the epicenter of our global pandemic, endlessly thankful for so much, especially good health and the opportunity to share this with you~ and forever sending you good thoughts for continued wellness with you and your loved ones) ~ In the scheme of things this is no big deal...

and now I would simultaneously like to shout that running a (CREATIVE) BUSINESS is HARD some days.

There's a perception that people like me, aka Artists with a "pretty" brand, voice/face on the internet are only showing you the shiny, edited view of our worlds.

As I've shared since day 1 of starting my blog back in 2006, without justification, or apology, I most definitely only you show you the edited version.

Trust me, you don't want it any other way (I say as I just yelled in my studio, because hours of work on top of hours of work was lost again) You don't need an up close and personal view of those moments...

I am however also known for transparency, and pull back the curtains on the challenges we all face as Creative Business Owners, as is Emily and why I know you're going to love her episode too. We want to save you the same struggle (pro-tip copy and paste any writing you do in another program in a word document or notes)

This episode has been the hardest to shoot, edit, and it lost the most files during my devastating hard drive mishap ~ (which is the main reason this series was delayed and why this episode is sparse on the video, especially the single shot of Emily. )

And it has continued to give me technical issues right up until the very last minute with unexpected audio problems and now a delay yet again with an entire email gone missing, by my email service provider. 

Initial episodes we filmed at our guests' home studio which is a) inconveniencing their home + personal space and b) can be difficult to get the 3 camera angles we want to get.

On this day of filming we discovered our cat of 19 years, Garbo Girl, was ill and declining. I sobbed before I arrived to film at Emily's house, also forgot extra batteries for one of the 4 devices we use to create these episodes. Filming a conversation was the last thing I felt like doing. (silver lining - I did get my hair professionally styled that day)

Emily had just learned that she would be spending an entire weekend fixing an issue created in part by a company that she had also recently realized was the wrong partner and later shared with me off the record that she never should've licensed her business to them. (She did end up leaving that partnership and entered into a new one, a much better fit)

But we showed up that day and created this episode for you. Because that's what you do as a Creative Business Owner.

Keeping commitments matter, to you, to the promise to share a part of Emily's story, to my Kickstarter Backers.

So thank you in advance for your understanding that this episode isn't as refined as I hoped it would be. (I just found some tiny glitches I'll be fixing in a moment after my tequila shot...but the episode is now LIVE!)

Challenges like these are the reason I will never take on a monster project by myself like this again and they are also the same reason why I will do all I can to bring you conversations like this one with Emily.

It might make your journey easier and leave with you more inspiration and motivation to keep going, especially on days like today.

Because I say, and I know Emily would agree, all the challenges are worth it for the opportunity to fully live the Creative Entrepreneur Life.

In 2012 Emily started making cards because she saw a hole in the stationery market. 

She couldn't find any cards that reflected her reality: one that included messy relationships, dysfunctional families and her personal experience going through cancer and getting your traditional "get well" card which lead to her create her "viral hit" line of Empathy Cards, and follow up book "There is No Good Card for This". 

If you've wondered how an Illustrator could grow a single card line into a company that is carried by over 2,000 retailers, in this conversation Emily takes you through each step of building her business from the very beginning. 

An episode filled with hard-earned knowledge and guidance, Emily shares invaluable wisdom gained through the rewarding but also very real truths of what it takes to grow a successful stationery business. Since the recording of this episode, near burnout, Emily chose to make some big shifts both personally and professionally, leading to profound transformations that she now also shares on more personal @emilyonlife account on Instagram.

You can find all things Emily McDowell at EmilyMcDowell.com and @emilymcdowell_ on Instagram.

That time you rewrite your bio, and in search for your bio photo, come across one of your very first professional shoots from 2005.

A graphic designer & interior designer, (who really wanted to sell Art but wasn’t sure that my work was ”good enough”) I started Creative Thursday with selling my hand-painted vintage chairs.

This was one of my favorites, her name was Edith (I named each chair & wrote it on the bottom along with my signature + date)

I started this Creative Business with a passion to share my journey and inspire creativity for all 💕.

I thought if I could so this, self-taught, little to no formal training, there is no reason why you can't too!!

So my motto became, let’s do this together! I’ll take you along for the ride, share my story + give you peeks behind the curtain, opening up about challenges + wins along the way.

As I write this almost exactly 15 years to the date from the time this photo was taken (Sean, me + my chair at the entrance to the tiny Laurel Canyon bungalow we rented from a friend, when we first moved in together as a couple) - I’m ready to tell a new chapter to the story.

I did it. Built my dream business as a Working Artist, (with my paintings!) shipped over 10K packages with my Art all over the world, had a book published, designed 9 fabric collections and sold a few chairs along the way too 😊

But what happens next? 15 yrs in, what do I believe is possible now that I didn’t before & where did my fertility challenges + loss along with comparison of Artists who came up with me at the same time + expectations of where I “should be by now” slowly chip away at my spirit + confidence.

What’s next?
Evolution, reinvention, growing up, awareness, recognition of a strong, quiet wisdom + aligning with my true purpose + the desire to guide other Artists so they don’t have to experience the same struggles.

What happens when you want to evolve your work?
Artists often find success in a certain style & then feel trapped in one voice or color palette. They resist change because now their income is dependent on that 1 style. And because change is “scary” 😳

Reinvention is the story I want to tell now #creativethursdaybymarisa

Is it even possible...

Season 2, Episode 2 is here! and I'm so excited to introduce you to a creative extraordinaire, Alissa Haight-Carlton, modern quilter, author, Emmy nominated (Project Runway and Making the Cut) casting director, co-founder of Vital Casting, fabric designer and original co-founder of the Modern Quilt Guild, living in Los Angeles. 

This one is SOOO GOOOD!

Join us for a transparent conversation, as we pull back the curtain on not one, but 3 different Creative Industries, from working in Hollywood, to staying true to your values, compensation for creatives, to valuing your work, to how to choose your priorities as a multi-disciplinary Artist +  Entrepreneur + the (real) secret to success and ~ wait for it ~ what it's really like to work with Tim Gunn.

Find all things Alissa Haight Carlton at AlissaHaightCarlton.com and her new casting company VitalCasting.com and on Instagram @alissahaightcarlton

Tune into the audio of our conversation in the podcast below, and watch the video at our YouTube Channel, YouTube.com/creativethursday

Ahhh!!! this is hands down one of the best, most enlightening conversations I've listened to during this time.

A fan of Eckhart Tolle since I first watched him he and Oprah host one of the first online sessions taking us through his book "A New Earth"

Did you watch too?

During this pandemic, I found my way back to Eckhart's teaching.  It is one of the few spaces where, when I listen to him speak, I tap into a sense of calm and peace like no other. (I highly recommend his Youtube channel) 

And this conversation between he and Russell Brand just brings so much understanding, clarity & peace to both Sean & I right now.

We were getting into the habit of tuning into the news in the morning, as one might understandably do to stay up to date with all the latest during a pandemic + intense global crisis, however we noticed that this ritual was starting our day in a high state of stress + fear.

Now during our daily coffee time, we've been listening to this 2 hour conversation in 15 min increments, to process all that Eckhart is sharing & honestly to savor it as I don't want to the dialogue to end. 

This is just 1 of the eye opening concepts: Eckhart shares an  analogy as if you are a room~ highlighting the difference between the objects in the room versus the space that is the room, in which the objects reside.

Object Consciousness leaves you feeling never satisfied, you never “arrive” and you often need others to feel inferior.

Space Consciousness is awareness, moments of no thought where you rise above instead of below your thinking, you recognize the essence of who you are. You become aware of a gap between 2 thoughts & this is where all intuition, creativity and wisdom reside.

Chances are when you are making Art you are in your Space Consciousness. 💗

Also if the intensity of this time has left you feeling afraid to speak publicly~ at around the 58 minute mark there is soothing insight around “hive thinking”, & how it can play out in social media in particular, and how best to thoughtfully, acknowledge and respond from an aware state of consciousness. ❤️