Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maria Elena Sandovici. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Maria Elena, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

The biggest risk I’ve taken was quitting my job in order to be an artist and writer full-time. See, my job wasn’t just a good job that adequately paid the bills, provided benefits, etc. My job was a tenured Associate Professor position at a state university teaching mostly first-generation college students whom I adored. (And that I mean I loved my students, not the job itself. More on that later). Tenure meant I could not lose my job, and my position also came with the perks of a flexible schedule and very long breaks. It was tempting to stay and create art and write in my free time, which was more free time than the average working person enjoys. For several years, in fact, I did just that, enjoying a stable income and the peace of mind that comes with it. But my focus was split and the more serious I became about my art and writing, the harder it was at times to give my academic career the attention it deserved. I could have gotten away with that because of tenure, but it felt icky and disingenuous. I loved being there for my students as long as I could be the best teacher and mentor I could be. Once I noticed myself becoming seriously distracted, I felt like I was cheating them, but also that perhaps the time in my life where I helped guide these remarkable individuals was over and that I had to be fully present and give my all in other ways to other people. I felt that I was limiting myself as an artist and writer by not allowing myself to fully focus on my art career and my novels. I was already making lots of art and writing consistently, but to fully reach my potential I needed to spend even more time doing these things. While my schedule as a college professor was flexible, there were days when I ended up exhausted and not being able to paint. Increasingly, I would become resentful about these off days. Also, the university was in a small town, away from some of the opportunities I needed to pursue as an artist, both in terms of finding collectors as well as meeting fellow creatives. I had the luxury of long weekends in Houston, but when I returned to the small town to teach I felt like I was wasting something precious – a chunk of my potential for creating, networking, and otherwise working towards making my dreams come true. Pulling the plug on a successful and very secure career in order to pursue art seemed crazy, but it also felt genuine and liberating. For the first time in my life I was allowing myself to be fully and unapologetically myself. People go into academia driven by passion for their subjects. I had gone in pursuing job security and I had always felt like an impostor – not in the same way creatives experience impostor syndrome when they question the quality of their work, but in a way that made me feel deceitful. For two decades, all throughout a very challenging and competitive Ph.D. program, then working up to tenure and in the years that followed, I had been pretending to be interested in a field of study that actually bored me. So in that way it felt fully refreshing to abandon that act and instead jump head first into something I was truly passionate about. I was also able to stay full-time in Houston, rent studio and gallery space, and concentrate on cultivating a group of art lovers who support my business. Throughout the pandemic I truly felt a sense of purpose as people were enjoying my work as a means of escape. Also, I was, at certain points, able to safely entertain in person either individually or in small groups. Collectors told me it meant a lot to them to have a place to go where they felt safe. I was happy to be able to provide something of value to them. I don’t think I would have been able to do so as an academic. I loathed teaching online above all things and would have only done it resentfully, thus probably not providing a wonderful experience to anyone. On the other hand, painting live every day during lockdown so my collectors could feel a sense of community, felt natural and joyous. While the pandemic certainly posed challenges to small business owners such as myself, to me it also underscored that I was on the right path and that my crazy risky choice had been the right one.
Of course, there were and still are many moments of panic over the big chance I took. Five years ago I had a stable and more than decent income, owned a home, and had the State of Texas pay for my health insurance. Nowadays I have spent the proceeds from selling my home entirely, and am occasionally losing sleep over some of the more frustrating aspects of running a business. Some days when money doesn’t come in as it should, it seems like I’ve done something very foolish. Then again, I cannot possibly imagine going back. I loved teaching, but the idea of sitting down and writing a syllabus right now seems absurd, and frankly a waste of my time. Instead, I would rather breathe through my moments of panic and find creative ways to make this crazy business venture work. I would rather come up with new and enticing offers for my clients, or new and exciting ways to find new clients, than draw up a lesson plan. In fact, I never really made lesson plans at all, because the very notion bored me to tears. I just kind of went in there and improvised. It was fun and engaging because I like people and there’s a part of me that’s born to connect and entertain. But as a teacher I was in the wrong place. I’m much better at using my people skills and my resourcefulness as an artist.
As to the security I’ve given up, and the crazy amounts of money I’ve spent starting my art business and publishing my books, I do at times like to reassure myself by taking stock of my current assets. No, I no longer own a home or have a tenured academic position. But I do have a vast body of work consisting of everything from very attractively priced works on paper to much more exclusive (read: expensive) larger works available for sale. I have a growing list of collectors. I have an international art show and several local shows under my belt. I also have published several novels, out of which 3 are very successful, generating a small but not negligible stream of income on Amazon. I also give walking tours in Galveston, and that brings me the opportunity to meet new people and make new connections. More importantly, I have the daily opportunity to do work I love and to create new potential avenues of success for myself. In my former life there was stability but also a rather predictable path with a known limit to how much wealth I could build. There was the guarantee of a comfortable life but no possibility for something truly extraordinary. As a creative running my own business, the sky is the limit. Just as there’s a real risk of failure, there’s also the chance of success on an impressive scale. The challenge is focusing on that, choosing hope over fear, staying optimistic and constantly coming up with exciting new ideas. Just as the fear is real, the sense of possibility is amazing, and I would not give up this chance for any amount of security.

Maria Elena, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a full-time artist and writer selling my own work out of a small private gallery in the Houston Heights. I am also the author of several novels about women’s lives available on Amazon, the best known being my three historical novels set in Galveston, TX: Storms of Malhado, The Glory Days of Aimee Bonnard, and Galveston 1922. I started writing many years ago because I love reading fiction and there was a certain kind of story of love and redemption that I had imagined and that I felt needed to be written. I started writing it because I was bored as an academic in a small town and wriiting was a nice hobby. Similarly, I started painting small watercolors on a vacation in Ibiza that didn’t work out as planned and where I was stuck in my room a lot. I had no serious intentions besides passing time, but when I shared my small daily watercolors on social media, people reacted with enthusiasm. I ended up starting a blog to post my daily works and write a few words about my experiences. I now have been blogging daily for over 9 years at HaveWatercolorsWillTravel.com, and art has completely taken over my life.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Slowly. I built my audience slowly. My main advice is to be patient with this process, also to understand that engagement and authenticity are much more important than a large following. It’s important to be present on various channels but prioritized time and effort on those that feel most natural and fun to you. Right now I’m loving both Instagram and TikTok. My TikTok following is truly negligible, but I’m having a good time on that platform and I’m learning a lot, both in terms of ways to express myself and in terms of seeing cool stuff that other creatives do.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

There are many ways to support artists in your community and some of them don’t even require spending money. I cannot overemphasized how helpful it is to tell others about the work of creatives you enjoy. Small things like sharing a post, writing a review, tagging a friend in a post you think might speak to them, or bringing an invited guest to an art event are wonderful ways to help creatives increase their reach and hopefully meet new clients. Yes, ideally we would all be supporting the businesses we love by buying their products, but with an art business often that product is quite a commitment in terms of both cost and space. Of course, most artists will offer giftable items (prints, stickers, magnets, in my case even small original works on paper), at an affordabe price point, and obviously we are happy when you buy these. As with any business you would like to support, artists need you to buy stuff in order to stay afloat. But it’s not the only thing you can do to help us, and we don’t want to oversaturate your life with stuff you don’t need – that’s actually the opposite of our goal. We want to make your life and your home more beautiful and meaningful. So, while we definitely want you to purchase art that speaks to you, you can help us in other meaningful ways as well. Introducing an artist to a potential new collector can be extemely beneficial. Actually, one of the nicest things people who support my business do for me is have parties here at the gallery inviting their friends. It’s a win-win. I’m happy to create a special evening for them and even happier to meet new people who are looking for art. On a smaller but not less significant scale, the same goes for my novels. Posting a review, however short, helps tremendously. Telling friends about one of my books you think they might enjoy is even better.

Contact Info:

• Website: HaveWatercolorsWillTravel.com
• Instagram: @sandovici_art
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mesandovici
• Twitter: @SandoviciME