on interviews + authenticity

TITLE: When the Music Stops. The Original Mixed Media Painting + Prints available in my etsy shop.

yesterday i was lucky enough to do my first local interview! a reporter from the UW-Madison student-run magazine, Curb, contacted me about the article via etsy (see just how crazy that whole online publicity network works?). 

anyways, she mentioned she was doing a story on female, Wisconsin-based Etsy designers and artists along with a spread of Etsy products in the magazine. so of course i said yes! and as soon as i find out when the article is coming out, i'll be sure to let you all know!

TITLE: When the Music Stops. The Original Mixed Media Painting + Prints available in my etsy shop.

the interview completely brought me back to my early college years as an arts and technology reporter for my college newspaper. i really enjoyed finding stories to report and being able to give credit to things that deserved recognition...like an interview with author Leslie Marmon Silko and a trip to the University of Illinois' Electronic Visualization Laboratory (I'm not quite sure how I convinced my editor that was a Minneapolis-based featured, but it was incredible to check out). 

but the thing that killed me about being a reporter, and eventually made me get out of journalism all together, was that i stopped listening to people and following my heart. when it came down to deadline time, getting the perfect quote to make my story was all that mattered. that did not align with who i really was at all. and i was lucky enough to realize that early on.

it's funny though, my experiences as a journalist really emphasized my love for listening to people's stories and my appreciation for the little things going on in everyone's individual lives. 

i remember going to review a Native American art exhibit in Minneapolis and having the opportunity to sit with all of the artists and hear their stories. i was brought to tears. not so much by what they said, but by their authenticity. and mostly, by my being so unalligned with my authentic self. my entire heart was crying. and as hard as it was, and as long as it seemed to take, i knew then that i had to make some major life changes.